Page 1 of When You're Safe

PROLOGUE

Maggie stopped for a moment,closed her eyes, and breathed. Just breathed. At a distance from the bustlingtraffic of London’s heart, that small winding path along the Thames River wasas solitary as she was. There was a connection between them. It was hersanctuary.

Sometimes, it was her only escape.

The morning sunshine beamedthrough several overhanging trees above, threatening a harsh, hot summer day inthe great old city. Maggie disliked the heat. She preferred where it was coolin the shade. It reminded her of childhood vacations with her family up north.She liked the rain on her

skin and the wind in her brownhair. It made her feel alive. Running along the riverside was the closest shecould get to that cool breeze for now, the closest she could touch the safetyof a childhood long since abandoned.

Maggie had more than the weather onher mind. She was weighing thoughts of life and death, of purpose. Had itreally come to this?

“Why?” she said, whispering to thebreeze dappling off the water, wondering if she was speaking to herself or to animaginary version of the one who had harmed her. The one who had threatenedher.

She had been asking that samequestion over and over for weeks, and each time she asked, she felt thevitality of her youthful twenty-eight-year-old body somehow slipping away. Shewas barely eating. The worry, the fear, the looking over her shoulder, it wasslowly grinding her down. Danger and stress were a powerful concoction, even apoison to some—this she knew all too well. She had to find a way to vent thepressure. A solution had to be found.

Maggie shook away the oppressivefeelings swirling inside of her. She planted her feet onto the crumbling trailbeneath the overhanging branches and pushed off.

The run would clear her mind. Anda clear mind was the only hope she had to navigate the dangers ahead.

There must be a way out of this,she thought as she ran into the solitude of the English countryside.

The trail arched to the left,taking itself and Maggie away from the flowing waters of the wide river. It wasa trail she had run many times before.

Her breathing deepened as she feltthe blood engorging her legs, making her feel alive. Birds sang nearby, and asshe moved through a patch of woodland, she began to persuade herself that theworld was not crashing down on top of her; that she would be all right, even ifthere was a wisp of denial lingering in her subconscious.

Then the road came.

It was the one part of that jogshe was wary of; the lack of a sidewalk and its narrow width made the road feeltreacherous. She knew she would have to be careful.

Maggie moved onto it, undeterred.She hoped she could clear that section around the corner of the lonely roadquickly. Then she could rejoin the woodland path that would take her furtheraway from the threat of the city.

As she moved along the road, shekept looking over her shoulder for traffic. It was rare to see any vehicles,but ever since she had read about one of her favorite writers being struck by acar on just such a road, she had been hesitant of it.

The worn tarmac arched upward,steadily climbing. Soon, far below, the Thames River could be seen again,moving, lumbering through the estuary and into the heart of London in thedistance behind.

Maggie breathed deeply again. Abreeze came, and with it so too did the thoughts of danger. Two threats at oncebrewed in her mind—the hazard of the road, of the blind turn up ahead, and thedanger of the one person she knew could ruin her life. The one person who mightas well have held a knife to her throat.

The police? she thought, mentallyscrambling for a solution to her problems as she ran. No. That wasn’t anoption.

There were too many reeds tountangle. If it went public, it would hurt her, it would hurt the family. Nomatter which way she sliced the dilemma, a dark underbelly of future pain and shamewould be revealed.

The road now curved ahead. Thiswas the section Maggie disliked most. It bent around a blind corner, and to theleft of her, a wall of sheer brown rock rose up. There was nowhere to step to,should a car appear.

She did what she always did,running as close to the rock face as possible so that if a car moved around thecorner toward her, she’d at least have some room to breathe and hopefully notbe struck by a careless driver.

In her mind, Maggie made space forthe entrance to the woodland trail. She knew it was just out of sight. Soon shewould be on it and able to disappear for an hour into the deep green. Todisappear from her problems was all she wanted. It was all anyone wanted, atleast in Maggie’s mind. Relief and happiness were one and the same toher.

Then a sound came.

At first, she thought it was theriver far down below, a constant low swishing sound like a gentle wave neverending. But as she moved toward the peak of the blind corner, she realized thatthe sound was not coming from the river. It was coming from the road.

Damn, she thought. Acar.

The vehicle was very quiet. Maggieassumed it had an electric engine. As she reached the near-apex of the turn, shefound herself stopping for a moment. A cold sweat broke out over her body asshe listened.

Which way? She couldn’ttell where the car was coming from, whether ahead or from behind further downthe hill. Downhill, the weaving road was partly obscured by sporadic pockets oflow-hanging trees, their branches like curled fingers, and the road up aheadcould not be seen yet for the shroud of the turn.

I better move.

---