Page 90 of Buried in the Woods Below

“Call the police,” Eric barks as he enters the house.

“Why? What’s going on?”

I pull out my cell phone and dial. I give him the thumbs-down. “Fuck,” he shouts.

Eric throws open the door. “I’ll check the toolshed. We might have a shortwave radio.” Before I can speak, he runs outside.

My mind spins, and my lungs heave. I have to tell Olivia, but I don’t know if I’m capable.

Your mother is dead. Strangled with a rope until her last breath.

Whoever killed her is still here.

I can feel it.

And then the worst thought of all tears through me.

They might be inside this house.

Chapter 41

“What the fuck is going on?” Olivia’s scream cleaves the darkness as she barrels downstairs.

Confusion and panic flood her face, lit in flashes by the storm outside. I curse Eric for bolting, leaving me to deliver this news. How do you tell someone their mother is dead? I run through different phrasings in my mind. All dead ends. There’s no good way to say it, so I just say it.

“Your mom is dead. Your dad and I found her washed up on the lakeshore.”

She freezes in place. Her lower lip sinks, and then she raises a trembling hand to cover it. Time stretches and silence grips the house. She collapses onto the bottom step. I watch as her earthen eyes reveal the gamut of emotions: shock, sadness, grief, curiosity, fear. “I don’t…I don’t understand. How?” she says, more to herself than to me, her voice cracking.

Rain slams against the roof. A tornado siren whines in the distance. I sit beside her, give her a hug, my tone gentle. “I don’t know. It looks like someone strangled her.”

She pulls away from me like I wielded the rope. “What do you mean, strangled?”

I blink slowly, stalling for time. “When your dad pulled her out of the water, I noticed there were rope burns on her neck.”

“What? How?” Hey eyes squint and her forehead collapses. I can tell from her expression she’s asking herself the same questions that have been running through my mind. How could this happen? Who would do something like this? When?

Her face transforms again, this time swinging from sadness to rage. She surges to her feet. “Where is she? I want to see her.”

“She’s back on the trail. We tried to bring her home, but the storm was too fierce.”

“You left her in the woods?”

I rise to meet her eyes and reach my hand to her shoulder. “I’m sorry. It was too dangerous. We’re going to go get her once the storm dies down.”

She snaps away from me and pulls her hair back from her forehead. I notice her hands are shaking. A tear slips from her eye, but she remains strong, defiant, like Laelynn. She stands and paces back and forth, eyes scanning the room as if she’s searching for a magic elixir that might bring her mother back. As she wears down the floorboards, I see her grief building.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

She stops and stares straight through me. “Yeah. Find out who did this.”

I nod and stiffen my chin. “I will. I will find out who did this. But in the meantime, what else? Do you want me to watch the girls?”

She snaps out of her trance and freezes in place. “The girls. I totally forgot about them.” She springs up the stairs, and I race behind her. With every creak of the staircase, images flash in my mind. The killer sneaks past us while we grieve, his rope or hatchet in hand. Strangling the little ones or dicing them up with his axe. Sweat pours from my brow, mud dripping into my eyes. Each step up the stairs feels like a mile.

We burst into the twins’ room, preparing for the worst.

They’re fine.