I fell to the ground and heard my husband give a yelp. Is he shot? Please let him be OK! These people will not get away with this! I think as I try to get the snow out of my eyes. He takes my hand and kneels down next to me. “Are you hurt?” he whispers. 

“No, I’m fine I think. You OK?” I reply. He nods and scans the area around us for the men from the house. “The snow is falling rapidly, I doubt they will be able to track us down by following our footprints in the snow,” he says.  “What on earth is all this about? Where is the rest of the family?” he asks.  I shake my head to try and clear it. So this was not a dream. Am I having a stroke? Or a panic attack? He pulls me up into an embrace and I feel his warmth start to relax me. My breathing slows down and I say, “We need to locate the others and find out what this is all about… without getting killed in the process.”

“Agreed. Let’s think this through. How did they get into the house? Did they break in? Things happened so quickly, but I do know that I’m going to beat them up if they hurt anyone in the family, and they’ll definitely get locked up after that. For now, I think we should make our way back to the house and try to see what is going on from a safe distance. I don’t want to leave you here alone, if I do that I can’t protect you.” He hugs me tighter for a moment and lets me go. We start walking back to the house, stopping every couple of meters to check if we have tipped them off about our approach. “All clear,” I say again. Eventually, we get to the area behind the barn, on the west side of the property. It’s deathly quiet. Not a peep from the house. What now? I put up my hands and gesture to my husband. He points a finger at himself, then to the house. Puts his palm out to me, meaning I need to stay put. I nod in understanding. Before he turns away from me, we hear a phone ringing in the darkness. My husband pats himself down automatically, thinking it’s his phone that is ringing. He realizes that it is not when a deep voice says, “Mikey, have you found the woman?” 

I crouch down because it feels like the man is standing very close to us, he could be just around the corner of the barn. It’s impossible to tell. “We did not break out of prison to mess this job up tonight! So get it together and find her, we don’t have all night!” We hear footsteps crunch away from us and up the wooden steps of the porch. My husband repeats his instructions to me and I stay where I am. He disappears into the darkness. 

Moments pass like hours.  No sounds from the house, but I can smell the smoke of a cigarette from the porch. I peek around the corner of the barn just as the black SUV parked in front of the house blows up. 

TO BE CONTINUED

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