Page 75 of Unforgotten

“Well ... if it’s as old as this shack, then it might not hold.”

“Exactly.”

Turning her head, Candace muttered, “We need to find something to rub it against. What about the doorframe?”

“Even if we could scooch over to it, I don’t know if it would do much. We need something that’s at least a little sharp.” Bethanne scanned the fairly well-lit interior. “Do you see anything?”

“No. Oh, wait a minute,” Candace added with a touch of excitement. “What about that thing on the wall? Is that a nail?”

“What thing?” Even though they were right next to each other, they weren’t facing exactly the same direction.

“Let’s scooch counterclockwise so you can see it.”

Scooching anywhere sounded almost impossible. “Candace. Scooch counterclockwise? Really?”

“Hey, we’ve got nothing else to do.”

“True.” There was barely enough slack in between their bodies for them to move. “So, on the count of three?”

“Yeah,” Candace said.

“One, two, three.”

And they moved—discovering that moving in sync without use of their hands was much harder than they ever would have imagined. Given the fact that Bethanne was in a long dress, it felt even harder. After edging maybe six or seven inches, they stopped.

She was panting. “This is almost impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible. Come on.”

Fueled by her cousin’s encouragement, Bethanne counted off and then they moved a bit again. “Can you see the nail yet?”

“Kind of. But how are we going to reach it?”

“I hadn’t thought that far. I mean, until we started trying to move together, I thought we could get up against the wall, then somehow move this rope near the top of the nail and break it.”

After a few seconds, Candace said, “Let’s try to get over there, then.”

The distance was only about three feet, but it might as well have been three yards. Or three miles. It still felt insurmountable. “I don’t know, Candace. I don’t think we can do it.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t even think that you can’t.”

“I want to be positive, but I’m scared,” Bethanne admitted. “What if no one realizes we’re missing? The sun is only just coming up. No one is going to wonder why I’m still in bed. My parents are probably still sleeping in.”

“Don’t say that. I’m sure people are out looking for us.”

“Why would they, if they think I’m asleep? What if they think you are too? Your parents probably thought you leftbefore them. What if they just went inside and went to sleep too? It could take hours for someone to even begin searching for us.”

“You’re forgetting my car. It was on the street.”

“But it was dark. They might not have been looking for it.”

“They would have noticed that it wasn’t there when they got home,” Candace said as they moved some more. Her voice was strained—maybe from pain?

“True.”

“I know everyone’s worried, Bethanne. My parents would wonder where I was, and when I didn’t answer my cell phone, they would’ve started looking. And, sorry, I know you like to think that you’re independent now, but everyone still worries about you. No way would everyone in your family go to sleep without making sure you were in your bed fast sleep.”

“But—”

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