Page 76 of Still Missing You

He nods and frowns, his glassy gaze confused. “How... how are you here?”

“I was looking for you.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, through chattering teeth. Cold settles in my gut. I’d found Matthew alive, but he was clearly sick. If I didn’t get him out of here soon, he wouldn’t be alive for much longer.

“You have nothing to be sorry about.” I shrug off my coat and move toward him, crouching carefully. The cold bites at my skin instantly, seeping through my shirt as if I wore nothing at all, but there’s no time to care. I drape my coat over his shoulders.

He flinches at first, then relaxes slightly into the warmth.

“Thanks,” he murmurs.

“You’re burning up,” I tell him.

His eyes close, and he nods. “Been better.”

I need to get us out of here before Jim gets back and finishes what he started. I glance around the shed, looking for something to get us out of here.

It’s small, old. Probably one of the sagging sheds behind the inn I noticed the day we arrived in Coldwater. Matthew had been here, practically under our feet, all this time.

Tools hang from rusted hooks along one wall. A workbench sits near the door. No windows, just gaps between the boards that let in slivers of moonlight.

I shuffle across the small space to the door. Every step sends thin jolts of pain through my skull. I pull on the latch. The door rattles, but doesn’t open. I peer through the crack to see what’s keeping it closed. A padlock. Not great.

“Okay,” I say, more to myself than to Matthew. “We’re getting out of here.”

Matthew lets out a weak, humorless laugh before sinking into another round of wet, raspy coughs. “Good plan.”

He looks up and lifts his cuffed hand. The chain rattles ominously. “You got a key?”

“Working on it.” I start searching the workbench again, rooting through old tools and rusted nails for something I can use to free him, but there’s nothing useful.

I run my hands along the walls, checking for loose boards, weak spots, anything that might give us an advantage. There has to be something.

Behind me, Matthew coughs harshly, the sound tearing through the quiet. I know we’re running out of time.

My heart is pounding now, adrenaline cutting through the fog in my head.

Hunter would look for me. He had to. I just needed to stay alive long enough for him to find me.

A sound cuts through my thoughts, footsteps crunching through the snow, slow and deliberate.

I freeze, my breath lodging in my chest. Matthew goes still behind me. The footsteps stop right outside the door.

My pulse roars in my ears. The lock rattles, and I grab the first thing I find on the workbench, an old, rusted hammer.

The door creaks open. A flashlight beam fills the opening, and I squint and tighten my grip on the hammer.

My eyes adjust to the sudden brightness, and Nancy stands in the opening, framed by the dark night behind her. Not Jim.

Her face is pale, her expression tight and unreadable. Relief hits hard.

“Nancy,” I say quickly. “Thank God. You have to help us.”

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t rush forward. Doesn’t react the way someone should when they find two people trapped in a shed. One with his face beaten to a pulp, the other sick and shivering and chained to the wall. She doesn’t even look surprised.

“Nancy?” I try again, and her gaze meets mine.

“I was afraid of this,” she says, with a soft sigh, shaking her head as if disappointed.