Read Online Your Chariot Awaits by Lorena McCourtney - Free Book Online

I’d feel better if the limo were properly locked.
    The shaggy grass between the concrete walkway and gravel driveway reminded me it was time to get the mower out again, and my bare feet squishing through the night-damp grass told me I should have taken time to put on some shoes.
    But this would just take a minute. Moose had resumed barking, but he was barking at me now, of course.
    I opened the driver’s side door. The dome light came on, casting a reassuring rectangle of light across the grass.
    But no, the keys weren’t on the front seat. I frowned. Had I used the keys rather than the button to open the trunk, and then left them in the lock?
    I turned to go around to the back of the limo and look.
    And plunged headlong into an explosion of silvery stars and then a pit of darkness . . .

7
    T here is no awareness of time when you’re out cold, but I knew minutes or hours had passed, because I was now looking up at a pale dawn sky, not foggy darkness. I also had a different view of the world now, a very peculiar view. The limousine loomed over me, the door open. Beside me, the underside stretched out in a gray maze of pipes and springs and unidentifiable car stuff.
    I was, it appeared, flat on my back.
    I felt groggy and stiff . . . and why was my right leg bent under me, and driveway gravel digging into my backside?
    And my head, I realized with a sudden groan, oh, my head . . .
    I reached up to touch it gingerly, and something moved to block the pale sky overhead. Tom Bolton’s frowning face. What was he doing here?
    I felt a strange sense of disorientation, as if I’d plunged into a time warp in one of those science fiction books Rachel likes to read.
    â€œYou okay?” Tom asked.
    â€œI don’t know. What happened?” I wiggled my lips. They’d gone puttyish, slow moving and sluggish.
    â€œI noticed the limousine door standing open. I came over to see what was going on and found you lying here unconscious.”
    I sat up hastily. Mistake. Limousine, Tom, and pale sky whirled as if we’d just been engulfed in some cosmic readjustment. I waited until the whirling stopped, then winced as I fingered the back of my head and found a lump that felt like the shape and size of Texas.
    I offered the only explanation that seemed plausible. “I must have stumbled and bumped my head on the door when I fell.”
    â€œWhat were you doing out here in the middle of the night?” Tom’s tone oozed disapproval, as if he figured I had to have been up to something nefarious.
    I hadn’t been, but why was I out here? And in my pajamas too. Straining to think back, I remembered trying on that chauffeur’s uniform. Yes, and waking up in the night, being worried about the limousine. Coming outside, opening the limo door . . .
    Then that big, dark pit.
    I got my hands under me and tried to lever myself to my feet. Tom pushed me down.
    â€œYou’d better stay right there. I called 911. An ambulance and someone from the sheriff’s department will be here in a few minutes.”
    Alarm joined the foggy mist in my head. Police? Ambulance? I knew I should thank Tom for coming over to check on the open door of the limo, but at the moment I didn’t feel too appreciative. Would they charge some huge fee just for coming out with the ambulance, even if I didn’t need it?
    Again I tried to rise; again he pushed me back. I looked at his scowl and had the peculiar feeling he wasn’t so much concerned with my welfare as he was with keeping me immobilized until someone from the sheriff’s department arrived.
    â€œPerhaps you could call back and tell them everything is okay here,” I suggested.
    He didn’t move. “Soon as I saw that limousine in the neighborhood, I knew we were in for trouble,” he said darkly.
    His logic escaped me. “Why?”
    â€œMafia. Crooks. Drug dealers. Hookers. It’s people like that who use limousines.” He