Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) - Karen Rose Page 0,3

way too easy. What do you want to say to your baby daddy?”

“Besides ‘HELP ME’ in all caps?”

He smirked and began to type. “ ‘Subject: HELP ME’ in all caps. ‘Dear Cam,’ ” he murmured as he typed, “ ‘we are in a place called Eden.’ ” He clicked out of the e-mail tab to Google Maps and squinted at the screen. “There’s a way to get coordinates. Oh, yeah. I remember now.” He right-clicked on the flashing blue dot that was in the middle of a forest and entered the numbers into the e-mail to Cam. “We are at these coordinates,” he continued to type. “Please come ASAP and bring the cops. This place is insane and we are being held against our will.”

“We could just e-mail the police directly,” Hayley said quietly. “Or even the FBI.”

“And we will. But Cam can go to the cops in person, and that might get better attention than our e-mail, which sounds like we’re crackpots.” He hit send, then opened a new e-mail. “I’ll send the e-mail to the cops now. According to the map, the closest town is—”

A voice outside had them freezing in place.

“I need to pack up the clinic,” the healer was saying.

“You will have time to do that,” a male voice said evenly. “Get back to the prayer meeting.”

Shit. Panicked, Hayley met Graham’s wide eyes. “Joshua,” she mouthed. If her so-called husband found them here . . . He’ll kill me. He’ll kill Graham. “We need to get out of here,” she mouthed to Graham.

He nodded once, then began closing windows on the computer. He clicked the history and erased their activity before shutting it down. Quietly he rose from the chair and joined her at the office door.

“Pastor wants you at his side when he tells everyone that we’re leaving,” Joshua told the healer.

Leaving. Leaving?

Hayley glanced at the computer, her heart racing faster than was good for her baby. They’d just told Cameron where to find them and now they were leaving?

She took a step toward the computer, but Graham grabbed her arm, shaking his head.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Joshua was saying. “I need to find the new girl. She was asleep when we left for the prayer meeting, but Rebecca says she isn’t there now.”

The new girl. That would be me. They know I’m missing. I need to get out of here.

“She might run,” the healer said hesitantly. “She seems the type. She hasn’t fit in well.”

“I know.” Joshua sounded grim. “I swear to God, I’ll kill her and rip that baby out of her if she tries. I promised Rebecca the kid would be hers.”

Hayley covered her mouth to silence her gasp. Graham’s grip intensified until tears burned her eyes. Her brother looked absolutely livid.

Livid and terrified. For me. Hurry, Cam. Get here before we’re gone. Or before Graham did something foolish and got himself killed.

The voices trailed off and Graham opened the office door, gesturing for Hayley to follow. With a final frantic look back at the computer, she complied. It didn’t matter. She didn’t know where they were going, so she couldn’t tell Cam. When they got to the outer door, Graham pointed to himself, then to the left. He pointed to Hayley, then the right.

They no longer lived in the same hut, so it made sense that they’d come from different directions. Thank you, little brother, she thought. For having your shit together better than me.

She looked both ways when she left the healer’s hut, relieved that everyone was in the square already, looking away from her and toward where Pastor stood on a raised platform. He was an average-looking man, maybe five-eight. On the surface, he seemed unremarkable in every way. His brown hair was graying, his face almost always smiling benignly. He wore round glasses that gave him a professorial air. He shouldn’t have been a leader of anything, but there was something about him that drew the people of Eden like moths to a flame. They trusted him implicitly.

He was, however, holding Hayley captive against her will, and so she would never trust him. She slipped out and made it to the back of the group in the square, then gasped again when bony fingers grabbed her arm, in the same place Graham had.

“Where were you?” Rebecca asked, her tone low and ominous. The woman was older, though her age was hard to tell. Hayley thought she might be younger than her own mother, but years of living in this