An incongruous sound.“You hear that?”
Nate nodded grimly.He pointed to the cabin that had just come into view.“It’s coming from there.You first or me?”
He didn’t want to give credit to Nate for offering it as a choice, so he just adjusted his grip on his gun.“Follow me.”
*
Jill didn’t knowwhy she was bothering to scream.Unless Aly came up to the cabin looking for Cal, no one was going to hear her.
She bit back a sob.Crying wasn’t going to get her anywhere.So she tried to move the chair again, without toppling herself over.If she could scoot the chair over to the phone, she could…
What the hell are you going to do?
She didn’t know, but having a goal kept her from coming totally unglued.Grandma and Cal could handle that guy.Sure, he had a gun, but Cal was young and strong… ish.Probably.He was looking better than he had been.That had to mean something, right?
And Grandma…
Grandma had just seemed so resigned to it.Maybe this would all make some kind of sense eventually.Maybe everyone and everything was fine.
Yeah, right.
A tear trailed down her cheek, annoying because she was letting the tear win and because she couldn’t wipe it away, it tickled on its way down.
“Come on, Jill,” she muttered to herself, trying for some kind of pep talk while despair sank deep.
Then she heard a knock at the door.She was almost surprised enough to be rendered utterly speechless.
Then it sounded again and she found her voice.“Come in!Please, help!”
The door swung open, and Jill nearly sobbed in relief.Nate and Detective Hayes.She wasn’t Hayes’s biggest fan.He’d been mostly kind about questioning Grandma over Benjamin Bennet’s case, but he’d been so dismissive of Cal’s traumatic amnesia, it had annoyed her.
She didn’t trust him—butGod, she was glad to see him with Nate.Even if she didn’t know how or why they were involved.They had guns and knew what they were doing.
“What the hell happened?”Nate and Detective Hayes demanded in unison.
They both rushed over, and without discussing it, started undoing the bonds—Nate taking the ones at her wrist, Jake the ones tying her feet to the chair.
“Daryl Everly.”Jill sniffled, trying not to let the relief get to her.“I got Aly’s text that Cal and Sam were coming, so when the knock happened, I opened the door without even bothering to look.”
She rubbed her wrists once Nate got them free, but Jake was struggling with the knots around her ankles.
“He was demanding to know where Grandma was, and then he took her and Cal out the back.I don’t know why.I didn’t understand any of it.But he took them.We have to go find them.He had a gun, so we have to follow them.”
“What about Sam?”Nate asked, kneeling to her other leg to help Jake untie her.
“I haven’t seen Sam.Just Cal came in.Just Cal and Grandma left with him.Out the back.”
Nate stopped what he was doing, worry clear all over his face.“You didn’t see Sam at all?”
Jill shook her head.
They finally got her legs free, and Nate was heading for the back door before Jill could even get to her feet.
“Call the police.Tell them everything that happened,” the detective said as he followed Nate’s path out the back.“Lock the doors and stay here.”
Stay here.
They were absolutely out of their minds if they thought she was going to sit here and wait to find out what was happening to her grandmother.
