Brenda Chiatovich:
Now you know one reason my daughter’s picture is here. But wait, there is more.
Tiffany Chiatovich Melendez:
So, did you guess? My Mom and my Grand Pop wanted the perfect name for the bad girl in this story. So they picked one of my nick-names, Peaches.
Oh, yes. I have other nick-names, but one will do for now.
The old couple hated driving after dark. They had done their best to make it home before the sun set, and were within five miles when it turned night. The two of them sat in the car looking like a matched set of salt and pepper shakers: Grey hair, black rim glasses. They had recently celebrated their fiftieth anniversary together: Married at a time when a twenty year old man marrying an eighteen year old girl seemed a natural, normal, thing to do.
Today they had been visiting their grandson and his new wife who seemed such a nice girl.
They were two miles away from home when something rolled into the road ahead of them.
He slammed on the brakes, trying not to hit the object.
They sat, at first, shaking. He was holding the steering wheel, she was holding her purse. They tried to peer through the darkness and uncertain headlights to see what they had almost run over. It was too close to the bumper for them to see it.
Slowly he opened the door. “Don’t let anybody in, you hear.” He said.
“Oh, Herbert. I wish we had taken that thing our grandson tried to give us. He said it would call 911 from anywhere.”
“Could be, my dear, but even if we had it, by the time anybody got out here to us what ever was going to be done would have already happened. You just stay put. I’ll go see. Mayhap it is nothing.”
“Oh, I know it is something awful.”
Herbert made sure to lock the door. He didn’t let on what she said bothered him, but he was painfully aware, over fifty years of marriage, that her instincts were more often right than his logic.
What he found was a young woman. Her eyes were wild, but she was not struggling. He rolled her over, away from the front bumper of the car. Her hands and feet were tied. Simple knots for an old sailor to undo. He did not have a pocket knife and he did not need one. Soon he had her loose and on her feet. His wife peered through the window at them taking it all in.
He took L C around to the passenger side to show his wife so she could see for herself it was just a girl with him. Together they laid her across the back seat.
“Did you hit her, Herbert?”
“I don’t know honey. Question is do we go to the house and call from the phone or go back to town to the hospital.”
“Hospital. We don’t know who did this to her. They could be anywhere. We will all be safe at the hospital. I do hope the poor girl is going to be okay. She looks like she has been through hell and back again.”
Herbert nodded and turned the car around.
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The Homewrecker Series (tm) 
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