“Mom,” I whispered, “listen to me carefully. Don't open the door.”
There was a pause.
“Emma? What's going on?”
“Please, Mom. Just don't let him inside.”
The detective immediately turned toward me.
“Is that your mother?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
She took out her radio and requested officers at my mother's address.
Meanwhile, I pressed the phone tighter against my ear.
“Mom, where are you?”
“In the kitchen.”
“Is the front door locked?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Keep it locked.”
My mother, Ruth Carter, was sixty-four years old and one of the most independent women I'd ever known.
She'd raised me while working full-time as a school librarian. After my father died eight years earlier, she'd insisted on remaining in the little blue house where they'd spent most of their marriage.
She could change a tire, repair a leaking faucet, and grow enough tomatoes to feed half the neighborhood.
Hearing her frightened now terrified me more than anything I'd found in Mrs. Wilson's basement.
