25 EVANGELINE LOOKED AROUND IN HORROR. She was standing under the nighttime sky in a wet mist, alone and vulnerable. How could she have been so careless? The first thing her parents had taught her, even before she’d been able to speak in complete sentences, was the dire importance of being in a secure location at midnight. Evangeline bolted for the house, only to find the back door locked. For a second she panicked and looked for a rock to break the glass. Before she found one, however, reason caught up with her. Breaking the window would frighten Mrs. Unger. There was another way in. Years ago, she had stolen and hidden a key to the front door for just such an emergency. It took her a couple of minutes to remember the right window and even longer to tease the key out of the crack between the stucco wall of the house and the underside of the windowsill. Her fingers had been smaller then. While she worked at it, she cast angry glances next door, where Jax’s bike was locked up in its usual spot.
