“Ashley?” Steve asked.
“Oh. Hi, Steve.” She opened her eyes and smoothed back her hair. “Pretty wild night, huh? I was just upstairs when I heard all the commotion and came down. Thought I’d see if I could be useful, you know?”
Steve shook his head, rolling his shoulders forward. “Oh, Ashley.”
“What’s this?” Carl asked in his gruff tone, stopping at his son’s side. “Better take her with us.”
“Me? Where? Why?” She belatedly added a gasp. She’d never been subtle. Her biggest role in high school came as an actor in the background ofBye Bye Birdie. She’d been told to tone down her performance, that her pantomime distracted from the rest of the scene.
“Enough of your nonsense,” Carl said. “Grab her, Steve.”
Steve gripped a hand on her elbow, jerking the arm up.
She flinched. “Hey. Ouch. Listen. Think about this. I don’t know anything. If you take me, you’re in huge trouble. Do you really want to get arrested for kidnapping? Christopher is litigious. He’ll go after you no matter what happens to me.” She shivered, hoping “no matter what happens”was a metaphor and not about to become her destiny.
“We have a plan. It was better without you here, but now we can use you to our advantage.” Carl rasped and coughed.
Carl was cruel. She’d heard rumors and had been shielded from knowing him personally. Growing up, she’d felt sort of like a kindred spirit with Steve. She had a difficult father, too. But Xavier had a heart.
“Steve, think about this,” she murmured.
Steve held her tighter. “It’s my plan, Ashley. If you’re gone and Christopher is run out of business, the Prims can finally claim the land that should have always been ours. Let’s move.”
Carl strode ahead.
Steve tugged her away from the Inn and into the darkness.
She let him lead without any comment. With her heart pounding, she wasn’t sure she could have formed a sentence without choking. Finally, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she uncovered where she’d hidden her backbone. She’d humanize herself to them. Give the pair a false sense of security that she was on their side. “Where are we going?” she whispered.
“The boathouse,” Steve replied.
She nodded. Okay, she knew their destination. Knowledge was power, right?
They’d drag her through the woods separating the properties. Unfortunately, in the dark forest, she couldn’t grab the attention of a bystander. But maybe Steve and Carl would have to move her somewhere else. They wouldn’t kill her inside their family-run business. She had some time. “And you’ve been behind everything?”
She found an odd sense of relief in the midst of her terror. Perhaps Christopher was right to stick to logic and reason. Without an imagination stoking all sorts of thoughts, the world was remarkably flat. Predictable. Boring. Nothing to do with a ghost.
Dad was gone. She couldn’t hold out hope for a reconciliation. She reached a place of reluctant, emotional peace.
“Define everything?” Steve asked.
“The fire?” she asked.
“No. You did that,” he replied.
And now she was shocked all over again.
Was the ghost still hanging around? Could Dad help?She prayed hard that her father would stay and save her. She was running out of options.
Christopher. He’d been the answer all along. She’d run off without asking him for the truth. He’d finally told her, and her instinctual response had been to push back against him, to deny and continue to accept the lies she told herself.
Why? Because she was her own worst enemy? She had to take action to rescue herself. Now or never.
She slipped off her hair tie with her free hand, glad she’d used a bright loop to secure her ponytail. The scrunchie was a throwback to her youth. Zach Jenkins wasn’t the only fan of nostalgia. Could her love of mall accessories help save her?
When her captors stared ahead, she dropped it behind her. Please let it be enough to grab Christopher’s attention and realize she was in trouble. She hoped not life or death.
* * *
