Page 1 of Deadly Past

Chapter One

Wynona Harper jerked away from the living room window, her heart racing as the driver of the pickup passing by her house glanced over, and the face from her darkest nightmares came crawling out of the hole where she’d buried it. This was the man who had taken Lacey, her baby sister, more than twenty years earlier.

He was watching her. Wynona had no doubt about it. She’d seen the same pickup truck several times over the past week driving by her house. Wynona clutched the handgun given to her by her ex-husband many years ago. Feeling its cold metal barrel eased some of the tension.

When she’d called the police after the first drive-by, they’d sent someone out to take her report. But she could tell the officer didn’t believe someone associated with a twenty-year-old child abduction case had suddenly returned to haunt the surviving sister.

But she knew. Wynona had always known. The day of reckoning was quickly approaching between her and Lacey’s kidnapper. She shivered at the idea. It was past midnight. Her house on Elm Street was the only one with lights on.

Wynona turned back to her sister’s case file lying open on the kitchen table—the results of twenty years of research. Very little to go on since there had been virtually no evidence left at the scene to help identify the man who had slipped into their small home in Bangor, Maine, and had abducted four-year-old Lacey while she slept. Wynona, who shared a room with her sister, was the only witness. She’d woken as the kidnapper climbed out the first-floor window with Lacey. Despite the dark, she’d peered into the face of sheer evil and couldn’t evoke a single word—not even a scream for help. He’s told her, “she’s going back where she belongs. And so will you soon.” Terrified, Wynona had crawled under her covers unable to move.

To this day, Wynona still blamed herself for what happened. If she’d called to her parents, perhaps they could have stopped the man from taking Lacey.

With her sister being a diabetic, every second she went without her insulin put her life in danger. But as the police had explained, the man who abducted Lacey wouldn’t be worried about keeping her alive for long.

Wynona shoved the pain down deep and cracked the curtains near the front door once more. The mysterious pickup and driver were nowhere to be seen. Was it just an overreaction? Wynona returned to the kitchen and promptly closed the blinds. Feeling less exposed, she poured another cup of coffee and sat down in front of the folder, placing the weapon on the table beside it.

She knew the information contained there by heart. Through the years, there had been no sightings of Lacey. No new evidence on the case. . .until now.

By sheer accident, Wynona had stopped by the family’s old house. Her mother hadn’t wanted to sell it because she always held out hope Lacey would return one day.

Wynona always wondered how her mother had been able to hold onto so much hope after everything she’d gone through.

A few days after Lacey’s disappearance, Wynona’s father had taken off without leaving a note as to where he was going. With no words of goodbye, he’d vanished. Wynona guessed it was just too hard for him to stay. She certainly understood. Lacey’s disappearance had shattered their once-happy family.

Grace, her mom, never really recovered. Wynona and her mother had moved to a smaller house where they’d stayed until Wynona graduated from high school. Her mother had moved to Florida soon after that. It broke Wynona’s heart that her mother had passed away without knowing what really happened to her youngest daughter.

Through the years, Wynona had honored her mother’s wishes and kept her childhood home exactly as it was when Lacey disappeared and stopped by from time to time to check on the place and clean it.

It was simply an accident that she’d arrived at the house the same time as the pickup truck she’d just spotted had been parked in the driveway. A man had been peering through the window where Lacey and Wynona’s old room was located. As soon as he spotted Wynona, he’d hopped into his pickup truck and sped away.

Wynona immediately called the cold-case detective working Lacey’s case and gave him the license-plate number. Unfortunately, the plate had been stolen from a car in a small town in New York. When she’d heard that, her blood ran cold. Before Lacey disappeared, one of the neighbors remembered seeing a car with New York plates driving around the neighborhood.

The man’s description hadn’t produced any matches. The detective promised to keep searching but cautioned her against getting her hopes up. This could be completely unconnected to Lacey’s disappearance. Yet Wynona knew differently.

A noise near the front of the house had her jumping nervously to her feet, her chair tipping over and crashing to the floor. Wynona’s heart rate went ballistic when another sound came from the side of the house. . . closer to the kitchen.

Wynona quickly killed the lights. Darkness descended. She bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood. Why? Why was he coming for her?

She’s going back where she belongs. And so will you soon. . .

At the back of the house, footsteps descended onto the wooden deck. A board creaked. Wynona bit back a scream. Her phone. She’d left it on the kitchen counter.

She felt her way over. After a frantic search, her hand made contact with the phone. A shadow passed near the window above the sink. Wynona screamed. The shadow disappeared. A second later, the door rattled. He knew she was there, and he was breaking in!

She ran for her bedroom and locked the door while punching 9-1-1. The noise near the kitchen had stopped.

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

“Someone is trying to break into my home.” Wynona spotted a shadow near her bedroom window and screamed. “Hurry, he’s right outside.” She gave the operator her address.

“Officers are on the way. Are you safe?”

Wynona’s frightened gaze slipped to the window. The shadow had disappeared. “I’m not sure. I don’t see him now.” A second later, something slammed against the glass shattering it.

“Ma’am, are you okay? What’s happening?”

Wynona raced from the bedroom. Her home—the place she’d once shared with her former husband—the place that became her sanctuary after their divorce--wasn’t safe anymore.

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