Forever Gone (Selena Raven #3)

PROLOGUE

The road into eastern Harlan County narrowed until the trees seemed to lean over it.

Karen Sloane drove with both hands on the wheel, following the faded center line through folds of woodland.

Afternoon sunlight passed between the branches, catching the first signs of autumn among the green.

Red had begun to spread along the maples, and yellow showed in the poplars.

Fallen leaves stirred in the ditches when her car passed.

Somewhere beneath the hood, something juddered.

Karen eased off the accelerator.

The vibration stopped.

She pressed down again, and the steering wheel gave a faint tremor beneath her palms before settling.

“Please don’t,” she murmured.

Cars had never been her forte. She could refill the washer fluid, check the oil if someone reminded her which colored handle to pull, and recognize the low-fuel warning when it appeared. Anything beyond that belonged to a world of belts, plugs, bearings, and expensive conversations with mechanics.

That had been Gerry’s territory.

Her ex-husband could identify a failing wheel bearing from half a street away.

He could spend an hour describing the difference between a rattle and a knock while Karen pretended to understand.

During their marriage, he had handled the cars, the mortgage, the insurance renewals, the tax returns, and every other task he believed required a more “practical” mind than hers.

In the end, it was just another way for him to control her.

The car gave another small shudder.

Karen waited for a warning light. None appeared.

A smile pulled at her mouth.

“Still moving without you.”

She lowered the window. Cool air swept into the car, carrying the scent of leaves, sun-warmed bark, and water somewhere beyond the roadside brush. For most of the drive from Loyall, her shoulders had remained tight. Now the tension began to ease.

Three months.

No Gerry. No lawyers. No friends asking whether she was coping and then watching too closely while she answered. No familiar rooms arranged around the shape of a marriage that had ended long before either of them admitted it.

Three months alone in the hills near Elmsview, that’s now what she needed. A blank screen and the novel she had talked about writing since she was twenty-two. Close to where her life had started, but secluded enough to feel separate from everything she was leaving behind.

Excitement rose in her so suddenly that she laughed.

A bend carried the road uphill. The land dropped through oak and hickory on one side and climbed into dense brush on the other. Black rail fencing appeared ahead, broken in places and silvered by years of weather.

According to the directions, the turn for the Montgomery property lay half a mile beyond the remains of an old church.

She vaguely remembered it from exploring the woods with friends as a child.

Karen had passed a roofless building ten minutes ago, set back among the trees behind a weed-choked pull-off, though she had not been sure whether it was the church or an old barn.

She glanced at the printed instructions on the passenger seat.

SECOND GRAVEL TURN AFTER brIDGE.

There had not been a bridge.

Her phone showed no signal. The navigation map had frozen several miles back, leaving the blue arrow suspended in a patch of unnamed green.

The car juddered again, harder this time.

A metallic vibration traveled through the floor.

Karen slowed to twenty.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll get there first. Then you can fall apart.”

The trees thinned beyond the next rise. Sunlight opened across a wide meadow. A weathered sign stood beside a gravel track.

MONTGOMERY PROPERTY

PRIVATE ROAD

Older lettering remained visible beneath the brown paint: CABIN TO LET.

Relief loosened her grip on the wheel.

Karen turned onto the track. Loose stones struck the underside of the car as it descended between low banks and crossed a narrow wooden bridge over a stream.

Beyond it, the meadow opened fully.

At the bottom of the slope stood the cabin.

It was smaller than the photographs had suggested, though perhaps every vacation rental was.

Dark timber walls rested beneath a sloping metal roof dulled by rust. A shallow porch ran along the front, supported by posts that had once been painted white.

Two square windows reflected the sky. The woods gathered behind the building, close enough that branches hung above the roof.

No other houses were visible. The nearest neighbor, according to Hannah Montgomery, lived a little over a mile away.

Karen stopped beside the porch and switched off the engine.

Silence settled around the car.

Not complete silence. The stream moved behind her. Insects clicked in the grass. A bird called from the woods and received no answer. Yet the absence of traffic, voices, lawnmowers, televisions, and doors closing made the place feel farther from the world than it was.

She studied the cabin through the windshield.

Three months of solitude had sounded romantic in the rental listing. A peaceful writer’s retreat on private land. No interruptions. No distractions. No excuses.

The real place stirred something less certain.

Karen opened the door and climbed out.

At forty-one, she had spent most of her life among people.

She knew the names of neighbors three streets over, spoke to strangers in grocery-store lines, and had once made a friend during a delayed dental appointment.

Even during the worst months of her marriage, the possibility of conversation had been only a phone call away.

Here, the trees seemed to absorb her arrival.

She turned, taking in the meadow, bridge, and track rising toward the road. Nothing moved near the cabin.

The unease remained, but excitement pressed against it.

“This is what you wanted,” she said.

Her voice carried farther than expected.

Karen retrieved the keys from her purse. Hannah Montgomery had mailed them with a handwritten note apologizing for not being able to meet her. She managed several properties across the county and would call later that week to make sure everything worked.

The key resisted before turning in the front lock. Paint flaked beneath Karen’s fingers, and the bottom of the door scraped across the floorboards when she pushed it open.

Closed-up air met her inside. The cabin held the odor of old timber, fabric, and moisture trapped through a humid summer.

Dust filmed the floor near the doorway. A stone fireplace filled one wall, its grate swept clean but flecked with rust. The furniture appeared to have been gathered across several decades: a brown sofa with flattened cushions, two mismatched lamps, a dining table scarred by hot pans, and an armchair upholstered in faded green cloth.

“It needs airing.”

Karen forced up the nearest window. The cabin’s layout matched the online photographs.

A narrow hall led toward a kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. The main room would serve as both living space and office.

Electrical outlets ran along the wall beneath the windows.

Hannah had promised reliable power and internet that worked when the weather allowed.

Internet that worked when the weather allowed had sounded charming when Karen booked the place.

Now it sounded like a warning.

She opened the second window.

Somewhere deeper in the cabin, wood creaked.

Karen paused.

The building was old. Old buildings shifted and complained. She listened for several seconds.

Nothing followed.

A desk stood against the far wall. Karen dragged it toward the front window, its legs rasping across the boards, then pulled the green armchair behind it.

The chair was heavier, and she had to move it in short bursts.

When she finally sat, she placed both hands on the scratched wooden surface and studied the view of the meadow, bridge, and road climbing away through the trees.

“Perfect,” she said. “This is where it’ll happen. Finally.”

For years, writing had existed in the future. She would begin after the move, after Christmas, after things became less strained with Gerry. Later had been useful because later never required her to risk failure.

Gerry had encouraged the delay whenever she came close to beginning.

People like us don’t write books, Karen.

It’s pie in the sky.

The phrase had become his favorite. He used it for writing courses, magazine submissions, and the secondhand laptop she almost bought. Once, after too much wine, he had asked whether she wanted to embarrass herself in private or in front of everyone they knew.

Karen rose.

The divorce settlement had left her enough to live modestly for three months without taking another administrative job. After that, she would need income.

Maybe the novel would sell. Maybe it would not.

For once, failure would belong to her.

She went back outside and opened the trunk.

One large suitcase lay beside a cardboard box of groceries, bedding, toiletries, and kitchen supplies. The suitcase held clothes, photographs, a few books, her father’s fountain pen, and the jewelry Gerry had not claimed was purchased with joint funds.

After the break-in at her storage unit, Karen had emptied it and closed the account. Nothing remained at the house outside Loyall, either. Everything she had chosen to carry into her new life now fit inside the car.

She lifted the suitcase onto the gravel.

For a moment, she kept one hand on the handle.

Everything she owned had once filled rooms. Furniture chosen with Gerry. Shelves of novels. Wedding china wrapped in paper. Framed photographs selected to present a version of their life neither of them recognized.

Leaving had reduced her life to what fit in a car.

The price was high.

Staying had cost her too.

Karen pulled the suitcase toward the porch, carried it inside, and opened it near the desk. Folded clothes filled one side. Beneath two sweaters lay a smaller black case.

She lifted it out.

The word processor had yellowed around the keys. Its narrow screen was dark, the casing scratched near the power switch.

It had belonged to her father.

Karen remembered lying awake in her old bedroom, listening to the steady tapping from the kitchen. Sometimes he wrote until one in the morning after finishing his shift at the distribution warehouse. He had completed four novels. None had been published.

After his death, Karen found rejection letters tied in bundles inside his desk. She had cried harder over those than she had at the funeral.

Her father had kept trying, even if the world had never placed his books on a shelf.

Karen carried the word processor to the desk and plugged it in.

A soft mechanical hum came from inside the machine.

Green letters appeared across the screen.

SYSTEM READY.

Karen touched the edge of the keyboard.

“For both of us,” she whispered.

A creak sounded behind her.

Every muscle in her back tightened.

The noise had come from the hallway.

Karen turned in the chair.

The doorway stood empty. Beyond it, the narrow passage lay in shadow.

“Hello?”

No reply.

She waited.

A footstep sounded in the hall.

Slow. Deliberate.

Karen rose.

Another step followed.

Someone was inside the cabin.

Her purse rested on the sofa several feet away. The front door stood open, but reaching it meant crossing the room in full view of the hall.

“Hello?” she called again. “Is that you, Ms. Montgomery?”

The footsteps stopped.

Karen’s pulse thudded in her throat.

Hannah had said she would not be there. Perhaps her plans had changed. Perhaps she had entered through the back to check the plumbing and had not heard Karen arrive.

That explanation might have worked if she had answered.

Karen moved one step toward the sofa.

A board complained beneath her shoe.

Another footstep came from the hallway, closer now.

“Ms. Montgomery?”

Silence.

Karen reached the sofa and closed her fingers around the strap of her purse.

The footsteps resumed.

One.

A pause.

Another.

They were approaching the main room.

Cold prickled across the back of her neck. Karen pulled the purse toward her and searched for her phone without taking her attention from the doorway.

“Who’s there?”

The footsteps ceased just beyond the opening.

Her fingers found lipstick, a packet of tissues, and the edge of her wallet.

No phone.

She had left it in the car charger.

“Why aren’t you answering me?”

Movement darkened the hallway.

A figure stepped into the doorway.

Recognition came before comprehension.

Karen knew them.

For a second, relief almost broke through the fear because familiarity belonged to the ordinary world. It belonged to roads with signals, houses with neighbors, and the life she had come here to escape.

Then she understood that they did not belong here.

They could not have found her by accident.

“What are you doing here?”

The figure said nothing.

Something glinted in their hand.

The afternoon light caught a narrow edge of metal.

Karen’s grip loosened on the purse.

Behind her, the word processor continued to hum. The green cursor waited beneath SYSTEM READY, ready for the first sentence of the life she meant to build for herself.

Deep inside, with a certainty that allowed no argument, Karen knew she would never type another word.