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Sandrine kept her eyes on her plate. “Yes. In the cold. I wasn’t in there long because it was freezing. I came back and went to my bed to rest.”
Josie said, “Did anyone actually see Taryn leave this building?”
A few beats of silence ticked by. No one answered.
“I saw her leave the breakout room,” Alice said. “That was it.”
More silence. They looked around at one another. Josie was struck by how different everyone looked now than they had just two days earlier. Every one of them was pale with dark circles under their eyes. They looked tired and haggard, afraid and uncertain.
Nicola speared a cherry tomato with her fork. Its juice squirted across her plate. “Does it matter if we saw her leave? She’s not here. The real issue is finding her!”
Brian added, “What are we missing here? I mean, people don’t vanish into thin air.”
Alice’s voice shook. “No, they don’t. I think we all know what really happened to Taryn but no one here wants to say it.”
Under the table, Josie tightened her grip on Alice’s hand. “Alice.”
Brian looked up from his plate. “You think she’s dead.”
“No,” Sandrine whispered. “No, don’t say that.”
Alice wrenched her hand out of Josie’s and stood up, slamming both palms onto the table. Their plates jumped. Sandrine put a hand to her chest. “Alice, calm down.”
“I will not! How can you all sit here like this, so calm? There is only one explanation for what happened to Taryn. She’s dead!”
Josie tried to think of a way to keep the conversation from escalating, but she was exhausted, and her brain felt slow and foggy. Not only had she not gotten much rest since Sandrine woke her to say Meg was missing, but she’d been traipsing all over the camp in nearly three feet of snow, shoveling, and searching for Taryn all while the disturbing information Gretchen had given her spun round and round in her head.
Nicola’s eyes were glassy with tears. Her fingers worked at her wedding band. “Shut up! Don’t say that! You don’t know that! Why would she be dead? How could she have possibly died?”
Alice’s next words exploded out of her. “Someone here killed her! Just like Meg!”
THIRTY-FIVE
The darkness in the cellar was so complete that Noah couldn’t make anything out, even once his eyes had time to adjust. For a time, a small sliver of light outlined the door at the top of the steps but eventually it disappeared. Had it grown dark? Was it evening again? Or had Cooper just turned off the kitchen light? Noah lay on his stomach for what felt like hours, turning his head back and forth to keep his neck from aching. The floor felt like hard-packed dirt. He could barely feel his extremities. There was no heat, in spite of the fact that somewhere nearby, a furnace roared to life every so often. He’d spent a great deal of time trying to loosen the tape around his wrists, pulling at them until his shoulders screamed in pain. When sweat started to pour from his scalp and burn his eyes, he took a break.
For a long time, he listened, trying to make sense of the noises he heard above him. There was barely anything. Occasional footsteps which he couldn’t hear if the furnace was running. He didn’t even realize he had dozed off until he woke from a dream thrashing against his restraints. In it, he’d been going door to door in Denton, entering homes and tearing open closet doors, looking for Josie. This was the kind of darkness she had described to him when she told him what Lila Jensen had done to her in childhood. He had always thought he understood it but now he knew that it wasn’t something you could ever understand unless you experienced it. Not just the fact of having no light source but of being trapped, completely helpless, and vulnerable, like he was now.
Overhead, the house groaned. The wind again. The furnace kicked off and Noah listened for footsteps. There were none. A few minutes later, he heard what sounded like a vehicle’s engine purring. Was Cooper leaving? Was he leaving in Noah’s SUV? Noah hadn’t taken much time to consider what was actually going on. One thing he was fairly certain of was that the man upstairs was not the real Cooper Riggs. If he was the real Cooper, he wouldn’t have lied about the photo on the fridge. Noah would put money on it that the older man in the photo was the actual Cooper Riggs.
But where was he?
Noah tested his legs, bringing his heels toward his rear end, trying to get his circulation going. He strained against the tape around his legs. There was very little give. He would have better luck freeing his hands. He squirmed, contorting his body until he was in a sitting position, his hands touching the floor behind his back and his feet out in front of him. He rolled his shoulders forward, trying to use them to put added pressure on the tape around his wrists.
The sound of tires spinning out in snow was faint but audible. Cooper was having trouble getting out of the driveway. For some reason, this filled Noah with relief. He didn’t want that psychopath anywhere near Josie.
Assuming he hadn’t already been up the mountain.
Had this stranger been to the retreat? Had he wreaked havoc there? Killed the real Cooper and then taken up in his house until the storm was over? Was that the reason Josie hadn’t come home? Was she dead?
Adrenaline surged through Noah’s body, sharpening every one of his senses. His wrists were on fire, but he kept tugging and twisting, hoping to free his hands. It felt as though one of his hands was close to coming loose. He worked harder.
He refused to believe that Josie was gone. If Cooper had killed everyone on the retreat and was here to ride out the storm, why would he keep Noah alive? He still needed Noah for something. Had he been telling the truth about needing Noah’s help to load the snowmobile onto his truck? Was there a snowmobile, or had he made that up as well? Did he intend to go up the mountain or had that been for Noah’s benefit? There was no way to say for sure. The only thing Noah knew for certain was that the only chance he had of getting out of this alive and rescuing Josie was to get out of his bindings so he would be ready when Cooper finally came for him.
THIRTY-SIX
In the silence that followed Alice’s outburst, Josie could hear the hum of the generator out back joining the whistle of the wind and the popping of wood from the stove. No one spoke or moved for several beats. Josie looked around at their faces. Brian’s mouth hung open. Nicola’s eyes were wide with shock. Tears spilled down Sandrine’s cheeks. She was the first to speak. Her voice came out scratchy. “What are you talking about, Alice?”
Alice looked down at Josie. The green flecks in her eyes had gone dark. “I’m so sorry, Josie.”
