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“You can’t seriously think he had anything to do with this, can you?” Lucas scoffed. “Shane is out there right now with her, doing god knows what and you want to stand there and throw accusations at the people who care about her?!”
“Don’t raise your voice at me, sir,” Banner snapped. “I have to explore all avenues in a situation like this.”
“But the—,” Lucas tried again but he was quickly silenced.
They were looking in the wrong place, and we didn’t have time. Scarlett didn’t have time. I glanced at Lucas, whose face was flushed with rage and his jaw was working overtime chewing on invisible gum. By the time they got all the information from Toby and moved on, it could be too late.
Lucas turned and our eyes met. The same thoughts growing in my mind were reflected back at me through him and my heart leaped. It would be a risk, and the chances were slim but if we could get to Scarlett’s house and find the location of the cabin, then we could go and leave the police to do whatever they wanted.
Lucas’ brow lifted slightly and then we both moved. Lucas coughed a few times and sagged slightly into the wheelchair. I moved around to it and gripped the handles.
“Lucas is due a check-up so I’m just going to…” I finished by sending Toby a wink who stared after us, slightly confused but he was far too busy with Banner to do anything about it. I’d send him a text when we had something and not before.
“You had the same thought, right?” Lucas asked as we made it down the corridor and out of sight, picking up the pace once Lucas was free of the chair.
“Find the cabin?” I asked.
“Find the cabin.”
35
SCARLETT
How long has it been?
It was impossible to tell. By the time we’d reached the cabin, it was light, but it had grown dark since then and at some point, I fell asleep. Shane let me sleep through and it was still dark when I woke up. My heart fluttered constantly, giving me a sensation of breathlessness while the urge to cry lingered like a constant threat on the edge of my consciousness.
The only sliver of hope came from Shane when he eventually sobered up and the weight of the situation seemed to hit him. He went from drunkenly pacing and aggressively cursing at me, to sitting in the corner by the window staring out into the dark when I woke up.
The cold was biting.
The cabin hadn’t seen use in years and was in quite a state of disrepair. The wind whistled through the back bedroom, so Shane had shut the door, but without logs in the fireplace or drapes on the window, there was no warmth to be had. I’d huddled on the couch under a threaded blanket where I’d fallen asleep through sheer exhaustion but now, I was awake, and reality was setting in hard.
Was Sebastian, okay? Lucas and Danny?
My mind played like a carousel, spinning between the horror of them lying dead in my cottage and the reassurance that someone would have found them. Lily perhaps. I was more concerned about them than myself because I had done this. Shane was my responsibility and I had been careless, right? Why else would he be doing this?
The gun remained in his hand, hanging loose from his hand between his legs as he stared out, and a few candles flickered on the table, casting ominous shadows over his face.
He was going to kill me. Part of me was certain about this. Nausea churned in my gut, and I wound the loose thread of the blanket around my fingers until it was tight enough to hurt. Only then did I find the courage to speak.
“Shane?”
He grunted at me but didn’t look up.
“Shane, what are we going to do?”
The use of we was carefully planted. On the crazy drive up here, he had responded to us together more positively than anything else so I was going to continue that for as long as I could. Maybe if I could get him to put the gun down or leave the room, I could make a run for it and lose myself in the dark.
“Shane?”
“Shut up,” Shane spat. “I’m thinking.”
The gun shifted slightly as he tightened his grip on it, and I wound the thread tighter around my fingers. The crazy glee had faded from his face. Instead, he looked drawn and troubled. He’d shot two people and kidnapped me. If he had any sense left in that thick skull of his, he had to know how fucked he was.
Cold stole over my body in a wave and I shivered, pulling the blanket tighter around me with my other hand. The drag of fabric caught his attention and Shane’s head snapped up sharply.
“Don’t fucking move either.”
