Page 96 of Guarded from Treachery

Fear slams into me with the force of a tank.

Terror explodes inside me.

“What’s that sound?” Evan asks.

But I can’t answer. My voice won’t work.

I jam my hand into my pocket and yank out my phone, my hand slick with sweat as I try to hold onto it.

In the moment it takes to look at the screen, my brain fractures into frantic, panicked thoughts.

Oh, please. No.

This can’t be.

It can’t be what I think it is.

Isla’s supposed to be safe.

Did I fail her again?

Is it the baby?

Her mother?

I don’t know the answers to most. But what I do know as I stare in disbelief at my phone is that Isla’s in trouble. Again. And I’m not there to protect her.

Her little tracking dot is still at Cozy Cuppa, but instead of a flat red, it’s flashing. Telling me she needs help. That I need to get there.

“I have to go,” I blurt as I jump up from my chair. “Someone’s in trouble and I need to go.”

Evan turns to look at me, a calm confidence in his eyes. “If you’re going to help them, then it’s going to be okay.”

It’s a small reassurance, but I keep spinning his words in my head as I race from the community center and out to my car. She has to be okay. It’s the middle of the day. There were people at the shop. People who would see if something was wrong. People who would step in, or at the very least, call the police.

But then, why did Isla trigger her alert?

Is she sick? Hurt? Unable to use her phone?

As I peel out onto the road, a truly terrifying thought strikes me.

What if her parents were involved like we considered in the beginning?

There was no proof. Nothing that even hinted at it, aside from her father’s cruel behavior. Last we checked—lastIchecked—Elliot Nightingale hadn’t left New Hampshire in months, not since a weekend trip to Vermont for Isla’s cousin’s wedding. There was no extra money. No new investments. Just a sixty-something couple living in a paid-off house and spending the majority of their time at church events.

But what if I missed something?

Or what if her mother came here to hurt Isla? What if news of the pregnancy pushed her over the edge, and this whole visit was a ploy to punish Isla for her rejection of their beliefs?

Fuck.

I jam my foot to the floor, hearing the engine rev loudly. But not as loud as the thunder of my pulse in my head.

There’s a monster inside me, tearing with vicious claws as it tries to escape.

Taking full breaths is an impossibility.

Fuck.

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