“Hutch, what are you doing?” I ask.

  He pulls on his seat belt.

  “Something’s wrong. And there’s no way I’m sitting around doing nothing while Mory is still missing,” he says resolutely. “I’m coming with you.”

  49

  MORY

  “Felicity begged me to sell this place. She only ever came here once.” Quinten runs his hand gently up the wooden wall. “But she didn’t like it. Said it was too far gone. That we could use the money from the sale to help do up our house.”

  I blink slowly, trying to push through the haze that clings to my mind. It’s like a thick, suffocating blanket that I can’t push off myself. I’m not interested in anything Quinten has to say. He’s certifiably insane. I know that now. But I nod along as I try to focus hard on staying awake because if I fall asleep, I don’t know if I’ll ever wake up again. I don’t want to die. If I can just stay awake and make him think I’m on his side, play along, maybe he won’t kill me like he did those other girls.

  “So, I told her that I sold it. I took out a huge loan, we did up the house, and she was none the wiser. She got what she wanted and I get my little slice of happiness here to visit whenever I like. With whoever I like.”

  Did the other girls jump in his car and travel out here to the middle of nowhere as willingly as I did? I feel so stupid. I should never have fallen for Quinten’s charm. I should have just been a normal teenager and fallen in love with his cute son. Had a normal relationship that I didn’t have to hide and wouldn’t end up getting me killed.

  My stomach turns at the thought of Hutch. He’s been the best friend I could have asked for, and he’s made it glaringly clear that he’s fallen for me. But I just strung him along while seeing his father behind his back. What is wrong with me?

  “Felicity never liked my mother’s dresses.” He looks me up and down. “But you like them. All my girls do.”

  He’s wrong. I hate this dress. And I think all those girls did, too, judging from the looks in their eyes in those photos. But I don’t tell him that. I just remain motionless, slumped on the couch.

  I don’t want to hear any more about his dead mother. It’s creeping me out. He dressed all those girls up in her dresses and now me, as though this will bring her back or something. I don’t know much about psychology, but I’m pretty sure all of this stems from his screwed-up childhood here at the cabin. I mean, if it was so bad, why is he trying to relive it?

  His mouth is still moving but it all sounds fuzzy to me. I think he’s saying something about his camera, I can’t tell. I’m so tired. I just want to go to sleep.

  Maybe he’ll just keep talking while I sleep. Maybe it will be okay.

  The dim light overhead makes the shadows on the walls dance and move about almost cheerily. For some reason I find this soothing and I feel a warmth come over me. Maybe everything is going to be okay.

  I look at Quinten. This is the man that I have loved for so long, shouldn’t I trust him?

  My head feels blurry, like it’s filled with cotton candy, and every time I try to focus the fog only deepens. I watch Quinten’s lips make shapes as he talks, and I remember the first time we kissed. He was so gentle, so careful to check I was okay with it. Of course I was. I love him. Or… do I? Isn’t there a reason I’m supposed to not like him now? Did something happen? I’m having a hard time remembering. I’m just so tired. I can’t think clearly. My thoughts begin slipping, like grains of sand through my fingers. My eyelids begin to fall and it feels so good to just let go and embrace the darkness that lives behind them.

  But my peace is short-lived because suddenly I’m being picked up and when my eyes open again, I’m in the bedroom sitting on the floor. Quinten places my back against a cold wooden wall and adjusts me when I begin to slump to the side.

  “Not yet, sweetheart, we need to get a picture first. Wake up.”

  Oh. Yeah. I remember him mentioning that before. Why does he want to take a picture? I just want to sleep. Can’t this wait?

  My eyes close again, but this time I’m instantly snapped back to consciousness by a hot stinging sensation on my cheek and I see Quinten’s hand pulling away.

  “I said wake up!” he yells.

  I grab my cheek. He hit me. Why would Quinten hit me? Then it floods back to me. The girls, the pictures, the dress I’m wearing.

  I feel the rough wooden paneling, the splinters biting into the skin of my back, but I’m too numb to care. I brace myself against the floor to keep from flopping sideways again as I watch him kneel down in front of me, the camera covering his face.

  “Okay, honey, give me a smile.” His voice is suddenly sickly-sweet again.

  I’m not going to give him what he wants. That’s what the other girls did, and where did that get them? “No. Why should I? You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

  The room goes quiet. The only sound I can hear is the leaves outside rustling against the windows. Every breath I take feels like a struggle. The air is thick and stale. It smells faintly of mold and something much worse. I try to shift, to find a more comfortable position, but my limbs feel so heavy.

  His eyes glint now with a twisted kind of pleasure. “Mory, Mory, Mory. I didn’t think you’d be the one to give me trouble. You’re usually such a good girl.”

  He gently strokes my chin before gripping it harder, digging his fingers into my skin. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to make myself smaller, wishing I could disappear into the wall behind me. I wish I’d never met this man. I wish I’d never started seeing him behind everyone’s back. I wish we’d never moved to Lonerock. I wish I could be back in Arizona with Dad and Caitlyn, playing games and jumping into the pool.

  Quinten lets go of my chin and I gasp in pain, clutching my face.

  He raises the camera again as he kneels there, a dull silhouette, his features softened by shadows. All remnants of hope feel like they squeeze from my chest as a sense of utter defeat washes over me. There’s nothing I can do. I’m going to die tonight. And nobody even knows where I am or who I’m with. I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last girl Quinten brings back here to dress up as his mother and smile up to the camera, playing out this sick memory of his.

  He leans down, his face coming into focus, his eyes wide and expectant. “Now, Mory. Give me a big smile.”

  50

  RUBY

  The tires bounce along the road and I find myself gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white as I navigate the unfamiliar roads far from Lonerock.

  The trees that surround us sway gently, their leaves rustling in the darkness. I glance at the clock on the dashboard for the hundredth time, and the minutes seem to stretch on. Time is slipping away, just like Mory.

  Seventeen years. How is it possible that so much time has passed in what feels like the blink of an eye? In my mind I can still see her as a toddler, her laughter ringing through our home. I swear it’s the sweetest sound that’s ever reached my ears. She would bounce on her tiptoes, her curly hair flopping over her eyes as she squeezed her stuffed bunny, Boppy, to her chest. I remember when I couldn’t leave the room for a second without her searching for me. She’d call for me with that sweet high-pitched voice the second I was out of sight. But now that little girl feels like a ghost, a fleeting memory that lives on only in my mind. Mory’s life has taken her down a path she has made sure I can’t follow. I knew the innocence that I so adored wouldn’t last forever. I knew she would change and grow and become her own person, exactly who she was supposed to be. But what I didn’t expect was that we would one day grow so far apart that I’d find myself driving down back roads desperately searching for her, having no idea where she is or who she’s with.

  Did she run away? Is she alone? With friends? I wish she’d have just told me where she was going today rather than lie to me about being with Hutch. I shake my head, trying to rid myself of the spiraling thoughts.

  Where are you, sweet girl?

  I glance at the passenger seat. Hutch hasn’t said much since we left and there’s a peculiar look on his face as he stares at the road ahead.

  “Do you recognize this area?” I ask, knowing it’s unlikely given there’s practically no houses or landmarks to be seen. Just trees and bushes as far as the eye can see.

  “I… I don’t know,” he mutters.

  “Hutch, if you know anything at all, you need to tell me now. Why would Mory’s phone say she was all the way out here?”

  “I don’t know!” he shouts before slamming his head back against the headrest and lowering his voice. “I don’t know. I thought I knew Mory. I thought she told me everything. But now I have no idea what to think.”

  We drive in silence for a few minutes before Hutch speaks again. “I’m starting to think she’s been seeing another guy.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. “I think so, too.”

  Now the question I’m asking myself is why she was keeping it a secret. And if she was really meeting up with this secret guy today then why is her phone now off, and why did she never make it home?

  We drive on in silence until my phone abruptly informs us that we’ve arrived at White Crane Road, which looks exactly like all the other nondescript roads we’ve just driven down. There are no houses, no farms, no nothing. There’s no party, no friend’s house, no place for a quiet rendezvous with a secret boyfriend. There is literally zero good reason for Mory to have come all the way out here. This is all wrong. And from the look on Hutch’s face, I can see he knows it too.

  I check my phone and see Justin has just sent me a message saying there’s still no sign of Mory at home. There’s nothing left to do but call Aaron.

  He answers on the second ring. “Did you find her?”

  “No. There’s nothing out here. Did you call the cops?”

  “Yeah, there’s a patrol car already on its way out there.”

  “Well I’m already here, and I’m not sure what good that’s going to do because there’s nothing but an empty road. Aaron, I’m scared.”

  Aaron sounds about as terrified as I am, but tries to calm my nerves, telling me we’re going to find her soon and not to panic. I know it must be killing him to be so far away, unable to help search for her.

  I hang up and keep driving slowly enough that I can look in every direction as I go. I try to tell myself that Mory is okay and this is all just a big misunderstanding, but in my mind all I can think of are the pictures of those girls. Of Elle. My stomach knots with the knowledge that whoever took those photos was in our neighborhood—in our home—and now my daughter is missing.

  It’s not until a few minutes later that I think I see something amongst the trees ahead. A building, maybe. I can’t make out what it is, but when I look over at Hutch I can tell he’s seen it too as I watch him tense up.

  He’s not said a word since I got off the phone with Aaron, but now his voice comes out in a choke. “I think I was wrong. I… I think I know where we are.”

  51

  MORY

  The flash blinds me momentarily, before Quinten lowers the camera and pulls the film out, shaking it lightly in his hand. He grins. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  The wooden floor is cold beneath me. I blink slowly, trying to shake the yellow rectangles from my vision. The remnants of whatever he drugged me with are still clinging to my senses, and the edges of the room look as though they blur and bend. I try to focus on Quinten as he moves around the room.

  He’s staring at the photo as it develops in his hand. “Beautiful. So beautiful. I’ll keep it forever.”

  His energy is visible, he looks like he’s preparing for something, but I don’t want to imagine what. When he turns my way, I pretend to be weaker than I really am, my body limp, breathing shallow. Inside, I scream and fight against the fog, but I can’t let him see.

  The stink of mildew stings my sinuses. I think it’s coming from the mattress over there. It feels like I’ll never get the smell out of my nose, even if by some miracle I escape this place. Which is looking more and more doubtful by the second.

  I try to focus on the sound of his footsteps, the creaking of the floorboards. Hours have passed since we first got here and I know my mom will have figured out I’m missing by now, but since I stupidly covered my tracks when I came to meet Quinten today there’s no hope of anyone finding me here now. And even if they do, I’ll probably be dead by then.

  No, I can’t think like that. The only way out of this is to fight, and for that I can’t afford to lose my grip and give up. I just need to clear my head and wait for the right moment.

  “I’m going to miss our little midnight meet ups at the falls,” Quinten muses. “I really have grown fond of you.”

  Emotion catches in my throat as I think about the nights we spent huddled together under the stars, listening to the water flowing. I really believed we had a future together. That he and Felicity would separate and we’d leave town together, able to share our love freely. No more hiding from everyone or sneaking around. But every feeling that I had for him has now gone. Disintegrated. I can’t believe I ever fell for this sick bastard. Everything he told me was a lie. He probably convinced all of the girls he brought out here that he’d fallen for them, that he was taking them to his vacation house. I wonder how he killed them? What’s in store for me now that he’s gotten his precious photo of me to add to his collection?

  “Why did you leave them there?” I ask quietly. “The photos at my mom’s house.”

  He sits down on the edge of the bed and looks at me for a long time before speaking. “Elle was my first. Eight years ago.”

  Elle? That wasn’t one of the names on the photos my mom showed me. But it soon hits me right in the chest: Elle Thomas, Xavier’s mom.

  “You killed Justin’s wife,” I mutter in disbelief.

  Quinten ignores this. “She was a beautiful woman. I always thought so. Of course, my wife was friends with her, so we knew each other a little. Enough for her to trust me when I offered her a lift that night.”

  Poor Elle, Xavier would have only been a baby back then. Justin lost his wife and their son lost the chance to ever know his mother, all because of Quinten.

  “My mother had just died, and the cabin was now mine. Maybe Felicity hated this place but I still loved it. I kept coming here, even after I told her I’d sold it.”

  It doesn’t surprise me Felicity wanted this place gone from their lives. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of.

  “Elle, though. Seeing Elle in the cabin was like being brought back to my childhood. My mother’s clothes were still here and I couldn’t resist. When she put on that dress, she looked just like my mother had. Nobody has a smile quite like my mother did, but Elle’s was so beautiful I had to get a photo to remember it by.”

  A shiver runs through me as I look down at the dress I’m wearing. His dead mother’s dress. Gross. And I know he did this to at least three more girls, I’ve seen the photos. This is so twisted, I don’t want to hear any more. I squeeze my eyes shut but he won’t stop talking, confiding in me what he couldn’t with anyone else.

  “When we started renovations on our house, we needed to move some stuff out of the way for the work to be done. And since we’d been friends with the Desmonds—the couple who used to own your mother’s house—they agreed to let us store some of our furniture there while our renovations were being done. I also needed somewhere to keep my photos where Felicity wouldn’t find them, so I hid them around that house. It had been empty for so long, I guess I thought nobody would ever buy it. I went back to see my girls often, but I had to be careful with Bernice Fisher living next door, that woman never missed a thing. Then last year, I had been away for a week on business and when I got home Felicity told me in passing that the Desmonds’ house had been sold. By that time, it was too late to go back and retrieve my photos because your family had already moved in.”

  As he talks, I work on flexing my fingers and toes, building my strength.

  “So, I could no longer come back and see my girls. I missed them very much. Of course, it didn’t take your mother long to find them. Luckily, when she showed them around, Felicity didn’t seem to notice the walls of the cabin or think for a moment that I had anything to do with it. But it didn’t take long for old Bernice Fisher to put two and two together, that it had been me who left them there. When she went berserk and pointed me out at the town meeting as being the one who had been coming and going from the house over the years, it was sheer luck that Justin Thomas was sitting right next to me, and since she’d already been ranting about him killing his wife, everyone assumed she was still talking about him.”

  I don’t even ask the question that comes into my mind, because I already know the answer. Quinten killed Bernice that night to keep her quiet, to keep his secret safe, and the blame still pointed firmly at Justin. And it worked. Everyone thinks Justin killed Bernice, and they probably always will.

  Quinten will kill me too, then go home to Felicity and his two sons who still worship his every move. I bet he and Felicity don’t even have any relationship problems, and he was just lying about that to lead me on.

  There’s a quiet hum in my head now, low and rumbling.

  “I won’t lie,” Quinten continues. “Seeing those photos again at the meeting was one of the biggest thrills of my life. My beautiful girls there for all to see. I only wished I could tell everyone that they were mine. That their smiles were just for me.”

  Through the haze of my mind, I hear it louder now. A distant rumble that continues to grow. My heart races. Is that a car?

  Quinten must hear it too because his body tenses and he jumps up to move toward the door. Before I can second guess myself, I seize my chance. With every ounce of strength I can muster I spring upwards, launching myself toward him. My mind has switched off, it’s all instinct and adrenaline. I swing the door backwards with all my might, the wood meeting his face with a loud thud. He screams in agony and stumbles back, stunned. I dart past him, my bare feet slapping against the filthy floor as I use every bit of my concentration to keep moving my body forward. The front door is just a few steps away, I can make it, I know I can!