Lyla looked out the kitchen window. “The wind is picking up. Maybe I should check on the horses again. They were so agitated with all the thunder this afternoon.”
“They’re fine. They have their blinders on, they’ve been through storms before.”
“Where do you think Jake and Bobby are?” Lyla asked.
“Safe,” Ellen said, believing it mostly because she had to.
“Do you think Avery is going to be okay? Do you think they got out before Mule Run flooded? Is Sheriff Perez looking for her? And where’s Ryan? Jake said Ryan was on his way here, but it’s beenhoursand what if he got stuck?”
“Too many questions I can’t answer,” Ellen said. “The phone lines are down, cell reception is poor, so if Ryan couldn’t get through, he may not have been able to call to let us know.”
“But he uses a radio and knows what channel we’re on. Why didn’t he call?”
Ellen had been thinking about Ryan as well, but Avery dominated her worries right now. “I don’t know,” she said. What else could she say? “I tried reaching Rick earlier, but radios have limited reach, especially when it’s raining. There has been some static on the radio, and maybe that’s Ryan trying to reach us. Bobby’s radio likely needs a recharge.”
“But—”
“Lyla,” Ellen said and turned to her daughter. “I’m worried, too. I hate being trapped here, unable to do anything. All we can do is wait.”
Lyla, who was her least demonstrative child, spontaneously hugged her. Ellen melted into her embrace, surprised at how much she needed the hug.
“I love you, Mom,” Lyla said.
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
They finished cleaning up the kitchen together, then Lyla went to sit with Penny in the living room, and Ellen decided to put on a pot of coffee. As it started to brew, she heard footsteps on the porch. Jake and Bobby? Finally!
She ran to the mudroom door, opened it, but no one was there. Her imagination playing tricks. She wanted her boys home and her mind convinced her they were.
Then she heard Lyla scream from the living room and Ellenran through the kitchen and dining room and stared at a large, hulking man in the threshold, drenched, with a handgun pointed at her daughter.
He turned the gun to Ellen. “Do not move. Do not do anything, or so help me God, I will shoot someone.”
“What do you want?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“My brother has been shot. It’s serious. You’re a nurse. You’re going to save him.”
“No,” she said. “I know who you are. You have my daughter.”
He stared at her. “You save Sam, I’ll give you your daughter.”
A wave of conflicting emotions ran over her, and it was all she could do to not scream in frustration and fear. Instead, she said as calm as she could, “How do I know she’s okay?”
“You don’t. But if Sam dies, you’ll never see her again.”
He didn’t break eye contact. Ellen glanced at Penny in her reclining chair, Lyla next to her on the couch. She thought of Margery upstairs, and her unborn baby and the stress this situation would cause. She thought of Jake and Bobby and the fact that they could come home at any minute, walking into this situation completely unaware of the danger.
Quietly, she said, “I’ll help.”
The man grabbed the shotgun from the corner and Ellen almost sobbed. She had another gun; it was upstairs in her nightstand. Jake had a rifle, but it was probably with him in his truck. But even if she could get to a weapon, she didn’t know if she could stop them before they hurt someone in her family. And if she did stop them, there was no reason for them to tell her where Avery was.
She couldn’t risk it. It was better to do what they wanted and hope, pray, he wasn’t lying.
The man waved to someone behind him. She couldn’t see her driveway clearly in the dark mist, but then a woman came in half dragging, half carrying a young man not much older than Jake. She steered him toward the couch, but Ellen said, “On the diningroom table,” and motioned through the opening. “I need the light and the surface.”
She quickly pulled out a tablecloth from the hutch and spread it on the smooth surface. She helped the woman get Sam onto the table. He was wrapped in a comforter that looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it. It was the familiar scent that tickled her memory.
But she dismissed that as soon as she saw that the young man was feverish and had a bandage around his abdomen and another around his leg.
