Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

clearance than I’d hoped. I stole my last glance at the porch and maneuvered onto my belly for the last time, figuring it would be easier to scoot under the car that way. I wedged into the warm space underneath the car. It smelled like oil.
    Something hissed at me and I froze.
    It was a damn cat. If it belonged to Trish, it was probably as evil and pissed off as she was. I turned my head toward the porch again and let it rest on the ground while I caught my breath. Someone new was talking, a man. I inched further under the car, and the cat hissed again.
    When I was completely underneath the car, I squinted in the direction of the cat, but it had slunk away. I breathed deeply and tried to do the same.
    I squirmed further beneath the car and made my way out the other side. The terrain leading into the woods sloped downward. I hoped the little ridge would hide me. Crouching, I started down the slight hill. I wanted to hurry, but if I stepped too quickly, snapping twigs and crunching pine cones would give me away.
    “She’s gone!” It was Kurt.
    I broke into a run and angled myself toward the main road. Behind me, someone yelled to bring flashlights. “Over there!”
    A gun fired. I ducked behind a thick tree and huddled near the ground, panting.
    “Hold it, Emily,” Trish called into the woods. I heard the wooden storm door smack closed.
    “Can you see me?” she shouted. “See who I have?”
    I peered around the base of the tree. Trish stood behind Annette on the porch. It looked like she had a hand on my little girl’s shoulder. I thought she had a gun in the other. Annette stood mechanically, as if she’d been posed. Her fight was gone, and I became enraged all over again. Trish had broken her.
    Trish yelled, “That was a warning shot. The next one won’t be. Bullets are cheap.”
    I sniffled and wiped away tears I hadn’t noticed before. These people thought nothing of killing. I thought about Jack’s funeral, and remembered his mom kissing the closed casket before the pallbearers carried it to the hearse.
    “Send her back inside!” I called. “I’ll come out.”
    Two strong flashlight beams converged in my vicinity and swept the darkness. I pressed into the bark of my tree and stayed low. The porch door slammed again, and I wondered if Annette had really been taken back inside.
    Trish screamed toward the forest. “I want my money, God damn you!” She stomped the porch. “Come out!”
    I recognized a man’s voice calling from the direction of one of the flashlights: “Come on out to the drive now, sweetheart. I know you think she’s naughty, but actually…” he swung the beam through the trees around me, “this is very reasonable for her.” It was Scud.
    A thick band of light passed over my tree and snapped back. He held it there.
    “Olly olly oxen free,” he said.
    The illumination around me broadened when Kurt added his beam.
    “Come over here, toward the drive.”
    Standing made me dizzy, and I used the tree for support. The base of my skull throbbed. I looked toward the cabin to check for Annette. All I could see were the bright lights shining in my face.
    “That was a quite a show at the drop zone last night,” Scud said. “I like feisty girls, but I gotta tell ya…you did a number on my shoulder. It hurts like a sonofabitch. So now, I’m afraid there’s a score to settle.”
    He dropped his light to the ground in front of me. I stepped forward. Kurt kept his light in my face.
    “Don’t worry,” Scud added. “Won’t hurt a bit. I’m a better shot than you.”
    I raised a hand to shield my eyes. All I could see was mud and leaves up to a yard in front of me, then nothing.
    “You’re walking too slow,” Kurt said. “Move faster, or your prissy little girl comes out and gets a messy anatomy lesson when she watches me shoot you.”
    I stumbled forward, following Scud’s light on the ground. Soon I climbed the little slope toward the driveway and found myself between the van and the car again. I realized with a pang that I’d hardly gotten anywhere.
    “Turn around and walk toward the road,” Trish said. It sounded like she was near Kurt.
    I turned away from the cabin and flashlights and began walking. One set of footsteps receded behind me. I heard someone mounting the porch steps, and finally there was the familiar slap of the storm door.
    Ahead, the flashlight beams stretched into the night to show me the way.
    “Where are we going?”
    No one answered. I