“You killed your own sister?”
“Not yet. But . . .” Julia gave a shrug. Her lips twisted in a malignant, self-satisfied grin that chilled Rebecca to the bone.
“You’re a monster!” she yelled.
“And you’re dead!” With that, Julia fired.
* * *
The sound of a gunshot echoed through the night.
“Fuck!” James pounded the steering wheel with his fist and trod hard on the accelerator.
Wheels spinning, his Explorer tore up the winding lane, its headlights burning bright against the white landscape. James’s heart was in his throat. He was too late.
Who was shooting?
Sophia?
Or was she the victim?
What about the driver of the other car?
The trees went by in a blur as he followed the tracks. What would he find? Who would he find? Was someone injured? Or worse?
He skidded around a final corner and nearly rammed into a Ford Escape—the car he hadn’t recognized—and stood on the brakes, stopping just inches short of the smaller car. Looking up the final feet to the clearing, he spied Sophia—or was it Julia?—aiming down the hillside, ready to pop off another.
Caught in the Explorer’s headlights, she at first trained the gun at his windshield, then, thinking better of it, turned and ran to the tiny house perched in the clearing. “Wait!” he yelled as she frantically unlocked the door before throwing herself inside.
James resisted the urge to spring from the SUV. He called 9-1-1 and, as soon as the operator picked up, yelled, “This is James Cahill. I’m at my property, don’t have an address, but off Johnson Road on Regret Mountain. I’ve heard gunshots. Call Detective Rivers.”
“Sir, if you would state your location—”
“No time.” He jammed the phone in his pocket and thanked God that Rebecca wasn’t involved in this.
CHAPTER 52
The Isolated Cabin
That Same Night
At the cabin/tiny house, Sophia waited. She no longer had a weapon, but she wasn’t finished yet and intended to fight back. She had removed all the light bulbs except one in the small bathroom.
Breathing hard, she went over her plan for the dozenth time:
When her snake of a sister finally arrived for another visit, she would be in for a surprise. Julia would step inside the cabin and hit the switch to turn on the light, but nothing would happen, the room would remain dark. That might worry her, give her pause, but she’d push her concerns aside. After all, she was Julia and, for the most part, fearless. Hopefully, then she would spy the bit of illumination showing from the crack beneath the bathroom door at the opposite end of the small building and be drawn to it. All the while, Sophia would stay quiet, hidden in the little niche to the right of the door. Surely, Julia would look in the direction of the light and, hopefully, believe that Sophia would be hiding in the bathroom or in the loft above. But she would be nervous and probably armed with that horrid stun gun. This time, though, Sophia would be ready!
But, she reminded herself, she would have to play it perfectly, to time her leap from above so that she would be able to knock Julia down, somehow turn the tables on her, steal her damned Taser, grab her keys, and lock her inside this prison.
All in the dark.
“God help me,” she whispered, her palms sweaty at the thought of it.
But it was time for Julia to see what it felt like to rot up here in the mountains for a change! Let her be the one who couldn’t escape, who would be dependent upon her own damned sister, who had to fear that Sophia might never return. Julia would see what it was like to feel as if she were slowly going out of her mind.
At that thought, Sophia actually smiled.
The trouble was, Sophia had no clue as to when—or if—Julia would deign to return. She gnawed on a fingernail, then realizing what she was doing, quit.
“Get it together,” she whispered. She was never exactly sure when Julia would arrive, but so far it had been about every other day—but now, it had been several days longer, and Sophia was beginning to worry. Her stomach curdled at the thought that she was almost out of supplies. “Don’t freak out.”
Crap! There she was talking to herself again, having conversations not only with herself, but others as well. Not just with Julia but James as well . . .
As her mind wandered to James again, she caught herself and ignored the painful ache in her heart, the lump in her throat. She didn’t have time to dwell on him right now.
“Oh, James,” she whispered in a moment of weakness, then shoved thoughts of his handsome face from her mind. Right now, she had to concentrate.
Julia had to return soon. Even she couldn’t be so cruel as to let her sister—her damned twin—die a slow, torturous death of dehydration or starvation.
But then, something could have happened to her. What if Julia were injured? Lost? Killed in some freak accident? Arrested?
Would anyone know Sophia was imprisoned here?
Gus Jardine? Well, maybe. But would he care?
Not at all. Gus only cared about himself.
So who would find her?
The answer was as bleak as the surrounding hills: no damned one.
Sophia’s throat closed in fear again, and she had to force herself to back off the worries, to slow her suddenly panicked breathing. Eventually, her parents would start to wonder, despite the fact that they’d been estranged.
Oh, what a fool she’d been to trust Julia.
She closed her eyes.
Waited.
In the dark.
Alone.
As she had been for days.
Time ticked slowly by, and Sophia could only keep her panic at bay for so long before the questions that had plagued her started repeating, over and over again, in a never-ending loop.
Would Julia ever know the angst of . . . ? Wait!
Sophia froze, her ears straining.
Had she imagined the noise, the whine of a struggling engine?
Her heart nearly stopped.
But there it was again.
The rumble getting ever louder.
She shifted on the ledge, stared out the windows
