Chapter 1
ONE
Nicole Woodard moved through the woods at a slow jog. The June day was muggy, but a gentle breeze made it quite comfortable.
A poplar branch scraped her cheek, and she slowed her pace. “Come on, Maddy. We need to get back to the house.”
Her little sister skidded to a stop and crossed her arms without turning around. “I don’t wanna.” A foot stomp emphasized the sentiment.
“It’s time for lunch. Dad’s probably back now.”
Maddy turned, a downed tree snagging her gaze, and her eyes widened. The tree was huge, its jagged roots extending a good six feet from the base. It would make great firewood for use this winter. If things went as Nicole hoped, she wouldn’t be here to enjoy it.
She’d planned to come back home after finishing her degree…for a visit. Not an indefinite stay. Now instead of accepting that school psychologist job she’d been offered in Cleveland, Ohio, she was chasing a spoiled seven-year-old through the woods in the sticks of Kentucky.
Maddy skipped toward the tree and maneuvered her body through the mass of roots. “Look, Cole. It’s a secret fort.”
Nicole heaved a sigh. “We need to get back. After lunch, I want to go see Mom.”
When she’d arrived yesterday, she’d dropped her bags off at the house and headed straight to the hospital. The woman lying there barely resembled the one she’d hugged goodbye at the end of spring break. If the diagnosis hadn’t aged her, two surgeries and an aggressive round of chemo had.
“I wanna go with you.”
“Dad will take you later this afternoon.” The hospital waived the minimum age requirement for children of patients when accompanied by an adult.
“I wanna go both times.”
“I’m not coming right home afterward.” She’d already made plans to have an early dinner with friends. As much as she loved her sister, she wasn’t going to change those plans or play babysitter while enjoying them.
Maddy peered between two large roots. That signature stubbornness underlay the eagerness in her eyes. “I could go with you.”
“Not this time.” Nicole extended her hand. “Come on. Let’s have lunch. When I get home this evening, we’ll play Sushi Go!”
The stubbornness fled, and a smile climbed up her cheeks. “Okay.”
Nicole squeezed the hand that slid into hers.
Throughout her childhood, she’d begged her parents for a little sister.
By the time she’d gotten her wish, it had been too late to enjoy it—she’d been a few months shy of high school graduation.
In spite of the seventeen-year age difference, the family resemblance was strong.
If one put their first-grade school pictures side by side, they looked like twins, with the same large, brown eyes and hair so dark it was almost black, both thanks to their mother’s Italian heritage.
“Can we play Hungry Hungry Hippos, too?”
“Sure, until Dad says it’s bedtime.”
Maybe that wasn’t a good promise to make.
Maddy might not even have a bedtime, especially now that school was out.
The rules were more lax for the younger daughter than they’d been for the older one.
Approval flowed more freely, too. Of course, she couldn’t compare her upbringing to her little sister’s.
Nicole had had two healthy parents. For the past two years, their father’s focus had been more on caring for a sick wife than raising a well-behaved daughter.
Maddy swung Nicole’s hand in an exaggerated arc. “I like it out here. Mom and Dad don’t let me walk by myself.”
“I like it, too. While I’m here, we can go for a walk every day.”
The property really was pretty, although she hadn’t appreciated it when her parents had dragged her here at the age of seventeen.
She’d been happy in Memphis, ready to start her senior year of high school.
Then her mom’s parents had passed away, leaving her mom and uncle two homes on four hundred acres of land bordering a national forest on one side and prison grounds at the back.
For her uncle, the inheritance had come at the perfect time—after a business failure and some bad investments, his home had been in foreclosure.
For Nicole, being pulled away from her friends and the much-anticipated senior activities had been the pits. Her mother’s pleas to make the move after Nicole graduated had fallen on deaf ears. Her authoritative father had insisted, and her mother had acquiesced because that was what she always did.
Maddy began to sing softly, some silly, happy children’s song about a fat cat.
Nicole envied that childish lightheartedness, the being blissfully unaware of adult-size problems. Their parents had probably sugarcoated the details about their mom’s cancer, keeping the worst of it from seven-year-old Maddy.
Nicole smiled down at her little sister. She wouldn’t do anything to destroy that innocence.
From somewhere ahead, a male voice drifted to them on the gentle breeze. It didn’t belong to her father, and it was too deep to be her uncle’s. Nicole stiffened, a wave of uneasiness sweeping through her. She drew to a sudden stop and shushed her little sister. The fat cat song died mid-phrase.
The bass voice came again, followed by her father’s.
Her breath released in a rush, and she glanced at Maddy. “Come on, Dad’s back.”
They’d just started to move when her dad spoke again.
This time his voice was raised, anger lacing his tone.
She stood stock-still, every sense on high alert.
Something was wrong. Her father was always in control.
Even during the frequent scoldings she’d received when she’d failed to live up to his expectations, he’d never raised his voice. Someone had ticked him off.
The man he was with spoke again, his voice low and controlled. Her father’s response was immediate. “I won’t be any part of this!”
Suddenly someone was crashing through the woods toward them. Nicole slipped behind a tree and ducked into the undergrowth there, pulling Maddy down with her and praying they weren’t sharing their hiding place with anything that slithered.
“What’s going on?” Maddy’s voice was thin, filled with fear.
Nicole put a finger over her sister’s lips and leaned close. “Let’s play a game and see how quiet we can be.”
Maddy nodded, brown eyes wide.
Moments later, someone fell to the ground a short distance away. There were some rustles and grunts and then the thud of fists against flesh. Someone was being beaten up. If Nicole had to guess, it was her father.
She pressed a hand over her sister’s mouth and held a finger in front of her own lips. Once sure her sister would remain quiet, she lifted her head to peer through the top of the undergrowth.
A man was squatting with his back to her, her father lying on the ground in front of him. As she watched, he pulled something from his pocket and pressed a button. A blade extended from the end, glistening in a beam of sunlight that pierced the canopy overhead.
A soft gasp slipped between her lips. The man was going to hurt her father. She had to do something. She rose from her crouch as the stranger lifted his arm.
“I’ll make sure you keep your mouth shut.” His tone held a cold steeliness. The arm holding the knife swung in a downward arc, and her father released an agonized scream. Nicole pressed a hand over her mouth to keep her own from escaping.
She should have thought of her sister. Maddy screamed, loud and long, as the man plunged the knife into their father’s torso three more times.
Nicole grabbed her sister’s arm and broke into a full run. Her heart twisted as she left her father lying on the ground, bleeding. But trying to help him would get both her and Maddy killed. Soon heavy footsteps pounded behind them.
“Faster.” She hissed the word, even though her sister’s little legs were moving as fast as they could. Tears streamed down the child’s face, and her breath came in sobbing gasps. They would never be able to outrun the man pursuing them. God, help us!
Nicole glanced around them. The downed tree she’d coaxed Maddy from earlier lay ahead and to the left. Barely slowing her pace, she leaned toward her sister.
“There’s our secret fort. Get in as far as you can and don’t make a sound.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Go, and don’t come out till I say so.”
She slowed just enough to watch Maddy weave her way between the roots and then shot away at a full run, taking a sharp right. Her path was leading the man away from Maddy, but she needed more of a plan than that.
The footsteps drew closer. Her pursuer couldn’t be more than thirty feet behind her now. Even without dragging her little sister, she wouldn’t outrun him. As she glanced over her shoulder, the burgundy of his T-shirt flashed among the greens of nature. If she could see him, he could see her.
She slipped behind a tree and skidded to a stop. A broken branch lay on the ground a few feet away. She picked it up and gripped it like a baseball bat. It was sturdy, not rotted, and about four feet long. She wasn’t strong enough to disable him, but maybe she could stun him enough to escape.
As the footsteps pounded closer, she tightened her grip and held her breath. The steps slowed.
“I know you’re here. You might as well give up.”
The taunting tone set every nerve on edge. Given the opportunity, he’d use that knife on her just like he had on her father, without a thread of remorse.
The next moment, he stepped past the tree she was hiding behind.
His head swiveled toward her, and his eyes widened.
She leaped in front of him and swung the branch with all her strength.
Although he twisted to avoid the makeshift club, he wasn’t fast enough.
It connected with the side of his head, the sickening thud sounding amplified in the silence of the woods.
He stumbled sideways and hit the ground.