“She’s gone!” Quinn shouted. “They took her!”
Walker’s jaw tightened and he sprinted in the direction of the driveway, but it was too late. The car was long gone. Lucy was long gone. And they still didn’t know why her disappearance was so terrifying. But it was. Quinn could feel panic roil in her stomach like acid.
“You have to tell me what happened,” Walker called, hurrying back to her. He still held a power drill in one hand and it made him look slightly dangerous. Unhinged.
“Tiffany Barnes took Lucy.” Quinn didn’t bother to sweep the tears off her cheeks.
“Who’s Tiffany?”
“Her mother.” Liz was only steps away from them, striding down the incline toward the boathouse. Quinn watched her mom come, the wind whipping her white-blond hair around her face. Her expression was so frosty, her spine so ramrod straight you could practically see the fury coming off her in an icy blast. Quinn recoiled a bit.
“What is going on here?” Walker waved the drill, looking for all the world like he wanted to hurl it against a wall. It was so unlike her husband that Quinn reached out for him. Their fingers caught, held.
“We’re not entirely sure,” Liz said. She stopped a few feet away and put her hands on her hips. “But we do know that Tiffany is Lucy’s mother. And I’m not sure her name is Lucy.”
“What?” Walker squeezed Quinn’s fingers. “That doesn’t make any sense. I thought Nora—”
“Nora lied to us about everything,” Quinn said. She passed the heel of her hand beneath her eyes, took a steadying breath.
“I don’t understand.” Walker shook his head, looking between his wife and his mother-in-law as if they had lost their collective minds. “Why would she change Lucy’s name? Why would she lie to us about that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on.” Walker tugged Quinn’s hand and started leading her back toward the house. “Both of you,” he said over his shoulder. Though his tone was no-nonsense and his voice carried the bite of authority, Quinn was surprised when her mother complied.
Walker led the ladies into the cabin, shutting the door behind them with a decisive snap. “Where’s Nora?”
“On her way.”
“Do we need to call someone else? The cops?”
“I texted Bennet.”
At this, Walker nodded once, resigned. Studying Quinn, his face softened. “You look pale. Have you eaten anything today?” he asked, his knuckles grazing her cheek in a gentle touch.
“I’m pale because I’m worried.” She grabbed the front of Walker’s T-shirt. “We have to go. We have to find her.”
“And do what?” he asked. “Run them off the road? We’re going to wait for Nora. For Bennet.”
He was so cool, so logical. Quinn didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Walker prompted.
Quinn tried to think back to the morning, to breakfast and Lucy’s sweet smile as they shared their favorite things. She’d tasted a single bite of the blueberry pancakes she’d so casually whipped up. The rest had been deposited, cold and congealing, in the garbage can beneath the sink. What time was it now? A quick peek at the clock above the stove indicated it was almost four in the afternoon.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Walker said. Then he instructed her: “Sit.”
Quinn did as she was told. Liz, on the other hand, tried to come around the island, to take her spot in the kitchen beside Walker. But he would have none of it. Without even looking properly at his mother-in-law, he put both his hands on the small of her back and ushered her out of his space. It was such a bold move Quinn caught her breath. She couldn’t believe that Walker dared to touch her mother. She half feared Liz’s wrath would turn him to stone. But rather than unleash on him, Liz just gave Walker a long, hard look. Then she climbed up on one of the barstools. There would be peace—for now. But Quinn knew that her mother wasn’t being obedient. She was biding her time.
While Walker boiled water for coffee and removed a loaf of rosemary garlic bread from the basket on the counter, Quinn and Liz told him as much as they knew. About Quinn’s meeting with Nora, the ominous poster with Lucy’s face on it, and Tiffany’s sudden appearance at the cabin.
“Wait.” Walker stopped them at this juncture. He carefully slid a mug of hot coffee across the counter to Quinn. It was just the way she liked it: creamy with milk and just a pinch of sugar. A sip-sized comfort. “If Tiffany is Lucy’s mother, what’s the problem?”
“Something’s not right,” Liz said. “Lucy was happy to see Tiffany, but there’s something else going on here.”
“That man.” Quinn gave a little shiver.
“I think Tiffany was being forced.” Liz nodded.
Walker looked skeptical. “Against her will? By whom?”
“Him.”
“Lucy’s father,” Walker suggested.
“No, he’s not,” Quinn said, repulsed by even the thought.
When the door slammed open they all looked up. Nora appeared moments later, Ethan not far behind.
“What happened?” Nora demanded. She was distraught and disheveled, spots of high color on her cheekbones. But despite the unruly sweep of her hair and the way she seemed to shimmer at the edges—trembling, Quinn realized—Nora looked unyielding, battle ready.
It awakened something in Quinn. “Hang on,” she said, jumping off the stool so she could stand toe-to-toe with her sister. “You tell me what happened. What is going on here?”
“I’m not sure it’s any of your business.”
“Oh, that’s rich!”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Excuse me?” Quinn knew she was yelling, but she didn’t care. “You think you can drop her in my lap without a word of explanation, let me grow to care about her, and then just whisk her out of my life without so much as a thank-you?”
“Thank you!” Nora spat.
“I don’t want your damn thank-you! I want to know who Lucy is!”
“It doesn’t matter right now, Quinn. What matters is finding her. What—”
Nora was stunned out of her tirade by a hand on her shoulder. Quinn watched as her sister blinked, fumbling for purchase on something solid, steady. It was Walker. He was standing between them, a Sanford girl in each hand. “Take a breath, Nora,” he said, but it didn’t come off condescending. It sounded like the first sane thing that had been said since Nora and Ethan walked in.
Clearly, Nora wasn’t in the market for sanity. She shook him off. “Stay out of it, Walker.”
“Oh, I’m very much in it,” he said, weaving his fingers through Quinn’s. “We all are. And we can’t do anything about it, we can’t help, until we know what’s going on.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Liz called from her perch on the stool. They all turned as if they had forgotten she was there at all. “We know the bones of it. You’ve just got to flesh it out a bit for us, Nora.”