Page 94 of Husband Missing

“Listen,” Noah said. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

“Noah.” Her voice cracked. All the messy feelings she’d been pushing down exploded inside her, demolishing her emotional armor. Tears streamed down her face. Unstoppable rivers. “I love you, too.”

“You’re perfect,” he said, voice falling to a whisper. “Exactly the way you are. Remember that.”

“No,” she choked out.

“I love you.”

This was not happening. She was not losing him.

“Tell me to my face,” Josie said, her voice strange and squeaky. “Because I’m coming to get you. Put Erica back on.”

More rustling and then some sniffles. “It’s me. The 911 dispatcher said the police and ambulance will be here in fifteen minutes. They said to stay put. I’m worried about Mace and his goons finding us before the police come?—”

“They won’t,” Josie croaked, as if saying it would make it true. “The property—where is it?”

“I don’t know,” said Erica, crying softly. “There’s nothing but trees and?—”

“It’s fine.” Josie cleared her throat and tried to sound like herself, like she wasn’t melting down in a rental car on the side of the road while her husband might be dying. “Open Google Maps and pin your location, then share it with me. I’m on my way.”

SIXTY-SEVEN

Erica shivered as the phone screen faded to black. Stupid tears leaked from her eyes. She used the hem of her tank top to wipe them away, hoping Noah wouldn’t notice. Her sweatshirt was turned inside out and folded under his head. She’d nearly gotten the dry heaves again when her fingers brushed the open gash along the side of his head, hidden by his matted, bloodstained hair. At least the blood underneath him, staining the shed floor, had dried and congealed. Some of it peeled away from the concrete like strips of plastic. This was not a tidbit about blood that Erica had ever wanted to know. In fact, if she never saw blood again, that would be cool.

She really had thought he was dead when she tripped over him. The smell alone was enough to convince her. Copper and dirt and piss. Then she saw him, curled onto his side, unmoving, the blood from his head wound spread across almost the entire shed floor. Bruises covered his bare forearms, some the perfect imprints of boot treads. And his face. Good lord, his face. Nose so crooked it almost made an L, dried rivulets of blood staining his lips, his chin, and his throat. The skin around his eyes was black and puffy. One of his eyelids had swelled so badly that hecouldn’t open it. It reminded her of the day her mother had gone inside the magical house.

If this wasn’t full circle, she didn’t know what was.

“Hey,” Noah whispered.

She could tell it took a lot of effort for him to hold up his hands. He’d kept telling her he was fine but how could he not be dying?

“Erica.”

Even as jacked up as he was, he had some kind of weird calming effect on her.

Scuttling closer to him, she picked up the arrow and used the broadhead to saw through the duct tape around his wrists. He dropped his arms to his sides, hissing in pain. Every movement seemed to cause him pain. Without prompting, she freed his ankles next. That took longer. Sweat poured down her face while she worked, mixing with the tears that just wouldn’t stop.

“Thank you,” he said.

There were more gasps of pain as he tried to move his legs.

“Stop,” she said, placing a palm over one of his knees. “Just be still. Rescue will be here any minute.”

“Yeah,” said Noah. “But they won’t get to us for hours.”

SIXTY-EIGHT

An invisible vise tightened around Josie’s chest as she stood along the road among dozens of emergency vehicles, staring up at Mace Phelan’s hunting lodge. It was the only house in the area for miles and miles. It sat adjacent to State Game Land 89 in Clinton County. Josie had been nearly ninety minutes away when Erica shared the location. She’d made it in forty-five. On the way, she’d called Heather Loughlin, Gretchen, Chief Chitwood, Trinity, and even Turner. Talking to them kept her panic at bay. It grew exponentially with every mile she traveled because she knew that, based on what Erica had told her, getting to Noah would be no simple task.

Given the remote location of the lodge, three armed suspects on the loose in a large wooded area and two innocents at risk, the local borough police department would need an assist from the state police. Their Special Emergency Response Team would be called in. SERT was equivalent to SWAT. In this situation, their vast resources would be critical to apprehending the suspects and securing the scene. Drones would be deployed as well as helicopters equipped with FLIR or forward-looking infrared cameras, which could locate the suspects via their heat signatures. No medics would be able to retrieve Noah until thathappened, no matter how badly he was injured. It simply wasn’t safe.

It had been two hours since she arrived on-scene. She was only allowed to stay if she followed Heather’s directions to the letter, which were for her to remain in the exact spot where she currently stood until told otherwise. SERT had made contact with Erica on the phone she’d been using. Josie had broken and texted a few times for updates on Noah. He was hanging in there. She wouldn’t believe it until she saw for herself and put her hands on him.

Overhead, the steadythwip thwip thwipof the state police helicopter grew louder as it made another pass over the house, searching the wooded area behind it. Josie scanned the scene again. The driveway was long and steep. The house was as huge as it was beautiful. White pine accented its rustic fieldstone veneer. Tall, sleek windows gleamed in the morning sun. Across the front was an expansive deck with what appeared to be an ornate metal balustrade depicting the silhouettes of deer and elk running through a forest. It looked more like a resort than a hunting lodge—an unlikely place for the horrors Josie knew had taken place there in the last several days.

A burst of chatter squawked over the police radios around her. Tactical teams moved up the hill, through the woods. A sense of urgency and frenetic energy rolled through the officers gathered around her and Josie knew this nightmare was close to being over. The rest happened in a blur. Two men she’d never seen before and Mace Phelan, secured with zip ties, were marched down the driveway and put into vehicles. An ambulance raced toward the house. Then Heather was pushing her into a car, and they were following it, and the stricture around Josie’s chest was so tight she could barely draw in air.

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