who had accidentally killed her father and started the chain reaction that had left her family devastated. She refused to blame Jay. This was Isaiah Tutt’s fault. He was the adult. Kidnapping Riley Jo was unconscionable. And he was about to steal another daughter from Kate Cummings. Did the man have no conscience? No soul?
“Abby, are you awake?” Jay whispered.
“Uh-huh.”
“Isaiah’s probably gone to bed.”
“Or is out digging our graves,” Abby added, immediately wishing she hadn’t.
Jay didn’t respond for perhaps an entire minute. Finally he said, “Abby … I want you to know how much your friendship has meant to me. I’ve never had anyone in my life I could open up with. I’d give anything to not be the one who took your father from you.”
Abby covered his mouth with her hand. “Don’t do this. I told you I don’t blame you.”
A tear trickled down the side of Jay’s face. He gently took her wrist and removed her hand. “No matter what happens, I want you to know I don’t regret one minute of the time we’ve spent together.”
“You’re talking like it’s over,” Abby said. “We’re getting out of here. Have faith.”
“I’m trying. But face it, we’re trapped. And Isaiah’s calling the shots.”
“Shh. Did you hear that?” Abby held her breath and listened intently.
“No. What’d it sound like?”
“Footsteps. Someone’s coming.”
The squeaky door slowly opened and closed, and then the light came on in the room overhead and footsteps descended the wooden stairs.
Jay pulled Abby to her feet. She held so tightly to him that her fingernails were pushing into his arm.
Seconds later, a face peered through the grate in the trapdoor. “Y’all down there?”
“Ella?” Abby whispered.
“How come you know my name?”
“I know all about you,” Abby said. “Can you get us out of here?”
“Yep. But if Pa finds out, he’ll be hoppin’ mad, so you hafta be really, really quiet.”
Abby heard the bolt lock slide back and Ella grunting as she strained to open the door.
A few seconds later, the trapdoor was wide open, and the girl, the spitting image of Riley Jo, stood staring at them. She bent down and grabbed something and let it slide down one wall. Abby touched it and realized it was a flexible rope ladder.
“It’s kinda wobbly,” Ella said. “But Pa’s got it hooked real good up here.”
“You go first.” Jay helped Abby get her foot in the bottom rung. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Abby pushed past her soreness and tried not to groan as she climbed out. She reached out to Jay as he neared the top and pulled him up.
“Come on,” Ella said. “I brung a flashlight so y’all could see to git outta them woods.”
“How’d you know we were down there?” Jay said.
“I heard Otha and Pa talkin’ ’bout it. He ain’t lettin’ you go. I don’t understand why, but I know it ain’t right.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll know you let us out?”
Ella shrugged. “Pa’s always mad at me. I git whippin’s all the time, whether I done somethin’ or not. I heard him tell Otha I’ve been like a rock in his shoe since my real ma died. When I’m fourteen, he’s makin’ me marry Bobby Lee Hoover.”
Abby’s heart sank. It was all she could do not to reach out and hug her sister.
“Come on,” Ella said. “You best git movin’.”
Abby and Jay followed Ella down a narrow aisle between shelving filled with jars of home-canned goods. They climbed the wooden steps, and Ella opened the creaky outside door and stopped abruptly. Abby heard her gasp.
“Pa!”
“Whaddya think you’re doin’?” Isaiah Tutt’s voice sent a chill up Abby’s spine. “Did you think I wouldn’t hear you sneakin’ outta the house?”
Kate sat between her dad and her elder son on the living-room couch at their log home, answering questions for Chief Deputy Kevin Mann and Deputy Billy Gene Duncan, who sat in chairs facing them. This could not be happening again. The sense of déjà vu was so strong that she wanted to run. But to where? There was no escaping what was happening.
“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Kate said. “Now you know what we know.”
“And you’re sure Abby isn’t involved romantically with the Rogers boy?” Mann said.
“As sure as I can be.” Kate turned to her father. “Dad doesn’t think so either.”
“That’s right,” Dad said. “And I’ve paid attention. I’ve been watchin’ out for Abby.”
“Abby told me she wasn’t ready to open her heart to anyone,” Kate said. “That she’d had all the pain she could handle, dealing