Chapter 11 - The Road to the Cabin
I called June again. This time, she answered before the second ring.
“Where are you?”
“The pharmacy on Route Nine. Edgar sent me pictures of the cabin.”
A silence, then the sound of a door closing on her end.
“Are you hurt?”
“No. But the pictures don’t prove Heather’s there.”
“They don’t prove she isn’t.” June’s voice tightened. “Stay where you are. I’m coming.”
She arrived twelve minutes later, her headlights sweeping over the pharmacy windows. I watched her get out and scan the lot before crossing to my car. The old instinct to apologize for making trouble rose in me, then faded. Trouble had found us long before I called.
June opened the passenger door.
“Heather’s at my place,” she said. “My sister came over. She’ll stay with Heather while we go.”
The appointment card in my purse pressed against my phone. I could feel its softened edges, though I didn’t take it out.
“Your sister knows?”
“Enough to keep Heather inside and call me if anything changes.” June held my gaze. “I’m not leaving her alone.”
I climbed into June’s car. Before we pulled out, she sent our location and Heather’s recorded statement to her sister, with a message to call for help if we didn’t check in. Then she put her phone in the console, screen facing up.
“Every ten minutes,” she said.
“Agreed.”
The cabin road was narrower than the photographs made it look. Trees crowded the shoulders, their wet branches dragging over the roof with a sound like fingernails. June drove slowly, watching the dark beyond the windshield. I watched the map crawl forward on her phone.
The farther we went, the more the silence pressed in. My mind kept returning to Heather’s scarf on the cabin step—placed there, perhaps, to make me picture her cold and waiting. Maybe Edgar had taken it from her. Maybe it had never been hers at the cabin at all.
A lure could be made from something real.
When June turned off the main road, the tires crunched over gravel. A pale square of light appeared between the trees, then vanished as the road curved.
“Stop here,” I said.
June eased the car onto the shoulder beneath a stand of pines. The cabin was still out of sight. She left the engine running.
“Don’t go near the door,” she said. Not a plea. A boundary we had agreed on.
“I’ll stay where I can see the windows.”
“If you see anything change—”
“I come back.”
I stepped out. The cold smelled of wet bark and leaves beginning to rot. I kept my phone in my hand, the live-location screen open, and moved along the tree line. June’s headlights stayed behind me, low and steady through the trunks.
Voices reached me before the cabin did.
“You said she hadn’t recorded it,” Kristina snapped.
Edgar answered too low for me to catch.
“She has it somewhere,” Kristina said. “You should have taken her phone.”
“I said I’d handle it.”
“You’ve handled nothing.”
The cabin emerged between two trees, its front window glowing yellow. I stopped behind a thick trunk. Through the glass, I could see Kristina standing by the table, her shoulders rigid. Edgar paced near the hearth, his hands moving as he argued.
Then I saw Heather.
She was tied to a wooden chair near the far wall, her wrists bound in front of her. Her face was pale, her hair stuck to one damp cheek. She twisted one hand against the cord while Kristina’s attention stayed fixed on Edgar.
Heather looked toward the window.
For one breath, our eyes met.
She jerked her chin toward the door—not an invitation, not a promise. A signal that she saw me, and that she couldn’t get free.
The knot in my stomach tightened. I wanted to reach her. I wanted to get her out of that chair before either of them turned around. But wanting didn’t make the room safe, and the phone in my hand didn’t make me untouchable.
I took one step back.
Edgar stopped pacing.
His eyes shifted to the window. He looked straight at my reflection in the glass.
“Nora.”
Kristina spun around. Heather shoved at the chair, the legs scraping sharply across the floor.
I ran for the trees. Behind me, the cabin door banged open.
“Nora, wait!” Edgar shouted.
June’s car was still visible between the trunks. I could make it back. I could keep going, keep the distance, keep the evidence out of their hands—
Then Edgar’s voice changed. It softened, carrying through the dark with the familiarity of a man who knew exactly how I used to answer when he called my name.
“I have the folder.”
I stopped.
I had thought the blue cover was gone for good. I had photographed the papers before Edgar tried to take them, but the folder itself had vanished from our dining-room table near dawn. Now he had it again, or something he wanted me to believe was the same.
I turned toward the cabin.
Edgar stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame. In the other, he held the missing policy folder.
Kristina stood behind him. The yellow light cut her face into sharp planes. Heather remained in the chair, her bound hands working at the cord.
May you like
Edgar lifted the folder so I could see its blue cover.
“Come inside,” he said.
