Clothes were strewn all over the floor, torn to shreds. Shards of glass and ceramic littered the floor, as if everything of value in the room had been smashed in a fit of rage. But most disturbing was the blood on the frilly, pink bedspread, the splatters upon the wall. And bloody smears were on the door along with deep grooves, as if someone had been trying desperately to claw her way out.
“Sweet Jesus,” Elle breathed, her hand going to her mouth to keep the bile down.
This had to be Sandra’s room. This must’ve been where she’d been beaten by her father. And that was just the treatment they knew about. God knows what else she’d been put through. Elle tried not to imagine what other unspeakable horrors she’d endured.
Her determination to escape taking on an even greater urgency, she searched frantically for something big enough to break the window. She finally found what looked like a thick, wooden curtain rod, but was now broken in half, splintered and jagged at one end. The undamaged end had a knob that might be just the thing she needed.
She grabbed a scrap of blanket, wrapped it around the sharp end, and peered through the window, checking to see if anyone was outside. A large maple tree partially obscured her view, but also helped partially hide the window from anyone looking at the house. Seeing no one outside and praying the sound of the glass breaking wouldn’t be heard too easily in the rest of the house, she drove the rod against the window. But it didn’t even crack.
She cursed roundly and tried again with the same result.
“Shit!” Elle rubbed her palms against her thighs, wiping the nervous perspiration from them, and reassessed the window. Maybe the bottom pane was the wrong way to go. She might be able to get more leverage and power if she went for the upper pane. Readjusting her grip on the curtain rod, she lifted it over her head and drove it toward the window. This time it cracked in just a tiny starburst only about the size of an eraser head.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” she hissed. “What the hell kind of glass is this?”
She took a closer look at the window, studying it for a moment. It didn’t appear to be ballistic glass—although she wouldn’t have put it past Monroe to have installed that in his house in case of an attack. But it definitely wasn’t just ordinary, run-of-the-mill glass. It was more the thickness of a car windshield. She realized she was going about breaking it all wrong.
She shook out her hands and turned the rod around to use the jagged end instead when she heard a vehicle approaching and craned to see who it was. She recognized the truck immediately as the one Jeremy Monroe had been driving when she’d seen him following her.
“Damn it.” She renewed her assault on the window, her shoulder muscles screaming as she drove the rod against the glass again. The little starburst began to grow larger as the cracks spread. Then with a savage cry, she drove it against the window once more and the glass finally shattered.
Elle’s breath shot out of her in a relieved burst. Then she used the curtain rod to knock out the jagged shards of glass that remained so she could safely climb out. The sound of a truck door slamming reached her ears. She quickly unwound the material from the curtain rod, draped it over the bottom of the pane to protect herself from any remaining glass, and put her foot up on the sill, pulling herself up and through the window as she heard voices inside the house.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered, throwing the jagged curtain rod onto the ground and grabbing one of the tree branches, pulling herself all the way out of the window. The minute she kicked free, she dropped to the ground and snatched up the curtain rod. Frantically searching for the best escape route, she immediately rejected running toward the road. That would be the first place they looked.
Then her gaze lighted on the cornfield, the corn at its full height. She bolted toward it, her arms and legs pumping.
* * *
Gabe pounded on Elle’s front door, then paused to listen for any movement inside. Nothing. He walked the perimeter of the house, looking for any signs that she might be inside, but decided she wasn’t home.
He got back behind the wheel of his Tahoe and ran though his contacts until he found the number he sought.
“Mulaney’s.”
“Charlotte?” he said, his voice coming out in a rough bark. “Is Elle there?”
“No, sweetie, she left some time ago,” she said. “She’d had a little to drink so she was taking a cab home.”
“I’m there now,” Gabe said, peeling out of the driveway, not entirely sure where he was heading next but not able to just sit and wait. “She’s not home. You sure she was heading here?”
Now it was Charlotte’s turn to sound concerned. “That’s what she said. Gabe? What’s going on?”
Gabe turned out of Elle’s neighborhood and onto the main road before he answered, “I guess you know what’s going on with Monroe?”
“Yes. Elle told me. I picked her up from her office earlier today and brought her to Mulaney’s with me.”
“Well, Elle called Abby and asked her to let Elle know when Jeb left the department, saying she wanted to keep tabs on his movements, whatever the hell that means. What’s she up to, Charlotte? You need to tell me if you know anything.”
“If I knew more than that, I’d tell you,” Charlotte assured him. “She’s my world, Gabe.”
Gabe gripped the phone so hard his hand began to ache. “Mine too.”
He disconnected the call and immediately dialed Abby’s number at the department. “It’s Gabe,” he said when she picked up. “How long would it take you to get me the GPS coordinates on Elle’s phone?”
“Not long if I can get a search warrant,” she said, her voice taut with concern. “Maybe an hour or so. Why? What’s going on?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” he said, taking a turn without thinking. “Charlotte says Elle left Mulaney’s some time ago in a cab to go home, but she’s not there.”
