Snow Angels. Fern Michaels
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Landry glanced in her rearview mirror to check on Ashley and Amanda, her two “dates” for the evening. She’d been delighted when their mother, Stephanie, had allowed her to take the girls to see their first live performance of The Nutcracker at Eagle Valley High School. Both girls were sound asleep in the backseat of her van.
They’d needed some fun and normalcy in their sad and empty lives, especially during the Christmas season. Grace’s eyes teared up as she summoned the images of their frightened little faces when the local police delivered them and their mother to Hope House on Monday, four days earlier.
As a practicing psychologist, Grace had witnessed her share of abused women since receiving her doctorate nine years ago. Only five years ago, when her grandmother had left her a sizable estate, she’d started Hope House, a shelter for battered women and their children, and unveiled it to the proper authorities in Denver and the surrounding areas. It had been her hope that they would recommend her safe house to those women in need as a place to recuperate and plan for the future, and more than anything else, a place where they could feel safe. Gypsum was a small town off the beaten path, the perfect location for such a place. She’d been successful and never had any reason to question her decision. Her mother worried because Hope House was in such a remote area, but Grace assured her that was exactly what she’d been looking for when she’d bought the house and the surrounding land.
A light snow began to fall. Grace turned on the wipers, making a mental note to have chains put on her tires. With many treacherous stretches along Colorado’s I-70, authorities forbade semis to pass without them. Every winter she had her mechanic install them even though they weren’t required for the van. She’d rather be safe than sorry.
In the distance ahead, she noted red-and-blue flashing lights. Praying there wasn’t an accident, Grace turned on the radio, locating a traffic report on one of her preprogrammed stations. The broadcaster noted the light snow, but that was nothing unusual for this stretch of highway. Probably a broken-down motorist.
What little traffic there was slowed to a crawl as she drove toward the glaring lights. After a few minutes of creeping along, traffic came to a standstill. Grace glanced at the digital clock on her dashboard. After ten. She’d promised Stephanie she would have the girls back by eleven. At this rate, she’d be lucky to make it before midnight.
When Grace saw police officers knocking on the windows of the vehicles ahead of her, she assumed this was a random license check. Reaching across the seat for her wallet, she removed her license, awaiting her turn to prove she was a legally licensed driver.
The expected tap, and Grace pushed the button to lower the window. A gust of icy air along with wet snowflakes smacked the side of her face. Before the officer asked, she handed him her license.
“Thanks, ma’am, but this isn’t a license check. We’ve established several roadblocks in the area. We’re detouring traffic.”
“Oh,” Grace said, surprised by his words. A roadblock this time of night seemed odd to her. Rather than question the young officer, she listened to him as he pointed ahead.
“I hope there isn’t some crazy out terrorizing the roads,” she commented.
“No need to worry. We’re taking care of it. If you’ll take the next exit, 147 to Eby Creek Road, another officer will reroute you around the blockades. We’re trying to close this area of I-70 as quickly as possible.”
“Of course, officer.” Grace rolled up the window and followed the taillights of the line of slow-moving vehicles in front of her. Glancing at the backseat, she smiled when she saw that Amanda and Ashley were still sleeping. Most children were very resilient. She could only hope these two were also.
Grace closely followed the other vehicles, making it look as if the slow-moving traffic were a train. The snowfall started coming down even more heavily than it had been. She adjusted the defroster to high to clear the fog on the windshield. Traveling downhill, she applied slight pressure to the brakes as she made her way off the exit ramp, stopping when she saw a group of police cars with their lights blazing.
For the second time in what was becoming a frigid night, Grace rolled down her window as another policeman approached the van. Though she was well acquainted with many of Eagle’s finest, Grace hadn’t recognized the last officer; nor did she recognize this one.
“Where are you heading?” he asked. “We’re trying to reroute everyone without creating bedlam.” He smiled, but Grace saw that it was just for her benefit because it never reached his eyes. His eyes were watchful, alarmed. Grace knew the look quite well. She’d seen it hundreds of times in her line of work.
“To Gypsum,” she said.
“Follow this road for the next seven miles or so. From there you’ll turn left on the road leading back to I-70, then that should put you on Trail Gulch Road. The railroad track runs parallel to Trail Gulch if you’re not familiar with the area.”
After telling the officer she was somewhat familiar with the area, Grace repeated the correct directions before he motioned for her to move on. When she saw there were no other vehicles heading in the same direction, she felt a bit creepy being alone on such a remote stretch of highway. Hope House was out of the way, she reminded herself, which explained why most of the other vehicles were traveling in the opposite direction.
Amanda muttered in her sleep, and Grace checked her rearview mirror again. It wouldn’t be a good time for the girls to wake up. Stephanie had told her about their intense fear of the dark. Without streetlights and the usual signs advertising Big Macs and Holiday Inn Express’s free breakfast, the two-lane road was totally dark, except for her headlights, which plunged forward into the night like two eerie cat eyes.
After ten minutes of slow driving, Grace checked her mileage. She’d only traveled three miles. Careful to monitor the odometer so as not to miss the upcoming left turn, she reduced her speed to fifteen miles per hour. When the van slid off the road onto the shoulder, Grace turned the wheel to the left, quickly guiding the vehicle back onto the slippery pavement. Her heart fluttered against her rib cage, and her hands were damp as she clutched the steering wheel while continuing to look for the turnoff. She checked her mileage again, surprised when she saw she’d already gone five miles. Taking a deep breath, Grace tried to focus on the road, but with the snow falling faster and heavier, it was becoming almost impossible to see more than a few feet in front of her.
Hoping to soothe her nerves, she adjusted the radio to a station playing cheerful Christmas music. Grace sang along with the familiar tunes, but stopped suddenly, fearing her off-key singing might wake the girls.
Realizing she must have missed the turnoff after she’d traveled another five miles, she stopped in the center of the road, telling herself it didn’t matter since she seemed to be the only one crazy enough to get lost on a back road when the weather was getting worse by the minute. Recalling the directions the police officer had given her, Grace did a three-point turn, checked her mileage, then slowly drove back in the direction she’d just come from.
Glancing from side to side as she retraced the miles and careful to watch the odometer, she still didn’t see any sign of a road where she could’ve made a turn, left or right. Continuing to clutch the wheel and occasionally glancing back at the sleeping children, Grace kept the routine up for another fifteen minutes before concluding that there was no turnoff. The police officer must have given her the wrong directions.
Wishing she’d upgraded to a van equipped with a GPS, she remembered that her cell phone had a less sophisticated version of one. She removed it from the side pocket on her purse. Instead of the welcoming green light that usually glowed, the small screen was as black as the night in which she was desperately trying to get home in. She tried to turn the cell off and on again. Nothing happened.
Her cell-phone battery was dead.
Wasn’t that one of the first rules she drummed into the women living at Hope House when she distributed the preprogrammed cell phones? Never allow your cell-phone battery to die because you never knew when you’d need to dial those three lifesaving numbers: nine-one-one.
But