"Then, what do we do?" The desperation in my voice is humiliating, but I can't hide it. "Just wait here while someone out there plans our deaths?"
"We wait while I figure out who sent you and why they didn't just come directly for me. There's a reason for this game they're playing, and I need to understand it before I can counter it." He moves back to the stairs, pausing with one foot on the bottom step. "You stay here, stay quiet, and stay alive. That's your job right now."
"Stay here? You're keeping me prisoner in your cellar?"
"I'm keeping you safe in the one place I can control, Sloane." He starts up the stairs, then stops and looks back at me. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you got dragged into this. You didn't deserve it."
"Neither did Domingo Maddox."
His expression hardens. "You don't know anything about what he deserved. You saw him for twenty minutes in an ER. I knew him for years. He was no saint, and the world isn't worse off without him. But killing him broke me anyway because some lines, you can't uncross. Some actions, you can't take back."
He climbs the rest of the stairs and disappears through the door. But I expect to hear the lock click shut and it doesn't. Maybe that's his way of letting me know I'm not caged, or maybe he's testing to see if I'll run again.
What I do know is that if he's right and there are men the caliber of Domingo Maddox coming after me, the police can't stop them. I dug into the wrong fucking hornet's nest and I'm going to regret that.
And if I run to the cops, Dane will get what he deserves. Maybe he should. But I'll be alone to fight these sick fucks on my own and I'll end up in a wooden box buried six feet under faster than anyone could blink an eye.
Maybe Dane's right and this is the safest place.
Maybe I just need to wait it out.
And maybe, if I do everything right, I'll make it out the other side of this still breathing.
5
DANE
Three days of having Sloane Grady in my house and I'm ready to put a bullet through my own skull. She argues about everything—the temperature, the food, the fact that I locked her in the cellar for her own protection. She's got opinions on how I organize my spice cabinet, criticisms about my cooking, and a running commentary on my lack of social graces that would drive a monk to violence.
But I can't leave her alone. Not with whoever sent her still out there, watching, waiting for their next move. Which means when I need supplies from town, she's coming with me.
"This is unnecessary," she says from the passenger seat as we bounce down the gravel road toward town. She's wearing my clothes—flannel shirt rolled at the sleeves, jeans cinched with a belt, boots two sizes too big. Her auburn hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and without the slinky dress and drug-induced haze, she looks younger and healthier, annoyingly attractive in a girl-next-door way that I'm trying very hard not to notice.
"Your stealing my truck again would be unnecessary," I counter. "This is practical."
"I could've stayed at the cabin. I'm not going to run. Where would I go? I'd get lost on this mountain."
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. "You stole my truck the first chance you got. Forgive me if I don't trust you to sit still for two hours."
She crosses her arms, staring out the window. "That was different. I thought you were going to kill me."
"And now?"
"Now I think you're paranoid and controlling, but probably not actively trying to murder me." She pauses. "Probably."
The town materializes around us and I pull into the IGA parking lot and kill the engine. The grocery store is the only one for thirty miles, a squat building with faded siding and a hand-painted sign that's been there since the seventies.
At some point, we'll have to go into Dunkirk to get Sloane some clothing, but for now, what I have is all I have. She’s probably embarrassed about being seen wearing that get up, but it's better than the risk of her being found at my cabin by the men who are hunting me while I’m not around to protect her.
"Remember," I say as we climb out, "you're Sarah, my sister. You're visiting from out of town."
"I know the story." Her tone is acid. "Though I don't appreciate being called mentally unstable to half the town."
"Would you prefer I let them arrest you for grand theft auto?" I lift an eyebrow at her and she slams the truck door as she glares.
She stalks toward the entrance while I grab a cart and follow, already regretting this decision.
Inside, the IGA is exactly what you'd expect—narrow aisles, limited selection, prices higher than they should be because there's no competition. I head straight for the meat section while Sloane drifts toward produce, and for five minutes we shop in blissful silence, mostly because she's at the opposite end of the tiny store, though I do hear her complaining about the price of fresh kale.
