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Riley spent the entire day curled on the closet floor of one of the model homes that lined the front of the Blackwood Hills Estates. When the fog swallowed the sun and turned the sky a smoky gray, she slipped out of the closet and into the street, unsure whether she was ready to face her parents.
She heard a car engine moving slowly up the street and her heartbeat mirrored her heavy footfalls. Her parents. They must have been out looking all day. But the car’s engine revved and it sped past her, a black blur taking the curve in front of her house with a little too much speed. The screech of the wheels echoed and Riley rolled her eyes then sucked in a breath, steadying herself on her front porch.
The whole house was dark and she had to step into the meager yellow beam of streetlight as she searched for her keys.
“Damn,” she muttered when she realized that they were lying on the kitchen table. She beelined back up the walk and pushed the doorbell, listening to the stupid chime as it echoed.
No one answered.
Riley tried the door and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. She dumped her backpack and went to the backyard, yanking the sliding glass door and trying all the windows. She was locked out—keys inside, cell phone tucked in her father’s desk drawer.
“Crap.”
She was coming around the front again when she noticed the black car parked across the street. It was a few houses down and with the headlights off, bled into the darkness.
Riley took a step, and the headlights flipped on. The gravel crunched under her sneakers, and the black car’s engine came gurgling to life.
A cold sliver of fear raced up her spine, and her adrenaline started to rush.
She fisted her hands and started down the sidewalk, aiming toward the glowing lights of the realtor office and the cheery faux neighborhood of houses behind it. Riley’s was one of the houses at the furthest end of the horseshoe-shaped development, so she walked with purpose, her heart hammering as she passed the bones of houses yet to be finished. She didn’t need to turn to know the black car was following her.
As she sped up, it did too, the patter of its engine swallowing up the sounds of her sneakers pounding the pavement. She sidestepped into the dirt, cutting through a gravelly front yard and slipping into a new model that was half studs, half walls. She dipped behind a piece of wallboard, and the black car flipped on its high beams. Blinding white light flooded over the house.
Riley was certain the sound of her heart slamming against her ribcage would give her away as she huddled down. The sweat beaded on her upper lip, and her teeth were chattering. The wallboard stopped about three feet to her left, and the rest of the houses were an unhelpful forest of narrow two-by-fours. Behind her, the wrought iron gate penned her in.
She was trapped.
The car engine revved and then all at once, Riley was plunged back into darkness.
Riley let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. The engine had cut too, and while her eyes worked to adjust to the pitch black, her ears pricked, trying to pick some semblance of sound out of the silence.
And then she heard it. The car door opening. The sound of a boot digging into the gravel. She heard someone suck on a cigarette, smelled the faint tarry smell as it carried on the breeze.
The man ground out the cigarette and took another step.
Riley rolled to her hands and knees, but her muscles felt slack and heavy. She willed herself forward, cringing as bits of wood splintered into her clawing fingertips and the toes of her shoes shifted debris underneath her. Her breath was coming in quick, short bursts. Her heart was pounding. Everything she did was loud.
“Come out, come out,” the man sang, his voice deep and eerie.
Riley crawled to another corner and quietly slipped off the house’s foundation. She was lying on her back, pressing her body into the dirt, trying to blend into the dirt and new construction.
She refused to think what was wriggling underneath her.
“Riley?”
Her skin crawled when he said her name.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”
He took another hard step and the wood floor slab vibrated under his weight.
I have to get out of here, Riley thought. The tears were pouring from her eyes, rolling over her cheeks and wetting the earth on either side of her. If I don’t get out of here now, he’s going to find me.
“Come out, come out wherever you are…Jane.”
NINE
Terror, like a heavy weight, set on Riley’s chest.
“I need to talk about your parents, Glen and Nadine.”
Riley’s stomach turned over.