Page 72 of Still Missing You

“My truck not starting was no accident,” I tell him.

“No, it wasn’t,” Linc agrees. “It doesn’t make sense, though, to take just him alone and leave you to look for them. If Jim believes you’re on to him, he has to know that you’ll be waiting. That you’ll bring in the police.”

“He’s disappeared once before. Maybe he plans to do it again.” The reality of my words hits like a punch, and my knees nearly give out from under me at the idea. What if I never see Dylan again?

“We’re going to find them,” Linc promises. “We’re going to find them both.”

I hope he’s right.

I leave the truck. If Dylan isn’t at the inn, I’m calling the cops, and my truck is evidence. Linc drives us back to the inn, speeding down dark roads.

My hands shake as I try Dylan’s number one more time. Voicemail. Again.

I stare through the windshield at the black tree line surrounding the property as we pull into the driveway. The woods behind the inn loom, a wall of shadows.

Somewhere out there Dylan might be hurt, need my help. I have to find him. He has to be okay.

“Hunter,” Linc says, once we’re out of the car. “Let’s go inside and call the police. The sooner we get people looking for them, the better.”

I nod because I know he’s right and start toward the inn but stop. Something at the side of the house has caught my eye. A dark rectangle where there shouldn’t be one.

“What?” Linc asks.

I point. “The cellar door is open.” It wasn’t before.

He follows my gaze to the heavy wooden doors and the opening that leads down to the basement. They’re both wide open, rattling every time the wind kicks up. The skin at the back of my neck prickles.

“Was that open before?” Linc asks quietly. The wind whips his usually carefully styled hair around his head.

I shake my head. “Not tonight.”

Not any night since we’ve been here. I’m sure I would have noticed otherwise. Dread lodges in my chest like an icy brick.

Linc’s voice drops into professional calm. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Dylan.”

Someone’s down there, anyway. Or was.

I shouldn’t go down there.

I move anyway.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Hunter

“Hunter,” Linc says.

“I know.” We both know this could be a bad idea, but if Jim brought Dylan here... If he’s waiting for us now...

I rush to the opening and down the narrow staircase into darkness. Linc follows. The wood creaks under our weight.

Once in the cellar, cold air, only slightly warmer than the frigid temperatures outside, wraps around us, heavy with the smell of damp earth and something else. Thick. Rotted.

Linc pulls out his phone and clicks on the flashlight. The faint yellow beam cuts through the dark, illuminating rough stone walls and a cracked concrete floor.

“After you.”