Her brows shot up. It was most Jason had ever said about his family. Everything else had come in bits and pieces. Now it was making a bit more sense. “What church is it?”

“Nothing you’d ever heard of. It’s small. And it’s gotten smaller over the years. Now it just feels like a bunch of men who get together to talk about the old days.”

“What do the women do?”

“They don’t usually meet with them. The women sorta do their own thing.”

“Well, that sounds archaic.”

Jason nodded emphatically. “It is. All their attitudes about women are straight out of the Dark Ages.”

“Seriously? There’re still groups around that support that crap?”

“I think it’s one of the reasons my mom left.”

Trinity could barely hear him over the pounding rain. “And it would explain why your dad feels he has the right to restrict conversations between the two of you. Wow. I can’t imagine being married to someone who was that high-handed.” She looked at Jason, wondering if he’d ever talked to anyone else about his mom.

He abruptly grabbed the steering wheel, terror filling his face. “Watch out!”

She spun her gaze back to the road, her hands clenching the wheel as she hit the brakes. The road had vanished. A river flowed where the road had been a moment ago.

It was too late.

The car lifted and shuddered, moving to the left. She stomped on the brake, steering right. The car gently sank a few inches and jolted as her tires touched bottom. She hit the gas, praying she had traction. Twenty feet ahead, she could see the outline of the road.

The engine raced and then abruptly stopped.

Water in the engine.

The car jerked and swayed, the water lifting and pushing it to the left again. The water rushed around the car. Jason shouted, but she didn’t understand. She turned the key.

Nothing happened.

“It won’t start!”

Cold water touched her feet. She gasped, lifting them. She could barely see the water that flowed into the car from under her door.

“Holy crap!” Jason scrambled in his seat, lifting his feet. He turned to his door, yanking on the door handle. It wouldn’t open.

A small part of her brain acknowledged that the water outside the vehicle kept the door from opening. She peered out her door window. The water wasn’t high; it was just over the bottom of the door, enough to get water into the car and keep the doors from opening easily. The rear end of the car started to shift, turning the car to face the water.

Should she roll down the window?

“Should we crawl out?” she shouted at Jason. His eyes were wide in panic as he met her gaze. He couldn’t speak.

Frustration shot through her, muting some of her own panic. Jason wasn’t going to rescue them. She squinted through the windshield. It wasn’t too far to dry land. But how strong was the current? Should they get out or stay in the vehicle?

“Was there a river here?” she yelled.

“No. There’s never been water here,” he hollered back.

She felt a bit better, knowing they weren’t in the middle of a riverbed. Somewhere there’d simply been too much buildup of rain, and it’d followed the path of least resistance. And it’d found her car.

The vehicle rocked sharply, spinning ninety degrees.

Trinity shrieked.

Victoria watched Katy end her call.

“What happened? Where’s Trinity?” Victoria glanced at the clock on Katy’s microwave. Almost 4 P.M. “Was that the police?” She placed her briefcase on the kitchen desk as she slipped out of her wet coat. She’d managed to get an hour of work in at the office after her hotel break with Seth. She’d returned to Katy’s to grab her things and go back to Seth’s hotel. She was tired and ready for a quiet evening watching TV from the bed with Seth.

Katy jumped, clearly unaware Victoria had entered the kitchen during the conversation. She turned teary eyes Victoria’s way.

“I don’t know. This isn’t like her. She always calls when she’s going to be late, but she’s been gone all day, and I can’t reach her. That was the police. I called Detective Callahan.”

“Good.” Victoria slid into a chair at the kitchen table next to Katy. She gripped one of the woman’s hands, holding her gaze. “She’s going to be okay. Her phone’s probably dead and maybe she’s having some car issues.”

“But she hasn’t called. She always calls when she’s gone this long,” Katy repeated. “Surely she could ask someone to use a cell phone.” Her eyes were red-rimmed. “After all the crap she’s been through in the last week, I don’t like this. Something is wrong.”

“I heard you say she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Are you sure that’s true?”

The woman snorted. “I can’t say what’s true anymore. You were a teenage girl once. Did you always tell your parents the truth?” Victoria saw her eyes shadow a bit as she recalled Victoria’s circumstance with her parents.

“Actually, I almost always did. But I’ve learned I was an exception to that teen girl rule,” she said slowly. “You know, Trinity asked me some odd questions about a friend this morning.” She thought hard to remember the conversation. “And it was a boy she was asking me about.”

Katy studied her. “She’s said nothing to me about a boy.”

Victoria had a small sting of guilt. “I think I was in the right place at the right time. If you’d been in the room, no doubt she would have asked you. Anyway, she said he’d asked her to do something, and she wasn’t comfortable.”