The walls are paneled in dark wood, the kind that belonged in hunting lodges in the seventies. There’s a mounted deer head above the doorway. A quilt folded at the foot of a narrow bed that ain’t mine.
For a split second, I don’t breathe.
Then everything hits at once.
The warnings. The missing girls. The note in my car. The way Pearly Gates smiles like it owns the county. The way people look at me like I’m a headline waiting to happen.
My heart starts slamming so hard it makes my vision pulse.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
I slide my legs off the edge of the bed and stumble to the door. The handle turns easy.
Too easy.
I yank it open and step out onto a small wooden porch.
And freeze.
Water.
Everywhere.
A lake stretches out in all directions, gray and wide under a cloudy sky. The cabin, or whatever this is, sits on stilts, a narrow dock jutting out to the right. Trees line the far shore like a wall.
There’s no road.
No cars.
No escape.
A noise claws up my throat. “No. No, no, no.”
I spin back inside, heart pounding so hard I think I might pass out.
They took me.
They finally took me.
Pearly Gates. Elijah. Someone. I don’t even know which version of betrayal hurts worse.
I back into the room and that’s when I see it.
A folded piece of paper on the small wooden table.
My hands shake as I grab it, because my body is already sure this is a ransom note or a warning or a list of rules I won’t survive.
The handwriting is unmistakable.
Blocky. Pressed hard enough to dent the paper.
Brit,
It ain’t kidnapping. It’s camping. Stay put. I’ll send a boat with supplies.
Oaks
For a second, I just stare at it.
