Book Beginning

I was just remembering how I used to send snippets from my book along to you.

Here's how my book opens:

--------------------------------
The knock came at dusk.

Olivia had just settled down in her favorite chair, the one she'd patched with duct tape colored with markers to match the worn green leather. Her dinner, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, balanced precariously on the arm of the chair; a book was cradled in her bare legs.

The knock was sharp, rattling the old, warped glass in the front door. She knew without looking who it was. They had come without their lights and sirens, knowing that she would run.

The book slid from her lap, the sandwich flipped onto the floor. Olivia was halfway up the stairs before the second knock came. She'd been preparing for this for almost six months, since that horrible day in Portland. Her fifteenth birthday had been far from happy.

Olivia's bedroom faced the street and though the sun was fading, she didn't turn on the light. A buzz of voices from below floated up and were muffled by the window, shut tight despite the thick summer air. She knelt down, pulling the small suitcase from beneath her bed. Scattered pieces of cat food bit into her knees.

"Ziggy," she called in a whisper as she peeled the cat food from her skin. "Let's go, Ziggy."

Two yellow eyes followed by a shadowed body inched into the room, hugging the door frame. Ziggy always came when called - like a dog - but hesitantly, with a cat's suspicious mind. Olivia scooped him up before he could slink away. He resisted as she guided him into his carrier, landing one good scratch on the back of Olivia's hand before she latched the door closed.

Olivia rubbed the sting from the scratch. A deep voice called her name from the lawn below.

Across the room, the crystal covered box shone in what remained of the day's light, projecting muted ribbons of color along the wall. Olivia sat Ziggy down and hurried to the box. I wish I could take it, she thought. Covered with one-hundred and two perfectly cut teardrop chandelier crystals, the box was simply too heavy to add to her suitcase. Olivia lifted the lid and grabbed the money hidden inside, shoving it into the pocket of her shorts. Forty-three dollars and sixty-seven cents at her last count. It had been hard to save money; there had been so much she hadn't realized she would need.

The bedroom window shook in its casing. The pounding was louder now, less a suggestion and more a command. Beneath it all, the sound of splitting wood echoed.

"Help me!" Olivia thought as she raced through the short hallway, her narrow hips buffeting her suitcase and cat alternately. They hadn't been as patient as she'd hoped. She needed more time.

The rope ladder was hidden beneath a quilt at the bottom of the closet in her grandmother's room. A kaleidoscope of yellow and orange polyester, Olivia's grandmother had made the quilt at age twelve. The design was hand sewn, the irregular serpentine stitches still holding - regretfully, Olivia thought - after sixty years. As she threw back the quilt, Olivia's hurried heart shattered.

The rope ladder was gone.