“Your friend believes Allen murdered his mother?” Susan asked, incredulous.
He nodded glumly. “I’m sorry, but I think he might be right.”
“Do you know that, when he was younger, your friend attacked two total strangers on the street because he thought
The teenager frowned. “Where—where did you hear that?”
“One of his neighbors here in Cullen told me today,” she said. “Allen’s been in your basement all this time?”
He nodded. “Since early this afternoon. I wanted to tell you when you stopped by, but I couldn’t. Please, I can explain everything in the car if you just—”
“Have you two been communicating with Allen before this?” she interrupted. “Did you coerce him into taking this trip?”
“No, Jordan didn’t even know who he was until today. He spotted him at the store this afternoon, and suddenly recognized him….”
“What happened to that girl you came here with?” Susan pressed. “Do you have her tied up in the basement, too?”
“God, no—”
“Then you didn’t e-mail that picture of her to Allen?”
“What picture? What are you talking about?” His hand came up to the glass.
“Did a police deputy come by your cabin earlier tonight?” Susan asked.
“Yes,” he nodded quickly. “But you started to say—did something happen to Moira?”
He seemed genuinely concerned—panicked even. But Susan still wasn’t sure she trusted him. Maybe this was a case of three bored teenagers preying on a tourist couple as part of some twisted, deadly game. She’d seen plotlines like that in the movies. They picked some couple and terrorized them.
“Please, tell me,” he pressed. “Did something happen to Moira?”
“The deputy didn’t say anything to you?” Susan asked.
“Not much,” he answered. “He seemed a lot more concerned about finding your fiance. He asked if we knew where Moira was, but that’s about it.”
“Well, do you? Do you know where she is?”
He shook his head. “She and I went for a walk in the woods earlier. We had a fight, and she told me to get lost. So I left her there.” He heaved a sigh. “That was five hours ago, and I haven’t seen her since. I told all this to the deputy, and he said Jordan and I should get some flashlights and go look for her in the woods.”
Susan stared at him and blinked. It didn’t make any sense. Earlier, she’d made it clear to the deputy that the poor girl was being held prisoner someplace. Why would Shaffer tell the two boys to go look for her in the woods?
Nothing this young man was telling her made any sense—especially the part about Allen being a murderer.
“Listen, please,” he said. “We’re wasting time here. If you could just drive me to the store…” He hurried around the front of her car and then reached for the passenger door.
Susan swallowed hard and then stepped on the gas.
He pounded on the car window. “No, please, wait!” he screamed.
But Susan pulled onto the pavement.
“God, please, no, don’t leave me here!” he cried, chasing after her.
Susan pressed harder on the accelerator. She just couldn’t believe anything he was saying—except maybe the part about them holding Allen prisoner in the basement of that cabin.
She was headed there now.
Picking up speed, she watched Jordan’s friend in the rearview mirror as he ran after the car. For just a few seconds, she thought about turning back. What if he was telling the truth?
But Susan pressed on. She looked at him in the mirror again. He’d stopped running. And he became smaller in the distance until darkness swallowed him up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He glanced out the kitchen window toward the bay. He watched his kayak rocking and banging against the side of the dock—though the blue-grey water didn’t look all that choppy. There were only a few whitecapped ripples on its surface. And it was strange how the little, hollow boat made such a loud clamor against the dock pilings.
But Jordan didn’t really question it. Nor did he question that he was sitting at the dinette table in the
“Drink up, kiddo,” his mother said, setting a tumbler of orange juice in front of him. She wore a cardigan sweater over her nightgown. She didn’t seem to notice the loud banging outside.
Jordan started to drink the orange juice, but then something clicked against his teeth, and to his horror, he saw shards of glass floating in the juice. He set the tumbler down and pushed it away—toward a wire cage on one corner of the dinette table. Inside the cage was a grey rabbit with pink eyes. It was trembling.
“You’re going to have to kill him,” he heard his mother say—over the constant banging.
Jordan leaned closer to the cage. The nervous little rabbit turned toward him, and its face morphed until it resembled some kind of mutant rat. The thing hissed and bared a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. It leapt toward him, crashing into the cage’s thin bars.
Jordan suddenly bolted up in bed, gasping.
He heard another loud crash. It seemed to come from downstairs or outside. In a stupor, Jordan glanced around and realized he was in the master bedroom at the cabin. The digital clock on the nightstand read 7:39 PM. He’d been asleep for nearly an hour.
Jordan tried to move, but his limbs felt so heavy. He patted his pockets, but his car keys weren’t there. He vaguely remembered Leo taking them. His friend had walked off with the gun, too.
“Damn it, Leo,” Jordan muttered.
He was pretty sure Leo must have slipped something into his Vitaminwater. He’d gotten awfully punchy and sluggish immediately after drinking it. Jordan had spent enough time medicated in his younger days to know when he had some kind of drug in his system. Back at the Patrick-Hannah Clinic, the sleep aids they gave him usually knocked him out, but he’d always be wide awake an hour or two later.
The stuff Leo had slipped into his drink must have been pretty potent, because Jordan felt a bit woozy as he sat up.
He guessed his friend had gone to Rosie’s to phone the police.
There was another loud crack. Jordan could tell the sound came from the basement.
He sat in a stupor for a few moments. He had to do something—go downstairs and maybe even hit Meeker over the head to knock him out again. It sounded like Meeker was breaking up the worktable. There were plenty of tools down in the cellar the scumbag could use as a weapon once he freed himself. Overpowering him wouldn’t be easy—especially since Leo had taken the gun, damn it. Jordan contemplated making himself throw up—so he’d get the rest of the sedative out of his system.
His limbs still ached, and his head felt like a big wad of chewing gum. He wasn’t sure he could even make it to the bathroom without collapsing. But he had to try. He couldn’t just sit here and allow Mama’s Boy to escape.
He couldn’t let that thing get out of its cage.
His lungs were burning, and cold sweat flew off his forehead. Leo was exhausted and scared, but he kept running along the shoulder of the snaky road. Every time he came around another curve, he prayed he’d see the lights from the store up ahead. But all he saw was darkness and the shadows of trees looming over both sides of the winding highway.
He couldn’t believe that stupid woman had left him stranded on the roadside. Then again, he couldn’t really
