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the soles of his shoes. “A lot of older homes have doors like this. I see it all the time. People don’t want to believe the times have changed. Crime has no boundaries.”
    The sound of a quiet gasp made him spin around. Danielle’s pink mouth formed a perfect O as she buckled in pain. Patrick’s arm snaked out and grabbed her. “Stop.” He stretched across and flipped on the light. Shards of glass littered the floor.
    “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Danielle whispered. She lifted her foot. Little drops of blood added a garish hue to the yellow-stained linoleum.
    The color drained from her face. He slipped one arm around her waist and guided her toward the kitchen chair. “You okay?” She looked different from the polished businesswoman he had seen in the light of day. In cotton sweats, hair mussed from sleep and no makeup, Danielle reminded him of the girl he once knew. The tomboy next door who he had grown to care deeply about.
    She shrugged and scooted back in the chair. Clutching her foot with both hands, she leaned forward for a closer look. Her face immediately twisted in disgust and she clamped her eyes shut. She sucked in a breath and lowered her foot, leaning back as if to gain some distance. “I’m not very good with blood.”
    “Let me.” He waited for a brief second for some acknowledgment. Without opening her eyes, she nodded her acquiescence.
     
    Patrick’s hands felt warm on her icy foot. The pain was a distraction from her embarrassment. How dumb to walk across the glass-littered floor with bare feet. In her defense, it had been dark.
    A tingling started in her fingertips and threatened to race up her arms. If she didn’t get ahold of herself, her stomach would revolt and her head would be spinning in no time. Focusing on something specific outside of herself had been a little trick she had learned to rein in her panic. She glanced down at her foot as Patrick pressed a paper towel to the wound to stem the flow of blood. Her stomach turned queasy.
    She pressed her eyes closed again and let her mind drift. An uncharacteristic thought flitted across her brain— I wish my toenails were polished . A smile pulled at her lips. She suddenly felt fourteen again. Patrick Kingsley, the coolest senior at Mayport High School, was crouched at her feet tending to her injury.
    A nervous giggle escaped her lips. “Remember the time we played touch football and I stepped on a prickly weed?”
    Patrick lifted a brow, never taking his focus off her foot. “You howled like a banshee.”
    “Did not.”
    He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Did too.”
    Danielle rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
    Her attention drifted back to the gaping hole in the door, a few shards of glass poked out of the wood frame. Tendrils of panic snuffed out the brief moment of levity. “What do you think happened here?” She felt a slight tug on her foot.
    “Got it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Patrick pinching something both translucent and smeared with blood. She knew better than to look. He seemed a tad too excited about his success.
    Danielle wrestled the nausea clawing at her throat. “Can you toss it in the garbage, please?” She really needed to toughen up. She was such a wimp when it came to blood and guts.
    “It’s worse than it looks.” Patrick stood and glanced around. “Any Band-Aids? Gauze, maybe?”
    “Gram keeps a first-aid kit up there.” She pointed to the cabinet over the fridge. The same place her mother had hid the liquor.
    When he opened the cabinet, sure enough, he found the kit. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see any liquor. Why would she? Her mother—and her vodka—had disappeared a long time ago. Exactly seven days after they had arrived in Mayport for—in her mother’s words—a fresh start. Apparently Mom wanted a fresh start sans kids. The room seemed to close in around her.
    She turned her focus to Patrick. His gentle touch as he cleaned her wound was a testament to the kind of