Page 5 of Not This Soon

Seven days.

She glanced at the whittled gouges in the bark at her side. Seven days. Her aunt had been missing forseven days.Dawes was gone, too.

Her jaw clenched. The stillness felt wrong, unnatural. Rachel adjusted her position, the tree creaking softly beneath her weight. She zoomed in on the farmhouse windows, searching for any flicker of movement inside.

Empty. All of them.

Rachel's thoughts raced. "Where are you, Aunt Sarah?" she muttered, her voice barely above a whisper. "What are you hiding?"

The barn door hung slightly ajar, a sliver of darkness visible. Rachel shifted her focus, scrutinizing the gap. No movement. There hadn’t been in days.

She lowered the scope, blinking to refocus her eyes. The sun beat down, sweat beading on her forehead. Rachel wiped it away with the back of her hand, leaving a smudge of dirt across her brow.

"Dammit," she whispered. "What game are you playing?"

The sheriff's absence gnawed at her. His deputies' hostility at the station replayed in her mind. Something was off. Very off. She'd visited over the last three days, but none of the reservation deputies had given her the time of day.

Dawes’ son had always been hostile to her, and his open disdain had only increased. They were all hiding something.

Rachel raised the scope again, methodically sweeping the property. The chicken coop stood empty, its gate swinging lazily in the breeze. The vegetable garden lay untended, weeds sprouting between the rows.

No tracks. No signs of a struggle. Just... nothing.

Her fingers tightened on the scope. The silence pressed in, oppressive.

Rachel's mind drifted back to her search of the cabin three days ago. The floorboards had creaked under her boots as she'd moved through the rooms, methodically opening drawers and cupboards. Each empty space had fueled her growing frustration.

"Come on, Aunt Sarah," she'd muttered, rifling through a stack of old newspapers. "Give me something. Anything."

The living room had yielded nothing but dust and memories. Family photos on the mantle, Rachel's parents smiling, frozen in time. She'd paused, studying their faces. "What happened to you?" she'd whispered, her voice tight.

In the kitchen, she'd pulled open cabinets with increasing urgency. Plates. Glasses. Canned goods. Nothing out of place. Nothing missing that shouldn't be.

Rachel had stood in the center of the room, fists clenched at her sides. Her eyes had landed on the basement door.

The stairs had groaned as she'd descended. The air grew cooler, mustier. Rachel's flashlight beam cut through the gloom, revealing shelves of preserves and old farming equipment.

And then she'd seen it. The chain.

Bolted to the far wall, it hung limply. Empty. Rachel had approached slowly, her heart pounding. She'd run her fingers along the cold metal links, a chill racing down her spine.

But the basement, like the rest of the house, had offered no answers. Only more questions.

It had been her second search of the house. The first had been even more alarming.

She remembered arriving that night, her posture tense. Her shoulders set and her eyes narrowed. At the time, she’d arrived at the cabin looking for somethingotherthan the woman who’d raised her. Aunt Sarah… the murderer of her parents?

That’s what she’d learned. She needed to speak to Dawes. To Sarah.

Needed to find out whatreallyhad happened all those years ago. But Sarah had been missing. And something else was missing—the money from the heist. The heist Rachel’s own mother was purportedly involved in.

Rachel had stood on the porch, pounding on the door with a clenched fist, and her temper had only increased as she’d received no response.

She’d broken the door.

And she’d found an empty cabin. Her aunt was nowhere to be seen.

And so Rachel went straight to the gun rack by the door. She’d learned a long time ago where Aunt Sarah was concerned, the guns told therealstory.

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