Page 74 of His Loving Wife

“The storm is settling in.” He points outside. My gaze follows his finger, and now I see the dark, rolling clouds spreading across the sky, like thick billows of smoke.

“Say, you okay?” Vincent asks. “You look a little pale.”

“Yeah. Yes.” I inhale deeply through my nose, trying desperately to relax my posture. “I’m fine.”

He stares at me a beat longer, then walks back into the hallway.

I hurry back over to the computer and exit Andrew’s email. I thought they wouldn’t be back for at least another half hour, although time now seems an impossible concept to grasp. I can see through the window that Andrew and the children are still on the dock, trying to cover all the equipment before the storm sets in.

I race down the hallway to the living room where I’d left my phone on the charger. I need to call the police, even if I’m forced to hang up. They’ll at least trace the call and send someone to check the address, and I’ll have a way of getting the kids away from Vincent.

Beside the sofa, where I’d left it only moments ago, only the charger remains.

My phone is gone.

I hear footsteps wandering through the house. It must be Vincent, and he must have taken my phone.

I hurry back to the laptop in the other room, hoping I can pull up my own email. I can message Detective Marsh or Aster, or maybe there’s even a way to alert the local police. Whatever I do, I need to do it quickly.

I’m typing in my password when the lights around me go off. We’ve lost power.Shit, I think, but at least the computer still has a charge. I try typing in the password and refreshing the page, but nothing loads. Nothing will load. The internet connection is lost.

The hairs on my skin stand on end, and there’s a coldness seeping into my lungs, dispersing throughout my body like frost.This can’t be happening, I think.

There’s no way out. I have no phone. No electricity. No internet.

And my children are under the same roof as a man prepared to do the unthinkable.

I run outside to the dock. Willow and Noah are both on the boat. I’m determined to take them and leave this house immediately. Then I catch sight of Andrew, and my heart stalls. He doesn’t know what Vincent’s intentions are, that he’s already responsible for the deaths of Cal Rogers and his family. It pains me to tell him that his plan to keep us safe has backfired, but I don’t have a choice; if we don’t get out of here now, we may not have another chance.

“You missed a beautiful day at sea,” Andrew says, stepping onto the dock. “Although we did have a few casualties. The bag containing our phones went overboard.”

“Which is, like, the worst thing that could happen,” Willow says, her arms crossed over her body.

“No phones until we get back home,” Noah says.

I slowly catch on to what’s happening here. Vincent has found a way to disconnect us from everyone, and I shudder.

Andrew catches sight of my face. “Everything okay?”

“We need to get the children out of here right now. We need to leave.”

“I need to wash up,” says Willow.

Noah, behind her, says, “And I’m starving.”

“Stop right there,” I shout after them. There’s an urgency in my voice that makes them halt immediately. “Don’t go inside yet.”

“Mom, it’s about to storm,” says Willow.

“I don’t care. Just listen to me.”

“Kate, what’s going on?” Andrew sounds alarmed.

I’ve found out so much in the past hour, I don’t have time to explain everything.

“We need to leave the house right now. We have to get away from Vincent,” I whisper to Andrew so the kids won’t hear.

“What are you talking about? We’ve been with him all day. He offered to cook dinner.”

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