Page 5 of Forever Gone

Silence.

Karen reached the sofa and closed her fingers around the strap of her purse.

The footsteps resumed.

One.

A pause.

Another.

They were approaching the main room.

Cold prickled across the back of her neck. Karen pulled the purse toward her and searched for her phone without taking her attention from the doorway.

“Who’s there?”

The footsteps ceased just beyond the opening.

Her fingers found lipstick, a packet of tissues, and the edge of her wallet.

No phone.

She had left it in the car charger.

“Why aren’t you answering me?”

Movement darkened the hallway.

A figure stepped into the doorway.

Recognition came before comprehension.

Karen knew them.

For a second, relief almost broke through the fear because familiarity belonged to the ordinary world. It belonged to roads with signals, houses with neighbors, and the life she had come here to escape.

Then she understood that they did not belong here.

They could not have found her by accident.

“What are you doing here?”

The figure said nothing.

Something glinted in their hand.

The afternoon light caught a narrow edge of metal.

Karen’s grip loosened on the purse.

Behind her, the word processor continued to hum. The green cursor waited beneath SYSTEM READY, ready for the first sentence of the life she meant to build for herself.

Deep inside, with a certainty that allowed no argument, Karen knew she would never type another word.

CHAPTER ONE

Connor Chase slowed the sheriff’s SUV as Robert Raven’s house came into view.