He eyed the drawers, and shoved the third one over just a bit to create a toehold. He did the same with the fourth.

He knew if he fell it would be all over. He couldn’t fall. He heard Fatso scream, “No matter what you say, we can’t stay here, Beau. It’s going to start raining any minute now. You saw that creek out back. A thunderstorm’ll make it rise fast as bat shit in a witch’s brew!”

Drown? The thunderstorms he’d heard on the Weather Channel, that must be what Fatso was yelling about. He didn’t want to drown either.

Sam was finally on the top. He pulled himself upright very slowly, feeling the drawer wobbling and unable to do anything about it. He froze, his hands flat against the damp wall, then his fingers crept up and he touched the bottom of the windowsill.

Things were unsteady beneath his feet, but that was okay. It felt just like the bridge in the park when he walked across it, just like that. He could work with a swing, even a wobble, he just couldn’t fall.

He pushed at the window but it didn’t budge. Then he saw the latch, so covered with dirt that it was hard to make out. He grabbed it and pulled upward.

He heard Fatso yell, “Beau, listen to me, we gotta take the kid somewhere else. That rain’s going to start any minute.”

So that was his name, Beau. Beau said something back, but Sam couldn’t make out what it was. He wasn’t a screamer like Fatso.

Sam had the latch pushed up as far as it would go. Slowly, so slowly he nearly stopped breathing, he pushed at the window.

It creaked, loud.

Sam jerked around and the drawers teetered, swaying more than ever. He knew he was going to fall. The drawers were sliding apart like earth plates before an earthquake. He remembered Mrs. Mildrake crunching together real dinner plates to show the class how earthquakes happened.

He shoved on the window as hard as he could and it creaked all the way out.

The drawers shuddered and moved and Sam, almost crying he was so afraid, grabbed the windowsill. With all the strength he had, he pulled himself headfirst through that skinny window. He got stuck, wiggled free, and then fell outside.

He landed on the ground, nearly headfirst.

He lay there, breathing, wanting to move, but afraid that his head was split open and his brains might start spilling out. He lay listening to the wind pick up, whipping through the trees. There were a lot of trees around him, and the sky was almost dark. Was it nighttime?

No, it was just the storm coming closer, the thunderstorm the Weather Channel had talked about for eastern Tennessee. How could he be in Tennessee?

He had to get up. Fatso and Beau could come out at any moment. The drawers had fallen over, no doubt about that, and the loud noise would bring them into the bedroom fast. They’d see he was gone and they’d be out here with guns and poison and more rope and get him again.

Sam came up on his knees. He felt something sticky on his face and touched it. He’d cut himself with the fall. He turned to look up at the window. It was way far off the ground.

Sam managed to stand up, weaved a bit, then locked his knees. He was okay. Everything was cool. He just had to get out of there.

He started running. He heard Fatso scream the same instant a bolt of lightning struck real close and a boom of thunder rattled his brains. They knew he was gone.

Sam ran into the thick trees, all gold and red and yellow. He didn’t know what kind of trees they were, but there were a lot of them and he was small and could easily weave in and out of them. If they got too close he’d climb one, he was good at that, too good, his father always said.

He heard the men yelling, not far behind him, maybe just a little off to the left. He kept running, panting now, a stitch in his side, but he just kept his legs pumping.

Lightning flashed through the trees, and the thunder was coming so close it sounded like drums playing real loud rock ’n’ roll, like his father did when he thought Sam was outside playing.

Sam heard Fatso yell, and stopped, just for a second. Fatso wasn’t even close. But what about Beau? Beau didn’t have the belly Fatso had, so maybe he could slither through the trees really fast. He could come out from behind a tree and jump Sam, cut his throat.

Sam’s heart was pounding so loud he could hear it. He crouched down behind one of the big trees, made himself as skinny as a shadow, and waited. He got his breath back, pressed his cheek to the bark, and listened. He didn’t hear anything, just the thunder that kept rumbling through the sky. He rubbed his side and the stitch faded. The air felt thick, actually felt like it was raining before the first drop found its way through the thick canopy of leaves and hit him on the jaw.

They’d never see him in the rain. Fatso would probably slip on some mud and land on his fat belly. Sam smiled.

You did it, Sam, you did it.

He’d done it all right. Only thing was he didn’t know where he was.

Where was Tennessee?

Even with the thick tree cover, the rain came down hard. He wondered if the forest was so big he’d come out in Ohio, wherever that was.

4

I t was Saturday afternoon, her day off, but with the storm coming, anything could happen. Katie Benedict was driving slowly, listening to the rain slam against the roof of her Silverado. It was hard to see through the thick gray rain even with the windshield wipers working overtime. The mountains were shrouded in fog, thick, heavy, and cold. And now this storm, a vicious one, the weather people were calling it, was on the way. An interesting choice of words, but she bet it was apt. She realized now that she shouldn’t have chanced taking Keely to her piano lesson given the forecast, but she had. At least it had only just started raining, and they were close to home. She just hoped there wouldn’t be any accidents on the road. If there were, she’d be up to her eyebrows in work.

She hunched forward, peering through the thick sheets of rain, Keely quiet beside her. Too quiet.

“Keely, you all right?”

“I’d like to find a rainbow, Mama.”

“Not for a while yet, sweetie, but you keep looking. Hey, I heard you playing your C major scale before. It sounded really good.”

“I’ve worked hard on getting it right, Mama.”

Katie grinned. “I know, but it’s worth it.”

Suddenly, Keely bounced up on the seat, straining against her seat belt, and began waving through the windshield. “Mama, what’s that? Look, it’s a little boy and he’s running!”

Katie saw him. The boy was sopping wet, running out of the woods to her left, not more than fifty feet onto the road in front of her. Then she saw two men burst out of the trees. It was obvious they were after him.

Katie said, even as she reached over and quickly released Keely’s seat belt, “I want you to get down and stay there. Do you understand?”

Keely knew that tone of voice, her mama’s sheriff voice, and nodded, slipping down to the floor.

“Cover your head with your arms. Everything will be fine. Just don’t move, okay?”

“Okay, Mama.”

Katie pulled to a stop, quickly leaned over the front seat and punched in the two numbers to her lock box beneath the back bench. She pulled out her Remington rifle, loaded, ready to go. By the time she opened the door, the men weren’t more than a long arm’s reach from the boy. Thank God he’d seen her and was running toward her. He was yelling, but the wind and rain wiped any sound he made right out.

The big man, his beer gut pounded by the rain, had a gun. Not good. Despite his size he moved quickly. He turned toward her, away from the boy, and raised the gun.

Katie brought up her rifle, cool and fast, and fired, kicking up muddy water not a foot from the fat man’s feet, splattering him to his waist. “I’m the sheriff! Stop right there! Don’t move!”