AllFreeNovel
Share Us
October
Present day
Lenna listens to the voice memo from Rhiannon that has just downloaded on her phone. The sound is shaky. Someone breathes heavily against the microphone. It’s ragged, short sips punctuated by whimpers. Someone sounds terrified.
And then a voice—Rhiannon’s voice.Hey!She screams. After that, the audio cuts out.
Sarah’s mouth hangs open after it’s finished. “That’s disturbing.”
She leans over Lenna and taps the play button again. The file starts up again—that breathy voice. Thatscream.
“Do you think it’s recent?” Sarah asks.
Lenna looks at the data on the file. “It’s dated now. So she is still on the property, then? Connected to the Wi-Fi? How else could she have sent an email?” She doubts the Wi-Fi could extend beyond the property boundaries very far. “We need to look for her.”
Lenna rises to leave, but Sarah catches her arm. “Okay, maybe this makes me an asshole, but isn’t it better just to leave it alone?There’s something up with her. She could bedangerous.” She glances at her belly. An anguished look crosses her features.
“So you think we should just ignore it? She could be dying in the desert. A snake might have bitten her.”
“Or maybe she’s hoping wedolook for her, and this is a decoy, sending us off to a place she isn’t. She lied to us. We have no way of knowing her or trusting her.”
“But Teddy. She wouldn’t leave him.” Then Lenna thinks of something else. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the moment Rhiannon was about to get me off the property, she suddenly vanishes into thin air?”
Sarah cocks her head, not following.
“Maybe someone needs to make sure we stay. Rhiannon was going to help me leave. Someone needed to stop that.”
“Someoneelse?” Sarah looks skeptical. “That all seems kind of far-fetched. Besides, Rhiannon never asked Marjorie for the key code. Why would someone else need to punish her if she wasn’t actually going to help you in the first place?”
Lenna isn’t sure. She isn’t sure about anything. But there’s a rising panic in her all the same. A sense that this isn’t adding up. She reaches for the doorknob to the house. “We should play this for Marjorie.”
“Wait.” Sarah grabs her arm. “What if she decides itisa cry for help?”
“That’s good. She’ll know where to look.”
“Or she’ll bring the police out, Lenna. And…and they’ll ask questions—of all of us. They’ll look into our backgrounds. I can’t afford to leave; I’ve sunk most of my money into this place.”
“Really?”
Sarah nods. “It’s a requirement for living here. A big sum of cash that goes into the pool. I don’t make the rules.” She clutches Lenna’s hands. “I really can’t believe someone in this house hurtRhiannon. Rhiannon’s the person we shouldn’t trust. It’s the simplest solution. She’s probably playing us.”
“But…she’s myfriend,” Lenna says reluctantly. “I can’t just ignore this message.”
“Your friend who ran off with your money, you mean.”
Lenna raises a finger. “The ATM card! We can track that.”
On her phone, she calls up the website for her bank and enters her username and password. Within seconds, her account data is on her screen.
“Well?” Sarah asks.
“Okay. The only new charge is a hold for the Sunrise Hotel in Green Valley, Arizona.” Lenna’s heart starts to thump. “She really did make a reservation for me, I think.”
Lenna looks up the number for the Sunrise Hotel. Her nerves jump as the phone rings. A sleepy attendant answers, and Lenna asks in her steadiest voice if a reservation has been made for Lenna Schmidt.
“Uh-huh, for one night,” the desk clerk says. Lenna’s heart lifts.
“And what about Rhiannon Cook? Is there a reservation in that name?”
