Page 105 of Buried in the Woods Below

He looks…different.

The man from last night—the hunter, the haunted—has disappeared.

This Eric is clean. Shaven. Sane.

Dressed in jeans and a white polo, he looks older. Tired. Grief lines his face.

“And that’s when I found…” he says. His voice wobbles, cracks in the middle. He sounds broken. “My baby girls.”

A chill spiders down my spine.

Gonzalez nods, scribbling in his notebook. He believes him.

Then I see a rustle in the woods over Eric’s shoulder.

A sliver of skin. A burst of black hair.

It’s Olivia.

She’s alive. Watching. Recording me on her phone.

I feel the moment it clicks into place.

I’m being set up.

Eric and Olivia.

They wanted to be alone. They wanted everyone gone. They invited me here to take the fall.

I’m being framed.

My body seizes, muscles tightening like a vise around my bones. My pulse staggers, then slams into a sprint. The paramedics lift the stretcher, carrying me toward the police boat.

No.

No, no, no.

A police officer walks up beside the stretcher. He reads from a laminated card. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right—”

I wrench my gaze to The Beard. I force my voice to be calm, reasonable.

“Sir, please. There’s been a mistake.”

He sets the stretcher down on the dock. Doesn’t answer. Just trades a look with Baby Face.

“If you cannot afford an attorney—”

“You don’t understand.” My voice wavers, the calm slipping. “I’m being framed. I was drugged.”

No response.

They push me toward the cabin. Panic ignites in my chest. If I go belowdeck, no one will hear me.

I thrash, hard.

“Help!” My coarse scream rips from my throat. “Help me! Please!”

The cuffs bite deeper. My wrists are slick, stinging. I press my fingers together, twist them, try to wedge them out. The metal scrapes, skin splitting open.