But he wasn’t on the bed. He wasn’t anywhere in the room. Oh, heavens—had he somehow left while she’d been fumbling in the dark? Wouldn’t he have at least said good-bye?

She switched on the overhead light and there he was, fully dressed, waiting by the front door. Oh God, he was going.

“Nick, I’m really sorry, but my aunt Vera is missing and I have to leave. Believe me I wouldn’t go unless I had to.” She swallowed heavily. “But, wouldn’t you like to stay the night? I might not be too long.”

Just the thought of coming back to an empty house made her heart clench.

He didn’t answer, just opened the door. “Let’s go, Charity.” He had a grim expression which she couldn’t decipher. She was in a hurry, but she stopped when she saw his face. Was that anger? No, not anger. But what was it?

“Go?”

Snow was already accumulating in the foyer through the open door. “I’m not letting you drive in this weather. You can tell me all about this in the car. Now move.”

Charity started at his tone. “But—” She was talking to the empty air. He’d disappeared into a white swirl.

Charity locked up and followed Nick as fast as she could over the slick ice-covered path down to the street where Nick’s car was parked. What a nightmare of a night.

Her heart squeezed and she prayed to the god of good, elderly women that Aunt Vera had simply wandered into the basement or the garage.

It felt like forever but was probably only a minute before the shiny black fender of the Lexus appeared between sheets of snow.

It looked like they were taking Nick’s car. This was good news and bad news. His car was undoubtedly better equipped to deal with bad weather than hers. It was powerful and would hold the road much better than hers. That was the good news. The bad news was that Nick was a poky driver, overly cautious. Charity wanted to get to her uncle’s house as fast as possible and Nick was guaranteed to take forever getting there.

In good weather it was a twenty-minute drive. In bad weather forty minutes. Nick, slow, careful driver that he was, could take almost an hour. In that hour, Aunt Vera could die.

Nick was behind the wheel, the engine running, windshield wipers clacking back and forth, passenger door open. Charity poked her head down.

“Nick, um, do you want me to drive? I know the way and—”

“No,” he answered curtly, jaws clenched.

“But—”

“Get in. Fast.” There was real command in his voice, flat and imperative. “Now, Charity.” He glanced at her briefly. One look was enough.

Charity instinctively obeyed, scrambling into the passenger seat as fast as she could. The powerful engine idled, the vibrations a low hum of power under her. It was like sitting on a tiger in the instant before it leaped.

“Buckle up.” Charity turned her head. Nick’s face was completely impassive, devoid of all expression. She was so disoriented and frightened she’d forgotten to buckle her seat belt. Driving in a snowstorm without a seat belt was just asking for trouble.

“Tell me where we’re going.” Nick’s tone was flat, remote.

“Ferrington. It’s a small town about fifteen miles—”

“I know where Ferrington is. Hold on.”

Hold on? Charity reached for the pull-down handle over the door, wondering why she had to hold on, when the car suddenly shot forward violently, pressing her against the seat back like an astronaut during liftoff. In a second, it seemed, they were at the end of her street, still—amazingly—alive. A miracle considering she’d never dared to drive this fast on a sunny, dry day, and she was a woman who liked her speed.

On icy roads and in the middle of a snowstorm, this speed was suicidal.

A scream vibrated in her throat and she clamped her lips shut. A scream might distract Nick and that could prove fatal at this speed, in this weather. One wrong move and they’d die.

Nick continued gunning the big, heavy car, somehow knowing the next corner was near, though it was almost impossible to see past the white flurries. You could only see the road ahead in fleeting moments when the curtain of snow parted for only the briefest of instants. The Lexus was shooting ahead at an impossible speed, rounding the corner onto Wingate inside a couple of seconds. She clamped her lips shut against a scream. They were sliding wildly out of control….

No.

Not sliding out of control. The car straightened and remained steady on the road, traveling much too fast, but in a straight line.

Braced to die, Charity finally pulled in a deep breath, her first in what felt like forever. Nick was driving so fast it terrified her, but he seemed to be in total control. Just when she thought they’d crash into a van parked on the street or would climb onto the sidewalk and hit a tree, Nick somehow righted the car without braking. He seemed to have a sixth sense for what the car could do on the icy roads and pushed it to those limits and never an inch further.

“What’s in Ferrington and why are we going there?” Nick’s voice was utterly calm as he corrected for a skid the instant the wheels slid under them. Thank God there were no other lunatics on the road other than them, or they’d already be dead. Charity braced herself as they whizzed around another corner and Nick took what she recognized as a smart shortcut to Ferrington.

She had to remember to breathe, transfixed by the bright columns of the headlights creating two yellow tunnels in the white nightmare.

He’d asked something….

Charity had been staring at the road ahead, ready to shout useless instructions to Nick. At the sound of his calm voice, she turned and watched him for a second—steady, in complete control—and relaxed a tiny bit, just enough to gather her thoughts.

“My aunt and uncle live in Ferrington, or rather in the country outside town. They’re elderly. My uncle called to say that my aunt is missing. He can’t find her anywhere.”

“How elderly?”

“Uncle Franklin is eighty-seven and Aunt Vera is eighty-four.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “So you’re telling me that an eighty-four-year old woman might be out in this weather?”

Impossibly, the car picked up a little more speed while Charity’s heart leaped into her throat.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Aunt Vera gets a little, um, confused at times.”

This was so hard. Uncle Franklin refused to accept even the idea that his beloved wife was deteriorating mentally. Each time something happened, he would put it down to her having the flu or to not having slept well or having accidentally forgotten something. He refused to acknowledge her failing mental health to the outside world, to her, and—perhaps most tragically—to himself.

It was why he called Charity instead of the police when his wife disappeared in a snowstorm. In this case, Charity understood. He was probably right. Ferrington’s police force consisted of an overweight county sheriff who drank and lived twenty miles away. His clueless, borderline retarded deputy would be of even less help. Sheriff Hodgkins could never find Aunt Vera, not in a million years. He could barely find his way home after a night on the town.

And by the time Uncle Franklin got through to the Highway Patrol or some law enforcement authority that could actually be effective, hours would have passed and Aunt Vera could die.

“Confused, how?” Nick didn’t look over at her but she could feel his attention on her like a hand touching her.

Confused, how? Very good question. Uncle Franklin would be devastated if she gave too much away. What was happening to his wife was eating him alive. He didn’t want Aunt Vera exposed to criticism or ridicule. “She, um, sleepwalks. Sometimes.”

“Sometimes? How often?”

More and more lately. “Some. I think that’s what must have happened tonight. Uncle Franklin woke up and she wasn’t there. I’m really hoping that she didn’t go outside in this weather. Once we found her in the basement. Another time she’d, um, climbed up into the attic. He needs me to help look because his knees aren’t very good and the stairs down to the basement and up to the attic are very steep.”