Juliet spun around at Ethan. “Where is she?”
He picked up a sheet of paper off her window seat, gave it a quick glance, then handed it to her. Juliet recognized Wendy’s neat handwriting.
I’ll be back soon—I hope before you find this note! Please don’t worry. I’m not doing anything dangerous, and I’m not running away. I just need to do something for myself.
Love,
Wendy
“She’s seventeen,” Ethan said, as if that explained everything.
“What’d she do, melt through the walls? Her door was locked from the inside.” But she noticed the closet door, half open, and groaned, knowing exactly what her niece had done. “Ah, hell. She went through the trap door.”
Juliet marched to the closet and ripped the door all the way open, Ethan looking over her shoulder as she pointed at the trap door in the ceiling. “Wish I’d had one of those when I was growing up,” he said.
“Joshua and Sam shared this room. They used to sneak out when they were kids. They took out the hanging rod and put up hooks and shelves.” She noticed the clothes on the floor, the scattered books and magazines. “Wendy’s not as tall as they were. She must have climbed up the shelves.”
“The trap door leads to the attic?”
“It’s more like a crawl space. My brothers locked me up there once—they didn’t think I’d have the guts to go out the window. It drops onto the back porch. It was nightfall before the little bastards realized I’d escaped.”
“Bet you had pigtails then.”
Juliet sighed, backing up from the door. “I’ll go find Sam. I haven’t seen him yet this morning, but if he saw her sneaking out the attic window, he’d have stopped her. For all we know, she’s sitting in the shade, reading a book.”
“What about her father?”
“If Sam hasn’t seen her, then I’ll call Joshua.” She grimaced, heading back out into the hall. “It won’t be easy telling him Wendy took off again.”
Eighteen
Mia stirred but didn’t open her eyes. She breathed. No pain, no nausea. She resisted the temptation to move. She wanted to get her bearings first. She was facedown on some kind of wood floor, blindfolded, gagged, her feet bound, her hands still cuffed behind her.
She thought she heard birds.
An owl, maybe?
Where am I?
She remembered her father kneeling at her bed with her, clasping his hands on her pink bedspread as they said the “Hail Mary” together. Whenever she prayed, it was his voice she heard along with hers, not that of the priests, the nuns. “I’m a rough man, Mia. I swear too much, I drink too much. But I pray every day for strength and guidance.”
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to Mass.
Her head throbbed, and her mouth had a funny taste. She desperately wanted water.
And she was cold. As she focused on her surroundings, she realized the floor had thick splinters, and she could feel cold air coming up through the cracks and gaps in the boards.
With a surge that was almost painful, she remembered the late-night call, the SUV, the foul-breathed man pouring water into her mouth. The kicks and slaps. No wonder she was so stiff.
Where had he—they—taken her? Had he handed her off to someone else?
They’d changed vehicles—or had she imagined it?
She couldn’t be in Colombia. It was too cold.
“You’re prettier than I thought you’d be.” The man’s voice. Had he been there all along? “Say thank you.”
How could she when she was gagged?
She felt fingers on her face, and the gag was yanked down to her chin. “Now say thank you. Don’t bother screaming. No one will hear you.”
“Where—” She was parched, and her lips were chapped and split when she opened her mouth to speak. She shuddered in pain. “Where am I?”
“I didn’t hear you say thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for what?”
“Thank you for saying I’m pretty.”
“Prettier than I thought you’d be. There’s a difference.”
She said nothing. God, help me.
“Where are my emeralds?”
“What?”
He slapped her across the left side of her face, sending her backward against her bound hands. Pain shot through her from the unnatural position. “Don’t play dumb, Dr. O’Farrell. It doesn’t suit you. You know what happened to them. It’s your job to know these things.” He got close to her. “I want my fucking emeralds.”
She rolled onto her side, taking the pressure off her hands, and thought she smelled damp earth.
Bobby Tatro.
He was her captor. Somehow, he was out of jail. Somehow, he’d found her, taken her to this place.
I’m not getting out of here alive.
She coughed, tried not to think about the pain. “You kidnapped Ham Carhill for emeralds?”