"Shit!" she yelled, and dove down into the brush at the side of the road, scrambling through the light underbrush to crouch behind a tree. She pulled her black knit hat low over her head, and hunkered down as small as she could make herself.
"Turn right, turn right, turn right," she chanted as she crouched there waiting for the lights to emerge from the driveway. She waited, but no lights showed. What was he waiting for? She moved to stand up for a better view. Red brake lights appeared to her right at the end of the drive.
Lily froze! The Prius! Peabody must have been sliding down the drive with the lights out trying to catch her by surprise. It had worked, her heart was in her throat. She didn't even dare to dive for cover, afraid the movement would be noticed. She waited, eyes glued to the brake lights giving away Peabody's location. She imagined he must be scanning the road on either side, trying to guess which way she had gone. As she sat there, a light began to grow behind her.
"Cassie!" Lily thought, "she's looking for me, this is going to go to hell fast."
Seeing the oncoming lights, and the revealed roadway empty, the Prius put on its lights and pulled out into the road, turning to the right and gliding off down the road. Lily nearly collapsed in relief. The Prius disappeared quietly around a corner as she grabbed the tree for support.
A black SUV came around the corner from the left, moving slowly along the road. Realizing it was probably her ride, Lily stumbled out from behind the tree and down to the road. Cassie had nearly passed her by the time she staggered into the ditch and scrambled up. She stepped on the brakes to stop.
"Is that her?" Cassie asked, her voice muffled through the partially opened window.
Lily heard Grace reply "Yes! That's her!"
Lily staggered to the back of the SUV and jumped into the back seat.
"Turn around in the drive here on the right, and get away from here quick," she said, buckling herself in. "Peabody just went around the corner ahead looking for me, and we need to get out of here before he turns around.
Cassie wasted no time, pulling into the driveway, backing out, and driving off down the road.
"What happened?" She called over the seat as they sped away down the road toward Lisbon, away from Peabody and his farm.
Lily was out of breath, and lay quiet against the back of the seat for several minutes, catching her breath. Cassie exchanged an anxious look with Grace, who looked into the back seat, eyes moving from Denton to Lily. At length, Lily sighed.
"That was way too close for comfort," she said.
"What happened?" Cassie tried asking a second time.
"When I got to the hill, there was no sign of him," Lily started telling her story. "The backyard was dark, so he wasn't still hanging around there. I wasn't sure if he'd gone to the house, or what, so I started looking around with the infrared, trying to catch sight of him. There was nothing, which was making me panic. I thought, 'what if he took the road, and gets to the car before you.' It made me sick to think I'd told you to run ahead into danger, Cassie."
Cassie felt her heart flutter, but said nothing. Grace spoke up, "What was that splash? We heard it all the way through the woods."
"I just caught a glimpse of him heading through the woods the way we came in, so I ran down the hill and into the yard to make the lights come on. But I couldn't be sure he'd notice them, so I threw the sledgehammer in the pond to make him turn around. He noticed that!" She finished.
"We all noticed that," Denning chimed in. "We heard someone shouting after that."
"And a lot of crashing noises," Grace added. "I'm guessing he made a beeline back toward the house at that point."
