Ivy opened her mouth but she couldn’t breathe. She pried at the fingers around her throat, trying to loosen them. Her cries were muffled. Ivy lifted her hands to his face, but he loosened his grip around her throat to trap her against the wall. Once again the full length of his body pressed into hers, his face so close Ivy could smell tobacco on his breath and the tiniest hint of liquor.
“Stop fighting!” he shouted. She squirmed beneath him, but it only seemed to bring a strange light into his eyes. A light Ivy didn’t want to interpret. She calmed beneath his weight, allowing herself a moment to draw deep breaths as her mind raced with the limited options left to free herself.
Locking eyes with her attacker, Ivy snarled, “You’re a monster.”
He didn’t even flinch. The corner of his mouth lifted in a wicked smile.
“They’re coming for me.” Ivy prayed they were. She prayed that her father had alerted Joel and that even now he was on his way. But she couldn’t rely on rescue. It hadn’t come for Gabriella, and she had died, maybe with Maggie watching in horror. “I know what you did to her.”
“To who?” His growling tone implied he knew exactly whom Ivy referred to.
“Was she the only one?” Ivy didn’t mention Maggie. Something told her to protect the girl who still lived in the shelter of Widow Bairns’s home.
His hands snaked up her sides toward her neck. Ivy’s skin crawled at his rough and greedy caress. His fingers closed around her throat once again. “You ask too many questions. You’re just like my mother.”
Ivy frowned, but she watched as his attention shifted from her face to the portrait behind her. The portrait of Myrtle Foster. Realization dawned then.
“Are you her son?” Ivy managed to ask around his stranglehold.
He looked back at her, eyes narrowed, and pressed his lips against her ear. “‘Save the girls,’ my mother prayed. She failed. All those years, she failed.”
In his moment of distraction, Ivy raised her foot and rammed it into his kneecap. The man Foster buckled and hollered in pain, collapsing to the floor. She ran a few steps, but his hand shot out and caught her around the ankle. Ivy fell, her chin hitting the floorboards. Her teeth bit into her tongue, and the taste of blood filled her mouth.
“Let go of me!” Ivy kicked at him, yet he dragged her toward him and then lunged on top of her. As they wrestled, she raked at his face with her fingernails. A vile name escaped his mouth. The sting of his hand across her face blinded her for a moment, and then rage filled her. Rage for Gabriella. She had fought for her life. The evidence of her self-defense was left on her body, and Ivy recalled vividly every bruise and scrape Gabriella had been given by this man.
A cry rose in Ivy, pushing up from the depths of her own tired and hope-lost soul. She shoved her arms upward and dug her thumbs into the man’s throat. He wheezed, and she dug harder.
“You killed her.” Every ounce of hatred dripped from her accusation.
Myrtle Foster’s son gagged, but he tightened his knees around her waist.
Ivy rolled, catching him by surprise. He fell to the side, and she grabbed for the wall, bracing herself as she stumbled to her feet. She ran toward the stairs and sped down them, her hands hoisting her nightgown high. She could hear Foster tramping down the stairs behind her. His shouts filled her ears, though his words were indiscernible.
She yanked the front door open, the daylight blinding her. Blinking rapidly, she charged down the porch steps onto the lawn and ran. Ivy sprinted down Foster Hill, as if following the footsteps Gabriella had laid before her. Her panicked vision skimmed the hollow oak tree. Gabriella’s grave. She tripped on a root in the path and skidded across the ground. Ivy fought to catch her breath, her chest heaving.
Foster yelled at her, and she scrambled to her feet, her gaze still fixed on the tree. Ivy could almost hear Gabriella, urging her on across the breeze.
Run, Ivy, run! Hope is waiting.
So she did.
Chapter 39
Ivy paid no attention to the patter of rain as it dripped from the infant spring leaves in the woods that bordered the road to Foster Hill House. There had been an early morning rain and even now it continued to fall lightly, striking the top of her head. Her lungs threatened to explode as she gasped for air, but she couldn’t afford to stop. Not even for a moment. Ivy knew that the tiny room in that closet had imprisoned enough girls over the years to imply something far more devious and wretched. Foster Hill House was a stopover point for girls. Girls who would be sold to abusers like Foster.
The whinny of a horse captured Ivy’s attention. She squinted as she hurried over ruts in the road. Pushing back her damp hair, she couldn’t hold back the cry of hope that escaped her throat. Joel. She watched his masculine form jump down from the back of his chestnut gelding even before it stopped prancing at the sudden pull of the reins.
“Joel!” Ivy stumbled.
He sprinted toward her. She righted herself and crashed into him. Burying her face in his shoulder, sucking in deep breaths, she tried to coax air into exhausted lungs. His hands framed her face as he held her away from him. She could feel his icy blue appraisal of her face. Ivy licked her split lip, tasting dried blood where Foster had hit her. Joel’s thumb brushed across her scuffed chin and over what had to be a bruise forming on her left cheekbone.
“Who did this to you?” Joel asked, anger in his eyes. He touched her mouth, then gripped her shoulders as the sheriff rode up beside them and swung down from the saddle. Ivy glanced at the lawman, who cocked the gun already in his hand.
“What happened?” Sheriff Dunst demanded.
Ivy pointed down the road toward Foster Hill House. “It’s him.” Her gasps made her words barely understandable. She tried to collect herself, but her strength was depleted.
Joel’s fingers combed the hair back from her face, and his hands pressed warmth into her cheeks while looking her in the eye. “Who, Ivy?”
“Myrtle Foster’s son.” Ivy pulled back from Joel and cast a glance in the sheriff’s direction. “He held me in a secret room in the house. He all but admitted to doing the same to Gabriella and Maggie and God knows how many others.”
“Why?” Sheriff Dunst barked.
“He sells them!” Ivy waved her arm toward Foster Hill. “You must stop him. You have to arrest him.”
Sheriff Dunst swung back into the saddle. “Joel, stay here with Miss Thorpe,” he ordered. Then he spurred his horse into a run. As the sheriff headed toward Foster Hill, Ivy shoved away from Joel.
“We need to go. We need to get Foster, once and for all.” She marched with determination for Joel’s gelding, reaching up to grip the saddle and shoving her foot into the stirrup.
Joel grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down. Ivy spun and slapped him across the face. The instant after her hand connected with his face, it flew to cover her mouth. What had she done? The shock of inflicting pain on Joel was enough to give Ivy pause. He didn’t react, only pulled her toward him, his hands gripping her upper arms.