Snow Way Out Read Online Free Page B

area, I walked toward the front window to turn the security light on, but a snow globe sitting on a nearby shelf stopped me in my tracks. It was “snowing.” I blinked, knowing I was imagining things, and watched until the last of the flakes had settled on the ground. I had never seen that particular globe before and wondered where it had come from. It was made of similar, or the same type of, materials we had used in our class. How odd. A chill ran up my spine as I reached for the front door to be sure it was locked. It was. I was relieved because I honestly could not remember locking it, no matter how hard I thought about it.
    I picked up the foreign snow globe and studied the scene. Inside, there was a man sitting on a park bench with his head resting almost on his chest. He appeared to be sleeping. There was a streetlamp, several leafless trees, and a moon behind them. The scene looked familiar, like it could be in one of our town parks. I set the snow globe back on the shelf and let myself out. I locked the door behind me and double-checked it to be certain it was secured.
    I went to the back lot, where I usually parked, and had a moment of panic when my Subaru wasn’t there. “No. Of all the days not to drive,” I chided myself. My house was less than a mile away, and I often walked or biked to work. It had been a gorgeous October morning, and it was an even lovelier evening, with a full moon overhead. And, as Archie had pointed out earlier, unseasonably warm.
    Even though I generally felt safe walking after dark, I removed the small canister of Mace from my backpack and slipped it in the front pocket of my khaki slacks. It had been a long day on my feet, but I hadn’t thought of bringing a change of shoes with me, so my walking sandals would have to do. I headed south on Central Avenue, glancing up at the top half of the old county courthouse building that sat on the rise of a hill, a block west of the buildings on the opposite side of Central. A bank building dating back to 1890 that currently housed an antique business was directly across the street. It still held the original internal vault, a feature that added to the building’s charm.
    The streets were mostly deserted at that hour, even though it was Friday night, and I wished there was more traffic. Why was I on edge? I crossed the street and walked on the sidewalk that ran alongside Green Lake. Not a soul was fishing from the public dock. During the summer months, it wasn’t unusual to see fishers there late at night. But once school started in September, people were rarely there after dark, and the dock would be rolled in soon, before the winter snow fell and the lake froze over.
    Where the sidewalk divided—one path ran alongside the highway, and the other turned and led into the park—I veered to the right and took the park pathway, a shortcut that saved me a fair distance. There were streetlamps every fifty feet or so, but because I felt more unsettled than usual, I wished there was one every twenty. I patted the cell phone in my left pocket and the Mace in my right pocket. I’d gotten in the habit of carrying a canister during my years in Washington, D.C.
    As children, my friends and I had spent hours playing games in the park, sometimes after sunset, before we were beckoned home. Our favorite nighttime game was a version of tag called Starlight, Moonlight.
Starlight, moonlight, I hope to see a ghost tonight.
I thought about the words and raised my eyes skyward.
Just kidding
.
    Something shiny on the concrete path caught my eyes. A penny. I had a thing for picking up pennies. I remembered my mother—my birth mother—telling me, “Find a penny, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck.” As a teenager, I had started to believe it was my mother who dropped the pennies from heaven just for me. I bent over quickly, snatched up the coin, and dropped it in the pocket with my Mace. The two items made a soft clicking sound as I picked up my