“Yep,” I said, taking another step back. “They are infuriating.”
“But you,” Leif said, shaking a finger at me. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get in my head. But I know you. You’re conspiring with them, just like that girl Belle. They sent her to try and weasel information from me. I didn’t realize it was a trap until too late. Now my compound is in disarray, the FBI is probably swarming it, and my daughters are missing.”
“I don’t know anything about your daughters.”
“Liar!” Leif screamed. “You and Hunter stole them from me. They went missing, and I know it was you. You laid that trap for me, after all. I should have known. God, I should have known. You women, you want everyone to think you’re dumb and pretty. I thought females were stupid until they screwed me over. Now I know. Your kind can’t be trusted.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with your compound,” I said.
Another step back.
“You’re going to pay for it, though,” Leif continued. “I’m going to start a new compound, a new family. And you’re going to help me.”
“Absolutely not!” I said, spinning on the ball of my foot and racing up the stairs.
The old Victorian house had a bizarre staircase built in the eighteen sixties. The stairs were not anywhere close to code. If you weren’t familiar with them, you would trip and fall flat on your face. But I’d had years of brutal races up the stairs against my sisters, and I could run them blindfolded.
Leif could not. He pounded up the stairs after me then howled a curse as he tripped. I cut to the right as the stairs turned sharply, Leif careening behind me, stubbing his toe at the uneven landing. Then I went up the twisty, final winding staircase to my childhood bedroom.
It had been a while since I’d climbed down the tree. When I was younger, I had done it to sneak away from my parents.
I locked the door to the bedroom and raced to the window. It was stuck closed with paint and humidity.
“Open! Open!” I prayed. I was not going to the desert to join a cult. I couldn’t even cook! The window creaked open as Leif threw his weight against the locked door. The metal lock started to split from the wood. I used all the weight I had gained from stress eating to force the window open.
Thankfully I’m wearing a pantsuit, I thought as I forced myself through the window. At that moment, Leif busted down the door, the split wood banging against the opposite wall. I was almost through the window when I felt his hand grab my ankle and jerk me back inside.
76
Hunter
Crawford’s motorcycle was still parked in the garage where he had left it before going off with Remy to the American West.
Crawford had called Greg back and was now howling at me through the phone. “Don’t touch my stuff, Hunter!”
“He’s after Meg. I know it!” I yelled, pulling the helmet onto my head.
“You don’t know that,” Greg insisted. “Meg’s not even his type. He goes for waifish, tall, and blond.”
“Greg,” Crawford shouted through the speaker phone, “do something. He’s going to wreck my bike.”
But I sped down the drive before Greg could stop me. Normally, it took me twenty minutes to drive into town, but I did it in ten, roaring down the streets. I stopped at the Gray Dove Bistro first and banged on the door.
“Go away!” Minnie shrieked on the other side of the glass. “I’m calling the police!” She held up her phone, which was calling 911.
I ripped off the helmet. “Minnie,” I demanded. “It’s me. Where is Meg?”
She unlocked the door. The 911 operator was talking on the other line. “She went to the house,” Minnie said in a rush. “We are supposed to be watching a movie.”
“Shit.”
Meg’s crappy station wagon was parked in front of the boarded-up Victorian house. The door was wide open.
Was Leif in there?
Crashes came from inside the house. I paced around out front. I needed the element of surprise on my side, since I didn’t have a weapon. That house was big and creaky. If I walked through the front door, my father would hear me coming.
I looked around. There was a large oak tree that brushed the top of the house. One of the branches was at the perfect height to climb into Meg’s bedroom window. I knew, because I had entered that way on occasion.
