“I spun back toward the driveway.”
For half a second, I froze.
Every part of me wanted to chase Trent.
To drag him out of that truck with my bare hands.
To make him tell me what he’d done.
But then Rachel screamed again from the basement, a sound so ragged and terrified it cut straight through whatever was left of my judgment.
“Mike!”
I ran down.
The basement stairs were steep and narrow, the kind that always smelled a little damp no matter how much bleach you used. I took them too fast and nearly slipped, one hand dragging along the wall to keep myself upright.
At the bottom, there was almost no light.
Just one bare bulb in the far corner, swinging slightly.
Rachel was on the floor beside the old washer and dryer, her wrists zip-tied behind her back, ankles bound with duct tape. Her mouth was red where something had rubbed her skin raw. There was a bruise rising along one side of her face, purple already at the edges.
She looked up at me and started crying.
I dropped to my knees beside her.
“Oh my God,” I said, and my voice broke on it.
“Get Owen,” she gasped. “Mike, get Owen.”
“He’s upstairs. He’s okay.”
I ripped at the zip tie with both hands, couldn’t get purchase, grabbed a rusted pair of garden shears off a shelf and cut through the plastic. Rachel sucked in a breath as her arms came free.
“Can you stand?”
She nodded too fast, then winced.
“What happened?”
“He came over early,” she said, breathing hard. “He was angry. He said I was ruining things. Said I was turning Owen against him.” Her voice trembled so violently she had to stop and swallow. “I told him to leave. He shoved me. I fell into the table. Then he… he dragged me down here.”
Upstairs, I heard a door slam.
Then Owen yelling for me.
Rachel’s eyes widened.
“He’s still here?”
“No.” I turned my head, listening. “Or maybe he was.”
Then came the sound of tires spitting gravel.
Trent peeling out.
I stood up so fast I got dizzy.
Rachel grabbed my arm.
“The cooler.”
I looked at her.
“What about it?”
Her face went pale in a way that had nothing to do with fear. This was something worse. Something colder.
“He had a tarp in the garage this morning,” she whispered. “Rope. Duct tape. That cooler wasn’t in his truck yesterday.”
