My eyes widened as I opened my mouth to scream, only to feel an instant rush of pain in the back of my head. Before the room went totally black, I heard my cell phone ringing. Gray, help me.
The pain in the back of my head was felt the moment I opened my eyes. It was so bad, I almost threw up when I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position.
Touching the back of it lightly, I gasped when I touched the open wound. “Son-of-a-bitch,” I mumbled as I stood up and looked around slowly.
“Where in the hell am I?” I asked as I took in the one-room log cabin. There was a small kitchen set off in the opposite corner, a couch, and the queen-size bed I was on. A few end tables and other odd pieces of furniture were sprinkled throughout the room. It looked to be a hunter’s cabin or maybe a vacation house. Something caught my eye as I walked to the window.
“Oh no. Oh God, where am I?”
Snow was lightly falling outside as it dusted the trees and ground. Any other time I would think the picture before me was breathtaking; right now all it did was scare the piss out of me.
Closing my eyes, I tried to get my thoughts together, the last thing I remembered was walking down the hall to meet—
My body shivered as the memory of what happened to me filled my head.
A door rattled and I jumped back at the sound. When the door opened and Susan walked in, I didn’t know whether I should be glad or scared.
“Susan?”
She was carrying a tray with a few towels and a brown bottle on it. When she looked at me, her eyes were filled with sadness. “You better sit down, Meagan. That’s a big cut on the back of your head and it took me forever to get it to stop bleeding.”
My heart began pounding as I walked over to the bed and sat down. Swallowing hard, I placed my hands on either side of me and watched as she walked toward me.
“I’m going to clean it with some peroxide.”
Not saying a word, I sat there as still as I could while Susan cleaned the wound on the back of my head. The pain was so bad, at one point I gagged.
“Are you okay?” she asked as she looked into my eyes.
“What happened? Where am I?”
Susan’s eyes darted to the door. “I told him not to hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
My jaw trembled. “Please tell me what’s happening. I beg of you!”
Chewing on her lip, Susan finished cleaning up the wound and then started to clean up the mess. She stood up and looked at the door and then back at me. “I don’t want him to hurt you. I really like you and I know about the baby.”
I sucked in a breath as panic filled every ounce of my body.
“W-what?”
She looked away as she said, “I heard Grayson talking to his mom on the phone as he walked by me earlier this morning. He told her about your morning sickness.”
I stood up too quickly and got dizzy. My body swayed as Susan reached out to steady me. “Please, please let me out of here. I . . . I don’t know what’s going on, but if you let me go I swear I won’t tell anyone about this.”
A single tear rolled down her face as she took a few steps away from me. “He threatens my daughter if I don’t help him. I can’t help you, Meagan. I can only try to talk him out of it.”
My eyes widened in fear. “Out of what?”
She opened her mouth to speak, only to quickly shut it. “I have to go. I’ll be back with your dinner soon.”
Rushing after her, she quickly shut and locked the door as I banged on it!
“No! Please don’t go! Let me out! Please let me out!”
Turning, I leaned against the door and sank down to the floor. I pulled me knees into my chest and cried as I rocked back and forth.
“Gray . . . please find me. Please.”
Grayson
MY HANDS SHOOK as I held my cell phone in my hands and stared at it. I’d just hung up with Brad and Amanda. Having to tell them Meagan was missing was the hardest phone call I’d ever had to make.
I paced back and forth as I waited for some news. “Bennett, over here for a second, will you?”
Turning to where Derrick had called out my name, I quickly walked over to where he was standing along with two CSI officers. “Anything?”
“Nothing. The place has been wiped clean. But, we did find a small amount of blood on the floor in the hallway that we swabbed and will compare against Ms. Atwood.”
Derrick thanked them and took me by the arm as we walked toward the car. “Tell me everything again.”
Pushing my hand through my hair, I sighed in frustration. “I fucking told you already.”
“Tell me again.”
“She sent me our code text. I called her back within thirty seconds and it went to voicemail. I tried calling back three more times before I tracked where her phone was. It was in this building and then began moving.”
“All right, so we know the tracking started here and moved up Highway 550. It stopped about twenty miles outside of Durango. We’ve got two state patrol officers currently trying to find the phone. My guess is the cell phone was tossed out the window.”