Nothing Sacred

Or maybe he was some friend of the Montfords—descendents of the town’s founder. They were richer than Will and Becca Parsons.

“You going to town?” she asked, holding the edge of the door as she looked into the car.

“I am.” He smiled. “If you’d like a ride, hop in.”

With a lift in spirits that had been plummeting all day, Ellen climbed inside, thanking him and giving directions to Aaron’s dorm. “It’s just this side of the main light in town,” she told him. “It’s not far out.”

Finally something positive was happening today. It was just like Pastor Marks had said. If you could stand up to the challenges, and if you did everything you could to help yourself, assistance would come.

“Have you ever been to Shelter Valley before?” she asked the man, who seemed friendly the couple of times he glanced over at her.

“Nope.”

“It’s a great place. You’ll like it.”

“I’m counting on it,” he said, smiling at her again.

“The turn’s just ahead.”

He nodded.

“It’s after that next group of trees.”

He nodded again, tapping his thumb on the steering wheel as he drove.

“There!” she said quickly, when it looked like he was going to miss the road.

He drove past.

“That was it!” Ellen said, sorry he’d have to turn around, that she was costing him more time than he’d intended. She’d tried to be so clear.

He didn’t slow down. Didn’t turn around. Didn’t even act as if he’d heard her.

“Excuse me.” She tried again. “Did you hear what I said? You missed the turn.” Did he have Alzheimer’s or something? She’d heard Becca talking to her mother about one of the ladies at the new adult day care in town and how her family had had to take her keys away because she’d driven off and forgotten not only where she was going, but most of the rules of driving as well.

God, don’t let him wreck the car. Mom would just die if she were to get a phone call that Ellen had been in an accident. It was a parent’s worst nightmare. Everyone knew that.

She tried two more times to get his attention.

He didn’t say anything, just smiled at her and nodded.

But on the other side of town he slowed down, and Ellen breathed her first sigh of relief. She’d get out as soon as she could, find a phone, call Aaron. Even angry, he’d come and get her. And she’d call for someone to help the old man, too.

Not that he really appeared old enough to have Alzheimer’s, but it did hit some people in their fifties. And no one she knew had ever acted this strange before….

“This isn’t anyplace you want to be,” knowing for sure that he was confused when he turned into the parking lot of a run-down and apparently deserted single-story building. It housed one-room apartments and used to be a hotel back in Shelter Valley’s early gold-mining days.

The man was scaring her.

Especially when he pulled up to a door and grabbed a key from the console between them. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Go where?” Was he crazy? She wasn’t going anywhere with him.

“Oh, so that’s the game you want to play?” he asked, not sounding crazy at all. He held her wrist tightly. Suddenly he had the air of a powerful businessman used to getting exactly what he wanted.

But what did he want? The man was rich. Nicely dressed. Driving an expensive car.

“I don’t know why—”