Page 63 of Keel

Once free from the bush, she took a step, then froze. She’d been panicked before, but the sight before her eyes made her whole body burn.

Forest had his arm around Sonja’s neck, holding her like he could easily break her neck if he put a little effort into it. “Hello, Frankie. Bet you didn’t expect to see me.”

This was much worse than a fire. This was certain death.

Chapter 37

Emergency equipment blocked the street, so Keel and Chase parked a half block away and ran the rest of the way to Sonja’s house. Water was being sprayed on the fire that had ripped a hole in the roof. If anyone was still in the house, they would be dead or at least in dire straits.

Chase found a police officer and started asking him questions. The officer seemed a little annoyed, but after Chase told the guy what Frankie had done, the man changed his tune.

“I’ll ask if any of the firemen found people inside the house.”

Keel nodded, desperation choking him. “Hell, Chase. I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll see if⁠—”

Right then, a fireman came around the side of the house carrying someone. Had he found Frankie? They came closer, and he could see it wasn’t Frankie. Instead, the woman being carried was Sonja.

“Damn, where is Frankie?”

“I’m going to talk to that fireman,” Chase said.

Link and Bean joined him, and they watched the firemen drench the houses. The fire hadn’t spread to any other houses, though these houses were close together.

“What’s going on?” Link asked.

“The alarm shows Frankie running out of the house to help Sonja.”

“Shit.”

Chase came back, his forehead wrinkled. “Sonja is passed out, but the fireman said when he got back there, she kept saying Frankie. He thought she knew his name because he’s Frank. I told him that no, Frankie ran into the house from across the street. He’s going back around to look for her.”

Keel had a bad feeling about this. Something was terribly wrong with this situation. A fire started across the street from their house. Frankie ran over there to save Sonja, and now she wasn’t anywhere to be found. He hoped to God she hadn’t run back into the house in some weird way to excise her demons.

He pulled up his security footage, searching for any clue to what had happened to Frankie. He watched everything from the moment she ran out until the fire trucks showed up.

Chase was staring at his phone over his shoulder and pointed to an event that had happened earlier in the evening. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know.” Keel clicked on the thumbnail and watched as someone in sunglasses walked up to their porch, looked at the doorbell camera, then covered it with their thumb.

“Wait, watch it again,” Link said.

A chill spread through Keel as he ran the video again. Though the shades were large and covered his eyes, the hairline was what he’d remembered. Forest was in the neighborhood.

Chapter 38

Something was wrong. Frankie’s thoughts seemed jumbled, and she was having trouble moving. She opened her eyes, but it was dark.

She tried to pull her arm up so she could wipe her face, but she couldn’t move her arm. There was something around her wrists.

The hard surface below was unforgiving, and she pushed with her legs to stretch out, but that pulled on her arms. Were her arms tied to her feet? What had happened?

The last thing she remembered was the fire. She’d saved Sonja. Relief slid through her. She’d at least saved her friend.

What was going on? She wasn’t in a hospital or an ambulance, but they were moving. They hit a bump, and her hips flew up an inch or so, and came down hard, sending pain straight through her.

Forest had shown up and hit her. She guessed he’d knocked her out, and now she was trapped in the trunk of his car.