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“Derrick! Dr.Gooding is in here!” She barely felt a pulse, but the man was alive.
Derrick rushed to her side, glanced at the man, then yanked his phone from his belt. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
“Help is on the way, Dr.Gooding.” Ellie stood, adrenaline surging. “I’ll look for the girls.”
“I’ll take the downstairs,” Derrick said. “Be careful, Ellie. The wife might still be here.”
Ellie clenched her gun and headed into the hall. As Derrick called the ambulance, he rushed back downstairs. With every step she took, she listened for sounds that the woman or the children were home, but only the creak of the wood floors and the wind howling outside broke the silence. Tension coiled inside her as if a rubber band was wound around her lungs, squeezing the air from her.
There were two rooms, one on the left and one on the right.
She stopped at the first one and paused at the door. Except for the whir of the furnace rumbling, it was silent. She twisted the doorknob and the door screeched open. Inside she spotted a single bed, covers rumpled, and a table that held a cup of water, a prescription pill bottle and vials of insulin. This must be where the couple had kept Becky.
Shaking with fear, she stepped back into the hallway and inched to the next room. She jiggled the door and it swung open. Inside, she found twin beds and a play area with an art table, toys and books.
“Ava? Kaylee?” She called the girls’ names over and over as she searched the closet and under the bed, but the children were not there.
Dammit, where were they?
Moving back into the hallway, she noted another door at the end of the hall. Senses alert, she opened the door and saw a flight of stairs that led into an attic. That was where she’d seen the light outside.
Shining her flashlight along the rickety steps, she headed upward. The narrow staircase smelled musty and dust motes floated in the air. When she reached the landing, she shined her flashlight around and found another single bed with a thin blanket.
Had Gayle Gooding kept one of the girls up here?
Fingers of disgust danced through her as she walked over and saw scratch marks on the inside of the door. The thought of one of the little girls—or all of them—trying to claw their way out made her knees buckle.
One Hundred Thirty-Six
“Shh, don’t cry. We’re going to get Sarah and then we’ll go see Piper,” Gayle told the girls as she sped toward Sarah Lundy’s house in Dawsonville. Ava and Kaylee huddled in the back seat, clinging to each other, their little cries reminding her of Piper when she missed her best friend’s birthday party when she was five. She’d wanted to ride the ponies. Gayle had felt so helpless that day and rocked Piper and held her while she struggled to breathe, and she’d promised her daughter that one day she’d have pony rides at her own party.
She brushed her tears with the back of her hand. But that would never happen.
Silas was angry and Becky was gone, and she didn’t know what she’d do once she got Sarah. But she’d think of something. All that mattered was that she’d have her family together again. They would all be together.
She’d panicked when her husband fell and hit his head. But on the road to Sarah’s, she’d decided she couldn’t leave the girls alone—what kind of mother would do that?
Then she’d heard the news on the radio about police looking for Ava and that Becky had been found and they thought the children’s disappearances might be connected. She’d been terrified they’d figure out where she was.
If they found her and the children, they’d take them away and that would mean losing Piper all over again. She couldn’t live like that. Not another year without holding her daughter in her arms.
The girls kept crying, though, and that was making her nervous. Her skin was crawling. But the flashing lights of a police car in the distance reminded her to slow down. She couldn’t draw attention to herself. The snow thickened to a white haze, just as it had that awful night two years ago when Silas took them to Cattail Cove.
Vision blurring, she was catapulted back to that night.
“Stop, Piper, stop!” Terror seized her as she raced onto the ice-covered pond. Her feet slid, Piper’s ponytail twirling in the wind as she skated over the surface. Then the sound of ice cracking, Silas yelling at both of them, Piper screaming…
Her little arms flailing to keep her from sinking as the thin layer of ice snapped and melted beneath her, shattering like crystal.
“Wait, Gayle!” Silas shouted.
But it was too late. She was almost to her daughter. She had to save her. One more step, another, she reached out her hand to save Piper, but the ice burst open beneath her boots and she was falling and screaming. Freezing cold water dragged her beneath the surface and stung her eyes.
Fighting the force, she blinked and searched the darkness for Piper. Her hat had come off, her blond hair floating around her face like white snakes… Her little arms pumping, struggling to do the crawl stroke she’d learned in her swimming lessons. But she was sinking deeper and deeper.
Her lungs screamed for air. Her clothes felt heavy, dragging her deeper and deeper, but she ordered herself to keep fighting. She pumped her legs and arms, clawing at the frigid water. Her eyes hurt, her skin tingled, and she felt herself moving slower, her limbs weighing her down, the water flooding her nose, her lungs on fire, screaming…
Then Piper disappeared in a cloud of darkness, and her vision turned to black and she felt herself plunging to her death…
