And he was terrified to leave the barn for fear that someone would see him and he’d be trapped in the house with everyone else. At least from his vantage point he could keep an eye on everything and when the stranger left, he would go help them.
Then suddenly, the sound of a diesel engine roared to life.
Bobby flinched, his heart pounding so hard in his chest it hurt. He leaned closer to the hole and saw the black truck pull out of the garage, churning mud behind its tires.
He waited until he didn’t hear the truck anymore, then he climbed down the ladder as fast as he dared, his feet slipping on the slick rungs.
Avery’s ATV was right there, between the barn and the garage. Carefully, he opened the door… the wind pulled it from his hand so roughly that his palm was raw. He winced and looked down at the angry wet scrape. He shook it out, hoping the pain would go away fast. He looked both ways, saw no one, and ran the ten feet to the ATV.
The key wasn’t in the ignition.
He checked the rear compartment where they often put keys for safekeeping.
Not there, either.
“Dang it,” he muttered.
He had to make a choice: go home on foot through the mud and rain, risking running into the black truck coming back from wherever it had gone… or risk sneaking into the house.
He chose his sister.
Bobby crept around the garage, sticking to the shadows. The rain soaked him, his socks squishing in his boots. They were supposed to be waterproof, but the rain came down through the openings around his ankles. Still, he kept moving toward the house. He didn’t want to walk across the porch because if someone else was inside, they might see him.
He reached the back windows, stood on tiptoe, and was still too short.
Bobby ran back to the barn, grabbed a wooden crate, carried it back to the first window. Climbed onto the crate, peered inside.
A large bed, unmade. Dresser with clutter. A desk and a chair and a rocking chair and a pile of yarn. Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza’s bedroom, he thought. No one was there.
He brought the crate over to the second window, climbed up, and saw Gianna’s face practically right there. He tapped on the glass.
Gianna turned, surprise on her face. It was her bedroom, he realized, and she was probably freaked out seeing him in the window.
He smiled, then he saw Avery on the floor and became confused. She had her hands behind her back and he realized she was tied up.
Avery jerked; her eyes wide.
He mouthed, “Are they all gone?”
She shook her head frantically, then turned, eyes darting toward the open bedroom door.
Bobby squinted through the rain-spotted glass.
A woman stepped into the hallway, directly into his line of sight. She froze when she saw him.
Her mouth fell open in surprise—then rage.
Avery screamed,“Run, Bobby! Run!”
He jumped down from the crate, his foot slipping. Pain flaredin his ankle as he hit the mud, but he shook it out as he scrambled to his feet and sprinted around the back of the garage, then behind the barn, and into the muddy fields. He thought he heard a shout behind him, but then he only heard the rain and thunder and the hammering of his own heartbeat.
He didn’t look back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As the rain poured onto the barn’s corrugated metal roof and the wind whistled through tiny cracks in the structure, Jake stared at the horizontal slits in the western wall of the barn and realized that someone had deliberately cut them. They were flush with the gutter, so because the downspouts were clogged and the gutters filled with debris, the water flowed directly into the barn through one-foot-long, half-inch-high slits—two of them in each corner.
Jake squatted and ran his fingers around the rough wood, which had been cut recently. On purpose. Jake couldn’t fathom who would do such a thing.
