Page 42 of The Vanishing Wife

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

She’d lost the element of surprise, and she’d never get it back.

Elyse tested the closet doorknob and let in a crack of light. No movement from the other side. Still, she didn’t trust her instincts. Not now. She’d read Samuel Thornton all wrong. The door eased wider, and she grabbed for the duffle bag at her feet. She had to get out of here. Now.

Scanning the living room and kitchen, she kept her footsteps as quiet as possible as she raced for the front door. Forget the plan. Forget about covering her tracks. The only thing she could do now was escape. Elyse wrenched the double glass door open, forgetting the noisy protest of the weatherstripping.

It swooshed. Too loud.

She didn’t care. She bolted down the stairs. Her heel slipped out from underneath her and shot down two more steps. She landed on her ass, the worn wood digging into her back. She had to keep moving. She had to get out of here before the man she suspected of kidnapping caught up with her.

“Is somebody there?” Fear snaked through the muffled voice. From the storage closet underneath the house. Heaving sobs tainting every word. “Hello? Help me. Please. Help me.”

Elyse’s body was torn. Between wanting to run and wanting to help.

Between death and her own survival.

“Damn it.” She couldn’t let Samuel Thornton win. Cutting her attention to the door she’d left open on the main level, Elyse dashed for the storage room. The padlock secured the door shut. Dropping the duffle bag, she tapped her palm against the wood. “Can you hear me? I’m going to get you out of there.”

Pounding echoed from inside. “I’m here! Please, open the door. Please. I don’t like the dark.”

“It’s locked.” Elyse pulled at the padlock, even knowing she’d never be able to muscle her way through it. Her fight or flight response had run logic right out of her brain, and it took a second to realize she needed something to break the metal. “Hold on. I’ll get you out.”

Seconds were slipping between her fingers. Minutes.

She searched around the storage room. Knowing full well the homeowner didn’t keep any tools lying around. But that might not be true for his truck. Samuel Thornton worked construction. There was a chance he stored his tools inside. Elyse lunged for the driver’s side door of the vehicle. The door opened easily. Because why lock it when you had the ability to strangle the life from people in your way? Her hands fluttered over the steering wheel and driver’s seat. There was nothing up front. She moved to the back.

Too much time had passed. She needed to leave.

Elyse found what she’d been looking for in the back seat. The scratched and dented metal toolbox aggravated the soreness in her shoulder as she hefted it onto the back seat. The entire thing jarred backward as she flipped the case open. Spilling tools across the seat.

“Bolt cutters. Bolt cutters. Come on.” She’d never handled a pair of bolt cutters in her life. The closest she’d come had been accompanying a professor to the cadaver lab in graduate school for research experience, where she had to snap multiple ribs and a sternum to get to a body’s insides. But that’d been years ago. Elyse angled down toward the seat, looking through the windshield for signs of Samuel Thornton coming down the stairs.

Except he wasn’t there.

Had he not realized she’d left the house? She didn’t have time or the brain capacity to think about that. There were no bolt cutters in the toolbox, and it was only when she planted her hands on a hand saw that she realized they would’ve been too big to store in a backseat toolbox. “I’m coming.”

She nearly collided with the door in a rush to get whoever was inside out. And set the saw against the padlock arm. The teeth scratched the shiny metal surface then started peeling back layers of shavings. The saw was going through. Elyse picked up the pace, regretting all the pushups and rows she skipped out on at the gym. Her muscles burned—more than she could bear—but she couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t give up. “I’m coming.”

The saw cut through the last of the padlock with a hard jerk. The tool fell from her hand, clattering to the concrete. She ripped the padlock out of the bracket and flung open the door. It slammed back against the house. If Samuel Thornton wasn’t aware of where she was, he sure as hell knew now. Elyse stretched her arms into the darkness of the storage room. “Come on. We’ve got to go.”

“I can’t… walk. I’m dizzy.” The girl inside tried to stand. Off balance and over correcting. “I think… he gave me something.”

“I’ve got you.” Elyse crossed the threshold and slipped both hands underneath the girl’s arms. As she’d done a thousand times with expecting patients wanting to get out of the hospital bed during labor. It took a different kind of strength. Stability. Both of which had waned considerably in the last few minutes. They were out of time. “Saige?”

Not Ruby. She couldn’t let her heart settle on that fact.

“Do I… know you?” The girl’s head fell back on her shoulders. Her eyelids heavier than they should’ve been.

“I’m Ava’s mom. Hang on to me.” Elyse threaded Saige’s arm over her shoulders and hefted the girl’s weight into her side. Heading for the door. They were going to make it. She had to believe that. “Lean on me. Okay? We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Well, well, well. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s been busy.” A shadow blocked their exit. Samuel Thornton. “Why don’t you stay a while?”

Elyse lunged for the door, burdened with Saige at her side. “No!”

Just as he secured them inside.

TWENTY-NINE