Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
ABBY
“Abigail, you’re not going anywhere in that outfit.”
Knowing I was busted, I halted in my tracks, one of my comically high-heeled stilettos snagging on the living room rug. I turned toward the kitchen where my mother, Gina, was surveying me with a disapproving glare.
The Mom Glare.
The scent of Nana Cecily’s beloved lasagna recipe wafted from the stove as Mom tossed a dinner salad with two wooden spoons.
Dismay laced my sigh. “I’m just going to the movies with Jordan,” I said, my tone full of teenaged exasperation.
My brother, Ryan, barked a laugh from the couch, his eyes pinned on his Call of Duty video game. “And then what? Are you trying out for that call-girl ad I saw in the paper?”
I stuck my tongue out at him.
“Give me one good reason I should let you out of the house looking like that,” Mom told me, setting down the spoons and waiting, her fingertips tapping against the marble countertop.
I glanced down at my low-slung halter, miniscule leather skirt, and the designer shoes I’d klepto-ed from Liv’s closet. “My heel can double as a weapon if anyone gets frisky with me?”
Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Upstairs, young lady. Points for creativity, though.”
Groaning, I marched up the stairs, acting petulant.
Stomp, stomp, stomp.
And then…
Crash.
I raced back down the steps and into the kitchen, where my mother had dropped the pot of simmering marinara sauce.
She glanced at me, her normally warm eyes turning to stone. “Look at what you’ve done.”
“I…I didn’t do it,” I murmured.
Marinara oozed into the tile cracks, seeping, sullying, staining the plaster and grout. And then it flashed and flickered, transforming into something else.
Blood.
There was so much blood.
Mom shook her head. “You need to clean this up, Abigail.”
My eyes shot open.
My chest was heaving, my mind disoriented.
It was just a dream.
A nightmare. It wasn’t real.
And yet…it was still so dark.
I blinked, forcing myself to wake up. Begging my surroundings to come alive, to take shape, to assure me that I wasn’t stuck in that recurring nightmare. But the darkness remained, consuming me.
Why was it so dark?
My head was throbbing, my stomach in ropes.
Wait.
Ropes.
I tugged at my wrists. A strangled sob escaped me when I realized my hands were bound together behind my back, my shoulder blades pressed up against a cool metal wall.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
I almost choked on the wave of nausea that crept up my chest and burned the back of my throat like acid. Wriggling my legs, I realized that they, too, were tethered. I was shackled like an animal.
Oh, God.
Where was I? What had happened?
I tried to recall the prior evening’s events. I’d left the bar alone after a break in the storm, insisting I could walk home. Daphne was on a mission to bed one of the Wilson brothers, and I was…not.
Daphne had tried to protest but was too drunk to put up much of an argument.
I remembered sending a final-goodbye glance toward Cooper McAllister before trotting off into the late-spring night.
The temperature had been mild, slightly chilly.
I’d crossed my arms across my chest to maintain a semblance of warmth, my purse dangling from my fingers.
That’s when I’d felt something.
Yes.
There had been a presence. A sound, a light kick of gravel.
It was just enough to make my arms break out into goosebumps.
I’d shaken my head at the notion that someone was following me, assuming I was being paranoid.
Still, my footsteps had picked up their pace and my heart rate had escalated.
When I’d turned onto Sullivan Hill, there had been a loud crack, followed by a ringing in my ears.
Then…everything had gone black.
Had I been struck?
The pain pulsating through the back of my head seemed to confirm that theory.
Unsure what else to do, I screamed. “Somebody help me!” My voice cracked with anguish as I kicked my legs and struggled against the rope cutting into my wrists.
The flick of a lighter startled me, and I gasped. The flame casted an eerie illumination throughout my darkened quarters—my cage—and brightened an unfamiliar silhouette.
“Hello, Little Bird.”
I squinted into the shadows.
There was a man sitting across from me, maybe three or four feet away.
I could hardly make out his features, but his voice was gruff and a baseball cap covered his head, his face shrouded with a full beard.
My gaze shifted to my chained ankles bolted to the floor with rusty manacles.
“P-please. Let me go.” Desperation fused with every syllable.
Panic crested, stampeding through me like wild horses as my voice echoed.
The man laughed through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “I can’t do that,” he sneered.
I screamed again, bucking my hips against the hard floor, flailing my body with every ounce of fight I had left. The man reached over and slapped me across the face with the back of his hand. Sobs poured out of me. “Please, don’t hurt me. I don’t want to die.”
He laughed again, this time with an air of hysteria. “You will die, Little Bird.”
And then he left.
I watched as he opened two double doors, the faintest trace of light floating in as he climbed out.
Was I in a truck? A van?
It was still so dark. Black and desolate.
Hopeless.
No…it wasn’t hopeless. The man hadn’t killed me yet and there was a reason for that. What could this stranger, this psychopath, possibly want with me?
It had to be money.
Nana Cecily had left me with an enormous amount. Had a bitter family member discovered the will and tracked me down, hoping to torture dollar bills out of me?
God, it was possible.
Anything was possible.
I twisted my wrists against the rope, trying to slither free, but the pain was too much. I cried out. I screamed and wailed until my throat went raw. Tears rolled down my cheeks, reminding me that I was still alive.
And I knew…
As long as I was alive, there was hope.
Cooper
“I need every single goddamn resource we have on this case. Walker, we’re going to need Ashland County on this. Can you make a call to Chief Reynolds?” I scrubbed both hands over my face as I briefed the small department on the missing girl.
Abby.
“On it.” James nodded, moving toward his desk.
I turned to Faye. “Faye, I need you to hit social media. Get some fliers out there. Spread this as far as it’ll reach.”
“Yes, sir.” The middle-aged office clerk bobbed her head, inching over to her laptop on a rolling chair. “Do you think it’s possible she left town? Ran away?”
I chewed on my cheek, my mind scattered. Of course, it was possible. I’d met Abigail Stone less than twenty-four hours ago and we’d hardly spoken. In fact, I’d only discovered her last name when her face had ended up on my desk this morning.
I didn’t know her at all.
But something sinister was poking at me, gnawing at me. It was the feeling I got when I knew something wasn’t right.
It was the feeling that made me a damn good cop.
I shook my head at Faye. “My gut’s telling me no.
That means we’ve got a small window, maybe forty-eight hours, to do this right.
Every minute counts. Every detail.” I turned to Lyle Kravitz and Johnny Holmes, the other two officers at my station.
“You two hit the streets and find out anything you can. Someone had to have seen something last night. I’m going to talk to Daphne.
She…” Hesitating, I mulled over my words.
“She’s the only one in this town who might have some insight into Abby and her life. ”
I’d almost said that Daphne was the last person to see Abby before she disappeared.
But she wasn’t.
I was.
Swallowing, I flashed back to the prior evening, my recollection sharp and fresh in my mind.
Abby and Daphne had lingered at the bar for a few more hours, drinking cocktails and playing darts and pool with the Wilsons, along with a few other locals.
We had shared a few stolen glances, which had given me that familiar zing in the pit of my stomach.
I hadn’t felt anything like it since Maya, but I recognized the feeling.
Instead of trying to make sense of any of it, I had busied myself behind the bar and counted down the hours until last call. It would take more than an attractive new girl in town with mysterious eyes and a charmingly crooked smile to shake me.
But then there was that look she’d given me before she’d stepped out of the bar.
She had faltered mid-step, hesitating briefly but purposefully.
Our eyes had locked as her hand had swept through her hair, tugging it over her shoulder.
I’d noticed the faintest smile painting her lips and returned whatever it was she had offered me.
I didn’t know what it was, but it was something. And it was all I had gotten before she’d turned on her heel and disappeared into the night.
Disappeared, entirely.
A feeling of dread pulsed between my ribs, twisting me up inside.
Crow’s Peak had an average crime rate but nothing staggering.
There were thefts, assaults, vandalism. There had been one murder during my time on the force, and it had shaken me to the core.
It was a domestic homicide involving a battered wife and a strung-out husband.
I thought about that crime scene often; the blood spatter, the blunt force trauma to the woman’s head.
The vacant look in her eyes as she’d stared up at the ceiling.
I had been a rookie cop at the time and it was almost enough to have me turning in my badge and looking into a career change.
But I was resilient. I’d pressed on, determined to keep fighting the good fight.
It was in my bones.
I would admit, Abby’s case had me frazzled. Women didn’t just go missing in The Crow.
Not since 1978, anyway.