Page 1 of Some Like It Fox

ChapterOne

Taylor

I turn the key in the ignition for the seventh time, as if by some miraclethis timewill be different than the past six.

The engine sputters, giving me a half-hearted cough before wheezing into dead silence.

“Please work,” I mutter into my steering wheel. “Please, please, please, don’t do this to me.” The mantra of anyone who’s ever had their vehicle crap out in the middle of a freaking blizzard at night.

I’m less than ten miles from my family home. The road in front of me is blanketed in white, the flakes winging through the night air like I’ve been plunked down in the center of a snow globe and shaken up.

Ten miles. So close, and yet way too far to try and trek the rest of the way on foot.

I should have stopped for gas an hour ago, but I thought I could make it.

Killing the headlights, I slip from the driver’s seat into the back of the VW bus, grabbing my bag from the sink and pawing through it for my cell. The screen is black. Dead.

It’s an old phone, the charge never lasts long, and I am eternally forgetting to plug it in. I like to use my old iPod to listen to music when I’m on the road because I don’t have to worry about music cutting out when I’m driving through the backwoods, or if a call comes in. Plus, without music playing, I lose my ever-loving mind.

Of course, now, I may be losing my ever-loving life.

Staring blankly out the darkened window, I consider my options.

There are houses spread out along this route. Ranch-style homes with lots of surrounding property. Bonus, I grew up in this town, so I know most of the residents.

It’s the night before Christmas Eve. Someone has to be home. I just don’t know how far away the nearest house is since the windows reveal nothing more than squares of black flashing with snow.

I could hunker down, sleep here, possibly die of hypothermia.

Or venture out in the storm, possibly die sooner.

At least my family won’t be worried. They also won’t be coming to the rescue.

Last week I told Finley I couldn’t make it until tomorrow, and I meant it at the time. I didn’t want to spend more hours than absolutely necessary with Mindy.

The thought of spending even a minute in the same room makes me want to jump out of my own skin.

At the moment, I have more pressing things than my sister feud to concern myself with, like dehydration. I have maybe half a liter of water, no heat, and a box of expired Froot Loops in the cupboard.

Think, Taylor, think.

I stare blankly out the window. A light glints, flickering through the driving snow.

There.

Is that a porch light?

It disappears a second later as the snow increases in intensity, blocking it from view.

I blink. Am I imagining things?

I’ve been stranded for five minutes, and I’m already hallucinating.

I sit up, moving closer to the window, eyes straining through the thick flakes dumping outside.

There is it again.

My heart lifts. That is definitely a light. There is no question about it. It has to be a porch light. It might be the Petersons’ place. Paul worked with Dad sometimes around our family property. He’s a brawny guy, well over six feet tall, and barely speaks. His wife, Moira, was the school nurse when I was in elementary school. She was tiny, half his size, and a ball of fire. They also had two girls, both almost ten years younger than me.

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