“We’re here, kid. Just hang on. Your uncle is right behind us.” Tara blinked. She was home. She stared at Detective Allen without a single memory of how she’d come to be in this car, which was weird. The last thing she remembered was the rescue team finding that teenager and his little sister in a closet, hearing the boy asking if they’d found his mom and dad, and knowing their parents were alive and already in the hospital. She had tried to find the words to say it, but the ability to communicate with the living was momentarily gone. Allen repeated himself. “Your uncle is on the way.” That’s when she realized she needed to get out of the car. “I have a key,” she mumbled, opened the door and was out and stumbling up on the porch before he could help. “Dang hard-headed kid,” Allen muttered. After his last visit here when her ghost had gotten all mad at him and Rutherford, he was afraid to go into the house with her. But his conscience wouldn’t let him drive off, so he waited until Pat Carmichael got home before he left.
