Page 40 of In Her Mind

Minutes ticked by, their passage marked only by the rhythm of her breathing. Then, breaking through the monotony, footsteps sounded—the sound Amber both dreaded and longed for. It could mean an end to waiting and the beginning of an unknown challenge.

She straightened, her heart leaping with a hope she knew was dangerous to entertain. Not him, not again, let it be someone else, anyone else coming to end this ordeal, someone who had come to rescue her. The rational part of her mind scolded thefoolish optimism even as her ears strained for any sign that salvation approached.

“Tomorrow, Lisa, the choice is yours.” The captor’s haunting promise echoed again in her mind. She had to somehow engage in his twisted charade, to adopt the identity he projected onto her if there was any hope of seeing daylight once more. She yearned for a script, some guide to navigate the perilous performance that awaited.

The footsteps stopped, and Amber’s heart hitched in her chest. The hoarse-whispery voice slipped through the door, “Have you thought about what I said last night, Lisa?”

Amber’s lips parted, and she pressed them back together before any sound escaped. She had to be careful, measured. “Yes,” she uttered with a feigned certainty that felt brittle against her tongue. “I am Lisa... I’ve always been Lisa.” She infused her words with an apology, hoping it sounded genuine. “I’m sorry for ever saying otherwise. I don’t know … what got into me. I was wrong. It’ll never happen again.”

A heavy silence stretched between them, thick as the earthen walls that entrapped her. It was a silence loaded with unspoken threats, a pause that seemed to contemplate her fate. And then, the voice again, unsettlingly calm, “Then who am I?”

She felt a jolt of alarm that shook her whole body. Her mind raced, but no clear answer presented itself. She stalled, filling the void with placating words, “That’s obvious. We both know who you are.” Her voice trembled despite her efforts to steady it. “There’s no need to discuss it further.”

“Oh, Lisa. When are you going to learn?” The disappointment in his tone carried an undercurrent of something far more menacing. A veiled declaration that their game might be nearing its grim conclusion.

Panic gripped Amber, her mind spinning like the wheels at her father’s auto repair shop when a car was hoisted up forinspection. She recalled the voice’s previous inquiry, a peculiar one that had seemed irrelevant at the time. “Would you prefer that I call you Nancy?” The question now echoed in the dank confines of the root cellar. Was it a clue, a twisted part of his game? She clung to it as if it were a lifeline.

“Let’s start from scratch, okay?” Amber offered, her voice teetering on the edge of hopeful and playful—though every fiber of her being recoiled in dread. “Would you like me to be Nancy?”

Silence descended, thick enough to smother the meager hope that had sparked within her. Then, finally, a sound came—a sigh, long and laden with satisfaction. It slithered through the crack under the door .

“Yes, I would like that,” the voice replied, his words carrying an eerie contentment. “That would make everything all right.”

The key grated against the lock, metal on metal, a jarring noise that signaled the turning point of her fate. As the door creaked open, light spilled into the root cellar, assaulting her eyes accustomed to the dim glow of the kerosene lantern. She squinted, trying to adjust, to prepare herself for whatever twisted face might appear.

Her breath caught as the figure stepped inside, familiar yet impossibly out of place. Disbelief washed over her in waves, each realization crashing harder than the last. This man—her captor—stood framed in the doorway, a perverse blend of the ordinary and the monstrous. His presence was an intrusion, not just into the physical space of her makeshift prison, but into the very fabric of her reality.

“Mr. Hartley!” Amber’s voice was ragged with disbelief as the man who had taught her history for years now stood before her, an unsettling calm in his eyes. The recognition sparked a brief flare within her, a hope that the familiarity of his face could mean some semblance of safety.

But that moment was fleeting.

Before she could take another breath, the man who stood between Amber and freedom lunged forward with startling agility. His hand whipped around, gripping her shoulder to spin her away from him, and in the same fluid motion, a damp cloth clamped over her mouth. She struggled instinctively, her hands reaching up to claw at the vice-like grip, but her strength was failing her—fast.

The cloth was soaked with a chemical that carried the bitter, acrid taste of danger and forced surrender. It was a taste she recognized all too well—the same one that had pulled her into darkness before. Her mind raced with panic, every lesson on survival, every story of escape she’d ever heard scrambling together in a futile attempt to save herself. But the substance she breathed in was swift and merciless, dragging her down into an abyss where light and sound grew distant.

Her limbs grew heavy, the cellar around her blurring as if water were washing the very air away. The kerosene lantern’s glow dimmed alongside her consciousness, leaving her with the last haunting image of Mr. Hartley’s face—a face that once lectured on the Civil War and the importance of remembering history, now marked in her memory as something far more sinister.

As consciousness slipped from her grasp, Amber’s world condensed to that stifling cloth and the ghostly echo of her own choked gasp. Then, there was nothing but the silence of oblivion.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jenna stared with fascination at the old yearbook that Frank slid across the table toward her. She flipped it open andimmediately looked up Lisa Donovan in the index, then turned to a picture of her. Sure enough, it was the same young woman she’d seen in her dream. She shuddered at the thought of the fate this innocent-looking girl would suffer soon after the taking of this picture.

Then she thumbed through more pages, curiosity tugging at her. Each turn revealed familiar faces captured in their adolescence—faces she now knew to be lined with experience and shaped by the passage of time. It was a peculiar sensation, witnessing the raw beginnings of individuals who had since woven themselves into the fabric of Trentville’s community.

But was a killer somewhere among these images, and perhaps victims, too?

“Let’s get started,” Frank said.

They began with the underclassmen, searching systematically for the initials SV and NS among youthful faces sporting the styles of a bygone era. Jenna’s finger traced a line down the index until it halted at Nina Sturgeon, then shifted across to Sandra Vickery. A few entries down, Samuel Vaughn’s name appeared, his picture showing a lanky boy with hair that flopped carelessly over one eye.

“None of these ring a bell in relation to Lisa Donovan or the case,” Frank muttered, his voice tinged with frustration as he leaned over to peer at the names. His gray eyes squinted slightly as if trying to dredge up a connection from the depths of his memory.

Jenna continued to turn the pages, the paper emitting a soft shush as they progressed to the seniors. There, among the confident poses of impending graduates, were Ned Solomon and Naomi Scott. She studied the images: Ned, with a half-smirk, leaning against a prop tree, and Naomi, her smile serene, framed by curtains of straight hair.

“Any recollections?” she asked, glancing at Frank. His brow furrowed in concentration, but after a moment, he shook his head.

“Nothing concrete. Could be any one of them or none at all.”

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