In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(84)

Though he’d covered his bases as best he could, Franklin knew the police would keep looking for the runner, and the detective going to the extreme to get their DNA was proof they were prime suspects. As much as he hated to give up a sure thing, Franklin knew it would be near impossible to bring the three women back home—not now. Maybe not ever.

And that really only left one alternative.

We ain’t killers, Franklin, Carrol had said.

Not yet, they weren’t. But they’d gone down the same path their daddy went down. Franklin figured it was in their genes. He figured the Spragues did what they did to survive. And they would survive this. Franklin would see to it. He’d see to it for all of them. He always had. And likely always would.

Franklin parked at the cabin and grabbed Evan’s arm before he ran from the van. “I got to turn on the generator in the pump house, so we have electricity and water. Put the damn board games down, get that diesel can from the back of the van, and bring it with you to the pump house.”

Evan did as Franklin instructed. The generator provided power to the house, which was necessary to get electricity for the heat and lights, and water from the pump. Franklin filled the generator with diesel fuel and started it. He flipped a switch in the garage and the lights went on.

“Let me check the water. Then you can go play.”

He walked around the cabin to the pump house, turned the spigot his daddy had installed, and waited a beat, in case there was air in the line. No water came out, which could indicate any number of things. None of them good.

“Shit.” He wasn’t interested in standing in the cold trying to figure out how to fix the problem. Then again, they’d have no water if he didn’t.

Franklin turned to Evan. The idiot looked like a cat on a hot tin roof. He figured he might as well let him play. He wouldn’t be no good to him anyway, especially if his mind was elsewhere. He’d toy with him a bit though, because . . . well, he could. “We need to split firewood to keep the house warm until I get this fixed. I’m thinking two or three cords ought to about do it.”

Evan looked like someone had slapped him. “You said I could play after you turned on the generator.”

“Maybe I changed my mind.”

Evan now looked as if he might cry.

Franklin laughed. “Get me my toolbox from the van. Then get the hell out of my sight before I change my mind.”

Might as well let him have his fun. The young woman wasn’t coming back with them anyway.



Stephanie and the other two women had heard the sound of a car engine straining, likely because of the snow. Someone had come, likely one or more of the men. She was out of time.

She grabbed the piece of wood and put it down the waistband of her running tights at the small of her back and covered the tip with her shirt. Was it sharp enough to do any damage? She didn’t know, but she refused to give up hope.

She heard footsteps outside the door. Someone was coming. Angel and Donna each had their head down. Stephanie heard someone fumbling with a lock, then the sound of deadbolts disengaging. The door pulled back. Light filtered in the opening. She saw the silhouette of one of the men. A light came on, a small glow from a bulb fastened to one of the overhead rafters.

Evan.

She felt her heart start to race. This was it. This was what Donna had kept warning her about.

He walked to where she sat, a broad smile on his face. She shook her head and pushed back against the wall. “No. Please,” she said. “Please don’t.”

Evan sat on the floor, legs crossed. He looked sad. “You don’t want to play?”

She put a hand at her back, feeling the piece of wood, but first she had to get him to remove the shackles. Her mind was jumbled. Everything was happening too quickly. “No. Please. Just let me go,” she pleaded. “I won’t say anything. I swear. I won’t. Just let me go.”

“These are my favorite games,” he said, setting out the boxes in front of her. “You can pick one. Or we can play cards. Lindsay taught me how to play. She taught me kings in the corner and go fish. And crazy eights.”

Stephanie looked to the two other women, uncertain, but it seemed as though Evan really did want to play one of the games.

“I’d play,” Angel said. “Whatever game takes the longest to play.”



Tracy listened intently. She didn’t interrupt, didn’t ask questions or seek clarification. She let Jessica talk, and it became apparent Jessica had locked Lindsay in a box, much like Tracy had locked Sarah in a box, so Jessica could survive, move forward, and live a life, in one manner or another. Now she’d let Lindsay out to tell her story. She told Tracy as if she were reporting something that had happened to someone else, something she’d seen in a movie. She unburdened her soul in a way Tracy sensed she had never done before, not even to her sister. Tracy knew it was . . . easier . . . if she could use that word, telling someone Lindsay didn’t know and who didn’t know her. Someone who would not judge her. Someone who knew Lindsay had done what she had to do to survive. She spoke without tears or much expression, detailing the horrible things Ed Sprague had inflicted upon her.

And it had been horrific. Times ten.

Though Tracy fought to stay present, to keep her mind from slipping back to the moment when she had walked into the dank and abandoned room in the mine shaft, the place where Edmund House had kept her sister locked and chained for so many months. Up until that moment, when she saw the restraints and the paperback books and the grimy bed, she had no idea what horrors her sister had experienced.