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  “I’m glad you have a good friend, Sally.” Elle patted her knee and stood to leave.

  Sally reached for her. “Wait, Mom,” she said, “You’re not going to tell me I can’t talk to him?”

  Elle made a face. “Like that’d work.” She laughed. “No, I trust you’ll keep our secret, for now at least.”

  “Yeah,” Sally said, with a nod. Some secret. Her heart ached to talk to her parents about their big, family secret.

  Sally lay in her bed musing about the conversation she’d had with her mother the night before. Chairs scrapped against the kitchen floor and the smell of bacon wafted through the house. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her thoughts turned back to last night’s talk with her mom—the evasive, one-sided talk. She wished she’d just talk to her about it—everything that happened those years ago. From a child’s perspective, it was all a blur—a scary, heart-throbbing blur.

  Sometimes she felt like she would crumble under the pressure of silence. It was like no one understood the suffering she went through. Yeah, it was great that they were all together now, minus Grammie Gwen and the others, she thought sadly, but what about her? She really needed someone to listen, but it seemed like everyone else was trying too hard to forget.

  She hadn’t seen who had abducted her from Grammie Gwen’s cabin. He must’ve drugged her. But she did have an odd memory about waking up in a car that smelt of cigars. Everything went black again, until she woke up in the cellar of the cabin in Tennessee.

  She never told anyone about it, because even at that young age, she knew it couldn’t be the man she used to call Father, that awful man who used to beat Elle. Somehow, anyone else but him, didn’t seem as bad. But, she’d been afraid that if she told them her fears, she’d find out that he really wasn’t in jail after all. It was silly, and she knew it now, but back then, it seemed awfully real to her.

  No one told her about the upcoming lethal injection, either. She saw the letter laying open on the counter and read it before Elle put it away. Did they think she was too young to take the truth? Thirteen is hardly a baby, she thought. I wish they’d stop treating me like one.

  After washing the breakfast dishes, she pulled on her hiking boots. Breccan was meeting her at the park by the old church. She was glad she had told him to meet her there, instead of coming to the house. She didn’t feel like answering any more questions.

  Halfway to the church, a white van pulled up alongside her. “Excuse me, kid,” the man said. He flipped his cigarette out the opened window. “Where’s the nearest gas station?”

  She had been taught not to talk to strangers, but he seemed harmless. She pointed down the street beside them. He beckoned for her to come closer, cupping his hand to his ear, as if he couldn’t hear.

  She took a step toward him, but stopped. Something in the way he looked at her sent a prickle up her spine. She stepped back and repeated her former instructions.

  His face screwed up in frustration. “What?” He put his hand on the door, as if he would open it, but just as he did, Breccan came up between them. The man put his hands back on the steering wheel, and the van took off down the street.

  She was shaking all over. “Breccan,” she exclaimed breathlessly.

  He fumbled over his words. “What’s wrong, Sally?”

  A sob caught in her throat. “That man.”

  Breccan looked at the white van, as it drove down the street. “Who is he?”

  Her voice trembled. “I don’t know.”

  Breccan pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper. “I’ll have my dad run the plates.”

  That brought her back to reality. It was just a guy looking for a gas station—nothing more. She looked at him incredulously. “What did you say?”

  He gave her a serious look and kept writing the numbers down. “What if he’s a stalker or something?”

  “Wow.” She pushed the pencil off the paper. “Thanks, Superman, but it was just a man looking for a gas station.”

  He gave her an odd look. “But your eyes—”

  Pretending boldness, she huffed. “What?”

  He grimaced. “Good one, Sally. But, I’ve never seen you frightened of anything before. That man scared you.”

  Her shoulders slumped. Breccan was right—she had been frightened. Was this the way it was always going to be? Was she going to be scared of every man that stopped to talk to her? She fought back the tears—unsuccessfully.

  Breccan stepped closer. “Sally?” His eyes were full of worry. “What’s going on?”

  She sobbed, but didn’t say a word.

  “Do you want me to walk you to your home?”

  She shook her head, feeling foolish for crying in front of him. Especially, when she couldn’t even tell him why. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when he tried to figure it out on his own.

  “Something at home?”

  She blubbered. “No.”

  “Did that man say something to you?”

  “He just . . . wanted to know . . . where the gas station was,” she said, between broken sobs.

  “Hmm,” Breccan said, putting his hand to his chin, “sorry to ask this, but your dad—is he hurting you?”

  The crying stopped. “What?” she stammered. “No!”

  But he read it differently. “Sometimes we try to protect the ones we love.”

  She poked him in the shoulder. “My dad—my real dad—is dead.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “I never met him—”

  His mouth fell open slightly. “Oh, so your stepdad hurt you?”

  “No!” She poked him again. “Sam Hancock’s great.” As soon as she said his real name, her hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes widened.

  Breccan’s eyebrows furrowed. “Hancock?”

  “Um, I mean, Hadlock . . . Sam Hadlock.” She pressed her lips tight and wiped tears from her face.

  Breccan stepped back. “You said, Hancock.”

  “A slip of the tongue, Breccan,” she snapped back.

  “Whoa, Sally. What’s really happening?”

  “Nothing.” She wanted to tell him so badly, after all, Merrick Snyder would be dead and gone in a few months. What harm would it be in telling him the truth? Still, the strange encounter with the man in the van upset her enough to hold out. She would tell Breccan all about it when it was over.

  “I was just being silly, that’s all—too many scary movies, I guess.” That got the intended results. Breccan was a movie fanatic. They had already talked about the second Nightmare on Elm Street coming out in November. She forced a grin. “I guess I’m on edge with Krueger coming back and all.”

  “Good ‘ol Freddie,” he said grimly. “I guess that’d make anyone leery of strangers.”

  After their hike, she declined an offer to go to lunch, and left him at the corner. “See ya, later, Breccan.”

  He stayed on the corner and watched her walk away. She knew, because every time she looked back, he was just where she had left him. She waved him off, but he darted toward her instead.

  What? He doesn’t know what a goodbye wave looks like? She stood still and waited for him. When he got closer, she was bewildered. His eyes were filled with concern.

  He led her away from the street. “This way.”

  She hurried beside him. “Where are we going?”

  He cut through an alley and then another, his grip tight around her wrist. She pulled her hand away. “Stop it, Breccan. What are you doing?”

  “Keep going. We’re going to lose him.” He led her down a side street and then pulled her behind a dumpster. “There.” He pointed down the alley from behind the dumpster as a white van drove slowly by the street.

  Twenty-One

  The Woods by the Lake

  Nancy sat on the steps of her cabin and studied the map. “Lac Caché de la Beauté—hidden lake of beauty,” she whispered, translating the name of the sanctuary. “So appropriate.” She stared out over the sparkling lake.

  On the bottom o
f the paper it listed different activities available like canoeing and painting. “So odd,” she mumbled. “I’m not here to do those kinds of things. Except—” A writing class met every day at 10 am. She tapped the paper and glanced in the direction of the yellow cabin. “That’s more like it.” She turned the brochure over.

  On the back, time slots for both individual and group counseling were listed every hour on the hour, along with the rooms they met in at in the lodge. Apparently, all you had to do was show up. She wondered how that worked with one-on-one counseling, which was all she wanted.

  She stood in front of the golf cart. “I’ll give it a try.” The lodge was at least ten minutes away by foot, but the day was warm, and a nice breeze blew, so she opted to walk. Anyhow, it’d give her plenty of time to turn back, if she just couldn’t do it—face a total stranger and talk about herself. The group thing was out of the question. She shuddered just thinking about it.

  Walking was something she enjoyed. After her captivity in the underground cave, she had ventured out at first only with her brother at her side, but in Ireland, that all changed. Mimi and she walked a couple times a week.

  Strange though, even though she felt close to her, she hadn’t told Mimi anything about who she really was, or the terrible ordeal she’d been through.

  The therapist, however, knew everything. She was specially appointed by the Feds to counsel both her and Elle, though Elle had declined it. The therapist was the one that suggested the women’s sanctuary. Nancy resisted the idea at first, but, she sighed, here she was. She reached the lodge, and then passed right by it, without nary a look, as if it had always been her plan to keep going.

  Though she felt relief, inwardly, she berated herself. You’re such an idiot, Nancy. I don’t know what’s worse—not stopping, or pretending not to stop. Who are you kidding? She shook her head. She walked on, all the while trying to convince herself to turn around.

  “Why did I even come here? Gah.” Throwing her hands to her sides, she stopped walking and yelled, “You’re such an idiot.” Movement on a path to her left caught her eye.

  She turned and saw the backside of someone rushing into the woods, only making out her pastel shirt, and dark, braided hair, as she slipped into the trees.

  Conflicted, and certain the woman had heard her outrageous tirade, she called out, “Wait!” Though explaining her outburst to that woman was the last thing she wanted. She hurried after her, but the woman was gone, blending in with the trees and high brush and ferns.

  “Someone doesn’t want to be seen even more than me,” she mumbled, turning back toward her cottage.

  Once inside, she went straight to the back wall and opened it. Unnerved by the woman’s strange behavior, she sank into a chair facing the lake. She stayed there for several minutes, unable to settle the confusion flitting around in her brain.

  I don’t come across like her, do I? It was a thought that deeply troubled her. Then again, the woman’s odd actions weren’t about her—they were about whatever had happened to the woman to make her so evasive and apparently afraid of people.

  Was this place a looney-bin? Shake that off, Nance, she thought. You’re not looney and look what you just did. She smirked. Or maybe looney is what looney does. She slapped her knees. “Okay, Nance, that’s enough.” Jumping up, she continued. “Snap out of it.”

  She stepped to the edge of the deck and leaned against the railing. “Beautiful,” she said, scanning the deep, blue water, shimmering in the late afternoon sun.

  From down the shore, the woman she had seen earlier, walked from tree to tree, unaware she was being watched. Nancy slipped behind a tree next to the deck and stayed out of view.

  She had only seen her backside before, but now she saw her face—untroubled and carefree. It puzzled her. She had half expected to see some kind of turmoil. She actually looked rather pleasant. She appeared to be about her age, and Nancy guessed European—maybe from Spain? Suddenly, she felt silly. She had no right to invade this woman’s privacy, even if the woman knew nothing of it.

  Turning away, she slunk down and sat on the deck, facing her blue cabin. Pulling her legs up, she wrapped her arms around them. From a distance she heard the woman’s lyrical voice drifting up through the trees. The song was beautiful, moving, and even though Nancy didn’t understand the foreign words, she sensed the woman’s passion for them.

  For no other reason than that, tears formed in the rims of her eyes. It had been a while since she cried—in fact, it was one of the things the doctor encouraged her to do more often. She sat still on the deck and allowed tears to flow that normally she would have stopped.

  The woman’s voice got farther away, and Nancy stood up and brushed herself off. She turned and saw the woman ascend the steps to the deck of the yellow cabin.

  The woman who lives there will never let you in, Nancy thought, but when the woman got to the deck, she sat down, and picked up a book. Could it be? Nancy squinted. She’d never seen the woman in the yellow cottage up close, and certainly never seen her wild, unkempt hair neatly pulled back in a braid.

  The woman laid the book down. Her dark braid fell over her shoulder as she bent down and picked up a lap desk setting on the deck floor. With pencil in hand, she appeared to be caught up in whatever it was she wrote, every once in a while, looking out at the lake and then back at her paper.

  From the green cottage between them, Millie stepped out on her deck. She looked at the woman, who paid no attention to her, and then up at Nancy. Waving eagerly, she beckoned for her to come down to her cottage.

  Nancy’s muscles tightened, and she squeezed her fists tight, not wanting to go, and wanting to go, at the same time. Why was making friends so difficult? Uh, probably the fiasco which was my life with Merrick, she thought bitterly. She glanced at the safety of her blue cabin and then back at Millie’s. If I stay away from people, I won’t be hurt by them. There. She thought it, and it was why she forced herself to leave the deck, and walk toward her new friend.

  Millie met her halfway. “Nancy.” She threw her arms around her neck. Pulling away she gushed. “So, how was your first day?”

  “It was, um, nice,” Nancy said, not so convincingly.

  Millie tilted her head. “Yeah, my first day went like that, too.”

  She felt her face redden and pressed her lips tight. “Oh? How long have you been here?”

  “This time?”

  That surprised Nancy. She didn’t know what to say.

  “This is my third time here in the past year.”

  “Oh.”

  “It kind of grows on you, being here in the woods by the lake.” She looked out over its quiet waters. The sun was just beginning to lower itself in the distance, as the day waned. Breathing in deep, she continued. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I know that because you are, you’ve experienced some kind of trauma—like us all.” She was silent. “My trauma, keeps bringing me back.” Her smile faded, as she was obviously caught up in a memory.

  Nancy bit down on her lip. She couldn’t—she just couldn’t listen to whatever Millie had gone through. “I, um, I’m sorry, Millie.”

  In an instant, Millie’s sad look was gone. “No need to be sorry, Nancy.” She patted her arm. “Coming here is like recharging my batteries.” She grinned. “It’s the best medicine in the world.” Looping her arm through Nancy’s, she turned toward the path. “Shall we go to dinner?”

  Nancy would rather have gone back to her cabin. There was plenty of food in the refrigerator and the pantry. But, something about Millie quieted the turmoil raging within her. “Okay,” she said, before she changed her mind. She pulled her arm away and stood beside her.

  Millie seemed to understand. “You’ll love the food here. We take turns preparing the meals and cleaning up after. There’s a signup sheet in the kitchen.”

  “Oh.” Nancy hadn’t thought about that, but she supposed that made sense. “Everyone works together here?”

  “Yes. We clean ou
r own cabins, too.”

  Relieved that no one would invade her privacy, she sighed. “That’s nice.”

  Millie gestured toward the dirt road up the path. “Ready?”

  Yes, and no, Nancy thought. She gave Millie a quick nod and then glanced back at the yellow cabin with its empty deck. The strange woman was nowhere to be seen. She pointed toward it. “What do you know about her?”

  “Not much. Well, except I know that whenever she’s gone, no one coming in gets her cabin. It’s kind of weird, because when I come and go, I don’t have my own cabin waiting for me.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s because she’s only gone for a few days before she returns.”

  “Have you ever spoken to her?”

  Millie smirked. “Yes, the one thing she does do is come to the writing group. In fact, it’s practically her baby.”

  “Really?” Nancy looked down at her feet while they walked. “But she seems so elusive.”

  Millie nodded. “Oh, she is—she’s great at listening, and sharing writing tips, but not so great at talking about herself. Seriously, the only thing I know about her is her first name.”

  Nancy stopped walking and looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

  “Sofia,” Millie said, skipping up the steps of the lodge, “her name is Sofia.”

  “Sofia,” Nancy repeated, following her into the lodge.

  The front doors opened into a wide vestibule. Several potted plants sat in perfectly arranged clusters in front of its large windows. The floor caught Nancy’s attention. Someone had done some serious art work on the hardwood floor, with its inlaid marble patterns of a sunburst. “Just gorgeous,” she whispered.

  Millie followed her eyes to the floor. “Yes, it is. The owner of the lodge had that commissioned before he turned it over to us.”

  Nancy glanced around. The vestibule was empty except for her and Millie, though she could see women in the adjoining room. Her thoughts turned back to Sofia. It seemed odd that someone so private would lead a writing group. How would that even work? “Sofia doesn’t share her writing?”