Night of Fear by Peg Kehret Read Free Book Online Page A

into more banks tonight.
    “You’d move faster if you didn’t have to keep chasing after me,” T.J. said.
    “I’m not going to chase you anymore.”
    What does that mean? T.J. wondered. The next time I run, you’ll let me go? Or the next time I run will be the last time my legs carry me anywhere?
    “If you leave again, I’ll go back to the barn and get the nutty saint. She won’t run from me.”

Chapter Six
    When Grandma Ruth reached the junction where the Crowleys’ private dirt road joined the street, she stopped. This wasn’t the way she had come. She and David never walked on paved streets. They always followed the deer trails through the woods or they cut through Papa’s cornfields, with the high stalks brushing their shoulders. The only time they saw paved streets was when Papa and Mama took them into town.
    A car whizzed toward her. The driver, glimpsing Grandma Ruth on the side of the road, honked the horn. Grandma Ruth stepped away from the sudden noise and shut her eyes to close out the bright lights.
    When the car passed, she turned and went back toward the barn.
    Before she got there, she saw a metal gate shining in the moonlight. It looked familiar. Had David brought her through that gate? No, that wasn’t David; that was T.J.
    She stopped walking. T.J. Her only grandchild. She had not thought it was possible for her ever again to love anyone as much as she loved Edward, her late husband, or her daughters, Amelia and Marion. But, oh, she did love T.J. She hadn’t seen him for a long time; she wondered where he was. Was he still a small boy or had he grown up when she wasn’t looking and become a man? Children had a way of doing that. One day her Amelia was sitting on her lap, listening to stories, and the next day, or so it seemed, Amelia had a baby of her own.
    Grandma Ruth walked until she reached the gate. Two large dogs saw her coming and jumped against the fence as she approached. They acted friendly and she thought she recognized them. Were they T.J.’s dogs? She seemed to remember T.J. feeding them. When she reached the gate, she stopped and looked across it at the empty field.
    The field. Of course. She remembered now. Her house was on the other side of that field. Papa and Mama and David were all there, waiting for her to get home so they could eat dinner.
    Grandma Ruth reached for the metal bar and tried to slide it, to open the gate, but it didn’t move. She pushed and pushed, until the metal made a deep red mark in the palms of her hands but she couldn’t budge it. She could not get into the field that she needed to cross to get home.
    She would have to walk around, through the woods. Maybe she would find David there. Maybe he was waiting for her, with his berry-picking bucket. Or was it T.J. who used to pick those sweet little blackberries with her and then help her make jam?
    She wondered why the preacher didn’t come.
    She put one hand on her head. Where was her hat? Had she left her hat at home, or forgotten it in the church? Nervously, she opened her purse and felt inside, to be sure she still had her money.
    She walked away from the gate, passed the barn, and left the Crowleys’ property. She crossed the lane and started into the woods. Surely she would find David soon. He was probably waiting for her just ahead, with his berry bucket.
    As she walked, she hummed softly, “Nearer, my God, to thee. Nearer to thee.”

    The old blue truck picked up speed; T.J. could tell by the way the engine whined and the tires hummed.
    T.J.’s nerves jangled. He wondered if his parents had found Grandma Ruth yet. He hoped so. She might get scared if she waited in the barn very long and nobody came.
    Too bad Grandma Ruth wasn’t the way she used to be. Five years ago, she would have been out of that barn and across the field to call the cops before T.J. and Brody had gone three blocks. Even three years ago, when she was first diagnosed but before she went to live with Aunt Marion, she