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| pic used under creative commons from mynameisharsha |
Yes, it's the moment you've all been waiting for! After AJ Nuest's nailbiting last instalment, the time has finally arrived for Part Six of Written Fireside - 'For Clara', the travelling blog hop story.
If you haven't a clue what I'm talking about, well you've missed a treat! Not to mention the first course of burgers and hotdogs. But no matter, you can pick the whole story up right from the beginning using the following links:
PART 1 - Lori Connelly
PART 2 - Teresa Morgan
PART 3 - Carmel Harrington
PART 4 - Romy Sommer
PART 5 - A J Nuest
And now without further ado, here is my first contribution...
PART 6
Clara snapped off
the flashlight and jerked her fingers back from the wall panel as if it were
red hot. With her back pressed against lumpy plaster and peeling wallpaper, she
sidled along until she could peek though the gap at the edge of the shabby lace
curtain and down to the driveway below.
Her heart
hammered in her drum-tight chest and a panicky flash seared through her brain –
‘…caught, I’m caught…’
She was so
certain that it would be Derek’s porky silhouette she would see below that her
breath caught in surprise when instead a shaft of moonlight picked out Mark’s
muscular frame in silver. He crunched across the gravel toward the front
door, glancing with interest at her own car, parked alongside his. She may as
well have hung a neon flashing sign on the house – CLARA IS HERE. It hadn’t
occurred to her to hide the car – why would it? No one knew about this place
except for her– right?
Unless hers
wasn’t the only note Barbara had left behind.
He couldn’t have
followed her, she’d driven past him in the café. How else could Mark know about
the summer house? Had her friend contacted Mark too from beyond the grave? Did
she mean to bring them together somehow?
Nothing was
certain anymore. She ached miserably to talk to Barbara, knowing she never
could. They’d survived this long by working as a team. She really wasn’t sure
she was up to the challenge of seeing this through alone.
But maybe she
wasn’t meant to.
As the door banged
below and footsteps progressed steadily up the stairs she darted back to the
wall panel. She would hear what Mark had to say. She would keep an open mind.
But behind the panel was her only bargaining chip, and she wasn’t about to give
that up. Barbara had meant her to find it, she was sure of that, and she wasn’t
about to share it. She fumbled madly with the secret panel, shoving her hand
into the dark space behind it as the footsteps got louder. And she managed to
stuff the cloth-wrapped bundle under her sweater just as the door banged open.
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