AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I think we can both agree that this place is beautiful.”
He wasn’t wrong. It was.
Lena was still in the car. What was he going to do to her? Would he bury her too? I should have run when I had the chance. She didn’t deserve this.
The prick of pain in my elbow was the only warning I got before Nathan injected me again. This didn’t keep me still, this pulled me under. I had seconds, maybe, and I fought it. I needed to stay awake. The longer I stayed awake, the more I would have a chance.
Nathan laid me down, and all I could see was his silhouette against the lightening dawn sky. Nathan knew that too. His smile dripped with the knowledge that his face would be the last thing I ever saw.
“Goodbye, Evelyn.”
He closed me into darkness, and everything faded away.
Chapter 28
Lucas
The atmosphere in the truck was tense, and I was doing my best not to climb the walls. We were almost to the ranch. Daniel and Grant had the Nathan stand-in and were heading directly to the police station to secure him and get more help to find the man’s family. But he was not necessarily off the hook because he was under duress.
And we were speeding. Not as much as we would be if I were driving, but Jude was going easily twenty over, his jaw a grim line as he monitored the rear view.
My mind was still spinning. Hoping that I was wrong, that cell service had gone down around Garnet Bend at exactly the wrong time. That she was asleep in our bed and that there was literally any other explanation than what I knew deep in my gut.
That I had failed. That once again, I wasn’t there for the one person who needed me.
I kept calling her phone. Their phones, even though they never answered. The repetitive motion kept me sane. Barely.
The gates came into view, and we were going so fast that the truck barely cleared the edges. Dust flew up behind us. Everything looked perfect and normal. If it weren’t for the thundering of my heart, it could have been any night in a hundred in this beautiful place.
Jude slammed on the brakes and the truck slid to the side, spinning to a stop sideways in front of my house. I was out of the truck before it had come to a full stop. “Evelyn!”
I shouted it. Right now I didn’t give a shit. The door was locked, and I got it open faster than I thought possible, and... nothing. Aspen was lying in the living room, wagging his tail when he saw me. The laptop connected to the security system was still on the table.
“Evelyn?”
I sprinted up the stairs, and my stomach plummeted. The bed was unmade, and it looked like she’d gotten up in a hurry, but she wasn’t here. Pajamas were tossed on the bed, and she wasn’t in the bathroom either. My mind was blank with terror.
I got down the stairs and out the door, barely bothering to lock the door. Jude was still in the truck. “Harlan ran to the Bitterroot House. Let’s check the main one.”
“She’s not there,” I said.
Jude gunned the engine. “We have to be sure.”
It took all of thirty seconds to confirm that the building was empty, and we came out to Harlan running up from the direction of the guest houses. He shook his head. “No.”
“The cemetery,” I said. There was no part of me that wanted to imagine her there. But it was the next place that I could think of. The most obvious.
“Would he take her there before his countdown?”
“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know anything.” My voice was raw. I shouldn’t snap at them, but panic was wrapped around my chest and one breath was all it would take to snap me in half.
We were halfway to the cemetery when we saw the cars. “Fuck. Fuck.”
“That’s Lena’s car,” Jude said. Now he sounded almost as raw as I did. Please, no. Dread like ice crawled up my spine. Had he taken them both?
It was still dark, so it wasn’t until we slammed to a stop behind her car that we saw the body on the ground.
Liam was crumpled. He’d been taken from behind, and the way he’d fallen looked like he hadn’t fought. Or hadn’t had a chance to fight. I pressed my fingers to his pulse, and a tiny thread of relief ran through me. “He’s alive.”
