No Holding Back

“Mom even fed herself part of her dinner tonight. I made lasagna.”

“Good for her! Her favorite. That’s wonderful.” She smiled, ashamed of herself for not being grateful enough as the clock ticked toward midnight for the few good events of the past year. Dad’s latest employer, The Broadway Symphony, on the brink of collapse, had been saved by a generous donor who wiped out the orchestra’s debt and allowed her father to keep the first job he’d ever held down this long—going on five years now. And Susie, a nursing angel of mercy, had showed up at their door, highly recommended by Mom’s doctor, offering to help out with Mom’s rehabilitation right there in their home for practically slave wages, saying she needed the experience.

Before those miracles, Hannah had gone through agonizing feelings of helplessness with her own bank account in no shape to help. Prey to addiction and poverty, her parents hadn’t done much to give her a secure childhood, but especially now that they’d climbed out of the pit, she wanted them to have a secure retirement. “Tell Mom I love her and that I know this year will have her back to her old self. I’ll call tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell her. I hope it’s a good year for you, too, Hannah-Banana.” He coughed to clear his throat—a legacy of lifelong smoking. “Maybe a nice young man will come along.”

“Maybe.” She rolled her eyes. Yeah, maybe. Maybe he’d even stick around longer than a few weeks or a month. And maybe cancer would start curing itself and global warming spontaneously reverse.

“You take care of yourself. Drive safely.”

“I will. Love you, Dad.” She ended the call with another pang of guilt as the sleet continued to bombard Matilda, collecting on the roads at an alarming rate. This was crazy. If anything happened to her, what would it do to her poor father who’d already had his relatively new sobriety and stability threatened with her way-too-young mom’s shocking stroke and his livelihood nearly yanked out from under him?

Hannah was being selfish. She should turn around now and crawl home, give up this crazy quest until the weather was better.

Except she’d already come this far…And it was Jack Brattle. What if someone else in the business had overheard Dee-Dee? What if Hannah lost this huge long shot at a scoop? What if? What if? What if?

She put Matilda in gear and moved slowly forward, wheels crunching ice. A flash of lightning made her jump and hold on to a wince while waiting for the expected thunder. Thun-dersnow. Whee. This only added to the fun.

Next driveway…No gates.

The wind started whipping in earnest, sending Matilda into a shimmy. Hannah narrowly avoided a largish branch on the road. Snow mixed with the sleet to reduce visibility further.

Oh goody.

Next driveway. She had to turn in and focus her headlights to see…

Gates! Creepy dark jail-like ones! Eureka. She’d found it. Or found something.

Out came her trusty BlackBerry. She called up the GPS system and noted her location. Bingo. Adrenaline rushed out to party. She had Jack Brattle’s address. 523 Hilltop Lane, West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Tomorrow she’d come back to—

More lightning. Close. A mere beat later thunder cracked the sky over her car. Wind gusted.

Hannah went rigid in her seat. The gate had opened a crack, then swung back. She swore it had. Matilda inched forward, Hannah peering through the torrential snow-sleet.

There. There it went again. Unlocked? It certainly looked that way. And, according to Dee-Dee, who seemed to be on the up-and-up since her directions had panned out so far, Jack Brattle wasn’t in residence. Hmm…

Wait, what was she thinking? He must have a full staff living on the estate and security up the wazoo. If she even crossed the property line she’d probably be surrounded by guard dogs and torn to shreds.

But maybe before they quite devoured her, she could get a glimpse of the house. After all, by now she had the perfect excuse. A lone disoriented traveler, lost on her way back from a party and…Help! Where was she? Could she depend on the kindness of strangers until the worst of the storm passed?

And by the way, while she waited, could she whip out her BlackBerry, take pictures of every room in the house and interview everyone old enough to speak?

They’d go for it. Sure they would.

Now. The gates. She fumbled under her seat for the umbrella she kept in the car. Of course it wasn’t there. Where had she lost this one? Who knew?

No umbrella. And since she’d been to a party she was wearing her couple-times-a-year wool coat and not her everyday water-resistant parka with hood. Not to mention open-toed heels instead of warm fleece-lined boots.

Oof.

But okay, for Jack Brattle…

She dashed out of the car, whistling “This Could Be the Start of Something Big,” one arm up to keep from being pelted, which accomplished pretty much nothing. But oh joy, it was worth every thwacking and stinging and drenching moment because, hot damn, the gate was really and truly unlocked!

Not only that, the hinges were beautifully oiled, so the huge structure moved soundlessly and easily with one good shove. Was breaking and entering meant to be or what?

Back in the car, giggling with cold and nervous excitement and residual champagne, she applied her wet foot to Matilda’s accelerator and then…

She, reporter Hannah O’Reilly, gained admittance to what she was starting to dare believe was Jack Brattle’s estate, and got thwacked, stung and drenched pushing the gate nearly closed behind her.

Woohoo!

The long driveway curved through a wooded area thick with tall evergreens that blocked out the worst of the assault. A good thing because otherwise, given the current visibility, she could easily have ended up bumper to bark at some point.

Two or three tensely expectant minutes later—no attack dogs yet—the trees gave way to a large grassy lawn already frosted white. Matilda slid gracefully sideways on the last turn; Hannah reduced her speed, heart thumping even harder than it had been. She definitely did not want to get stuck here.

Another gust of wind rocked the car and sent snow flying nearly horizontal. Hannah pined briefly for her cozy—the politically correct term for tiny—apartment, for sitting safely in bed with her warming blanket heating the sheets, a good book in her hand, a hot mug of tea on her nightstand.

But then…no Jack Brattle scoop. After years of an unsatisfying career fund-raising while writing too-often rejected magazine articles and pieces for her neighborhood paper on the side, she’d managed to land a job in journalism, which she’d wanted since she was a kid and had written and produced her own paper: Hannah’s Daily News, circulation, approximately four, including herself; number of issues: twenty. She still had them somewhere.

Another flash of lightning, a clap of thunder. The sleet rattled her roof in earnest now—could it really hail during a snowstorm?

She guided Matilda around the circular driveway, came to a stop opposite the grand front steps, complete with stone Grecian urns. Snow obscured the view, but it wasn’t hard to tell the house was a colossal Colonial.

This wasn’t how the other half lived, this was how the other millionth lived.

So…

Car in Park, she sat for a minute before switching off the engine. She really didn’t want to drive all the way back to Philly in this mess. The roads were dangerous and the trip could take hours. Options were either to wait out the storm right here in Matilda…she had plenty of gas to run the heater periodically…or see if anyone was home. No lamps glowed in any windows, at least not in the front of the house, at least as far as she could see. The light shining over the entrance could be on a timer.

Nothing ventured…

She pulled the handle and nearly had her arm torn off as a gust of wind wrenched Matilda’s door wide open. Her excitement gave way to jitters. This storm took itself quite seriously. Now she hoped someone was home, not only for the sake of her immortality-guaranteeing article, but to make sure she survived this.

Up the steps, she nearly slipped twice, squinting through the sting of ice, finally reaching the front door. Holding her breath, she rang the bell, then crossed her fingers for good measure and crossed her arms over her chest, strands of her ruined upsweep whipping her cheek, earrings turning into tiny daggers repeatedly flung at her neck. Another gust rocked her back on her probably ruined heels. Hannah made a grab at the house’s front-door handle and miraculously stayed upright.

This was not that much fun. At least not yet.

Another poke at the bell, another shivery icy minute or so waiting, though by now she knew it was ludicrous. On New Year’s Eve with the master abroad any remaining staff would have the night off, and if there were some type of butler or housekeeper on duty, he-she would have answered by now.

She stepped away and craned up at the facade to see if any lights had gone on in response to her ring. Though housekeeper-butler rooms would be in the back, wouldn’t they? She wasn’t that up on her mansion architecture.

A horrifically bright flash of lightning, a massive crack of thunder, a truly terrifying assault of wind. Hannah yelled and leapt toward the door, pressing herself against it for the tiny bit of shelter theoretically offered by the ledge above.

Then the odd impression of something dark swooping through the air in her peripheral vision, and the open-mouthed disbelief as the limb of a tree—large enough to be a tree itself—landed on her car.