Outside, Nolene grabs my elbow in a pinching grip and marches me to a black RAV parked in the driveway.
“Get in.”
I climb into the car and she closes the door. After a moment’s hesitation, where I imagine jumping out and running away and receiving a bullet in the back, I buckle myself in.
Nolene slides into the car and hits the button to lock the doors. She stomps on the accelerator, the gun still pointed at me.
“You think you’re so clever, worming your way into everyone’s hearts,” she spits out as the car takes off with a lurch. She snatches the cap off my head and flings it onto the backseat. “You’ve messed with Kane’s head, making him think he’s fallen for you.”
I shrink back from the fury spewing out of her.Where is Nolene taking me? What is she planning?
As the car careens recklessly down the sanctuary’s dirt road, any hope of a rescue fades as we drive farther and farther away from the main house.
Swerving around a pothole, Nolene isn’t finished with her bitter outpouring. “You know, Kane would be with me now if it wasn’t for you. You’ve compromised a strong man, made him weak, made him forget what he’s fighting for.”
Hanging onto my seatbelt, I make myself ask, “What are you going to do to me?”
“What Kane should have done.” She exits a sharp right onto a tarred road. “Kane was going to abort this mission. He’s had your father’s media statement for days and he’s done nothing about it.”
The part of my mind still holding onto a kernel of hope for Kane and me, for some kind of future for us, rejoices at Nolene’s words. But when she pulls off her Zorro mask and looks me full in the face, fear crushes that hope.
“Goodnight, princess.”
The last thing I see is the butt of Nolene’s gun moving swiftly toward me. I experience a bright flare of pain and then nothing.
66
KANE
––––––––
Wednesday, July 21
“I can’t find Amy anywhere,” Mel announces urgently.
Her words knock the air from my lungs.
“Are you sure, love?” Ross asks.
Mel nods. She explains how she spotted the half-finished watermelon on the kitchen counter and assumed Amy needed the bathroom. After ten minutes, Mel went looking for her, but she wasn’t able to find Amy anywhere in the house.
Ross turns to me. “Could Amy have run away?”
That was my first thought, but the notion doesn’t sit right with me. I keep circling back to our conversation this morning. No, Amy won’t have run away.
The decision is made to split up to search the sanctuary. Ross and Mel comb the grounds, while I take Saba with me to check the stables and dispensary.
After fifteen minutes, with each second feeling like an hour to my increasingly frantic imagination, we regroup on the back porch. Ross delivers the news that Nolene is also missing.
Rage pounds inside my skull. It’s several seconds before I can speak. “She’s got Amy.”
If she hurt her...
Mel’s brow furrows in confusion. “Why would Nolene take Amy?”
To get back at me because she knows hurting Amy will hurt me.
My fingers tangle in Saba’s fur. Keeping it as brief as I can, I update them on Saturday’s conversation with Nolene, my dismissal of her from AFD.
