“What do you mean? We’re both getting out.”
“That’s the plan,” she said. “Keep working on the rope.”
It took us the whole night, and we were exhausted by the time we finally cut Crystal loose. The light was starting to creep in through the window. Gavin might be up soon. We plotted in the dark.
“He’ll come with breakfast and water,” Crystal said. “When he leans over to feed me, see if you can get the rope around him from behind. Then I’ll stand up and get mine over his head. We can wrap the rope around the post for leverage, then we’ll strangle him—it won’t take as much strength that way.”
We gagged ourselves again, wrapped the rope loosely around the bedposts, taped our wrists. Then we waited.
Finally I heard noises downstairs, a toilet flush. Then loud voices—he’d turned the TV up. A few minutes later I thought I heard a truck start but wasn’t sure. It could have just been the TV. I looked at Crystal and she shook her head.
As it grew hotter and brighter in the room, I began to wonder if he was going to come up that morning. What if he was waiting until Brian came? What were we going to do?
After what felt like a couple of hours, the TV was suddenly turned off, the silence startling. I held my breath, stared at the door. I heard his boots stumbling up the stairs, and sounds of him unlocking the door. He flung it open. His face was pale and grizzled, but he was wearing a dress shirt, his hair slicked back.
“Got to run up to the ranch for a few minutes and look at the tractor. Brian can’t seem to do fuck-all by himself if I’m not around. You girls be good, now.”
He turned the music up, then walked out and closed the door behind him.
I looked at Crystal. She shook her head again, telling me to wait. I watched her, ready for the signal, but I was getting frustrated. A few minutes later, Crystal pulled her wrists apart and yanked her gag down off her mouth.
“We need to be sure he’s gone,” she said.
“We don’t have enough time,” I said. “He might come back with Brian. Then they’re going to take us to the warehouse.”
Crystal’s face was grim as she thought for a couple of seconds, like she was considering our options.
“We have to bust through the door.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
JAMIE
I woke up on the bed, still dressed in all my clothes, my mouth tasting like dry cotton. I glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty. Dallas was standing by the window.
“It’s going to be really hot today,” she said.
She’d brought back muffins and coffee from the front office. I sipped at the coffee, tried to choke down some of the muffin, but everything tasted like paste. At nine-thirty my phone finally rang. It was the sergeant.
“Did you speak to Gavin?” I said.
“He came in this morning, but he won’t let us search the property.”
“He must have something to hide.”
“Not necessarily. Lots of people don’t like the police.” A long pause. My body stiffened as I realized he was about to tell me something I wasn’t going to want to hear. “Crystal’s phone was found on the side of the road near the river. Looks like it might have been smashed with a rock.”
I sucked in my breath. “Brian and Gavin took us to that river when we were teens. That’s where they attacked us.” Dallas sat up on the other bed.
“We don’t know how the phone got there at this point, but the last place Skylar’s phone pinged was off a cell tower on the highway toward Vernon.”
“She didn’t go to Vernon—she doesn’t know anyone there.”
“We still need to follow through on that lead.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Parents don’t always know everything that’s going on in their kids’ lives.” His patronizing tone was starting to really piss me off.
“You’re wasting time. I’m telling you—she never left this town.”
“I’ll keep you updated on what we find.”
I hung up the phone, and yelled into the air, “Fuck!”
“What’s going on?” Dallas said.
“They found Crystal’s phone smashed down by the river, and they think Skylar’s in Vernon—her phone pinged off a tower.”
Dallas looked confused. “Do you think maybe she got away from them?”
“They’re still in this town. I can feel it.”
“Maybe it has something to do with that hitchhiker.”
I spun around. “Shit, she probably stole Skylar’s phone or something. And now the cops are going to change their whole investigation.”
Dallas narrowed her eyes, thinking. “We should stake out the ranch and tail them if they go anywhere today.”
*
We were careful when we left the room, checking for Gavin, but we didn’t see anything. We grabbed some bottles of water from the corner store and were soon parked on a side road where we could see if anyone left the Luxton Ranch.
“I hope those assholes don’t have a back driveway,” Dallas said.
“Shit, I never thought of that.”