She Can Hide (She Can #4)(80)

Abby was already moving toward the back of her yard.

Ethan grabbed her by the arm. “You wait here.”

She shook her head and reached into her purse. She pulled out a frigging Glock.

“Where the hell did you get that?”

“It was my mother’s.” Abby checked the clip like a pro. “It was pretty much all she left me. She wasn’t much of a jewelry girl.”

“Do you have a concealed carry permit?” Yeah, that sounded lame.

“No.” Abby gave him a that’s ridiculous roll of her eyes. “It’s a good thing it isn’t concealed. Are you coming?”

“Can you shoot that? It looks big for you.” But Ethan remembered her practiced stance when she’d pointed his gun at Detective Abrams’s killer.

“I can shoot it just fine. My mother believed in reliability and stopping power. Weapons aren’t supposed to be delicate.” Abby tossed her purse in the shed. Tucking the gun in her coat pocket, she put a toe in the fence and climbed over.

“Have you ever shot at a person?” Ethan wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to his question. Abby had been full of surprises. She wasn’t the fragile flower he’d thought. Damaged, yes. Delicate, no.

“No.”

“It’s a lot different than firing at a paper target.”

Abby deadpanned him from the other side of the fence. “I’ll do anything to keep that man from hurting Derek.”

Damn it. He’d have to arrest her and handcuff her to something heavy to keep her away. Ethan vaulted the chain-link and took the lead. “Stay behind me and do exactly what I say.”

He tugged Abby in back of the neighbor’s shed. “I want you to stay here just while I take a look around.”

Abby opened her mouth to argue. Ethan put a finger to her lips and shook his head. “You need to keep watch. In case I don’t come back, someone has to be able to tell the police what happens.” He pointed up the side of the property. “From here you can see the road. The street light is on. If Joe makes a run for it, you’ll know.”

Abby’s mouth flattened. “I don’t like it.”

“I know, but please do it anyway.”

“I’ll give you five minutes.” She glanced up at the sky and shivered. Night had descended in full. Heavy cloud cover and driving rain blocked any possible moonlight.

“Are you all right? It’s dark.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, clearly lying through her clenched teeth.

But there wasn’t anything Ethan could do about the darkness. To contact Abby, Derek was risking being returned to the foster home. He could be in big trouble. “I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

Ethan jogged across Mr. Sheridan’s rear yard. His boots slipped. Sleet, rain, and snow pelted the exposed skin of his face. Crouching below window height, he made a quick circuit of the house. Coming around to the back again, he tripped. There was something solid under his feet. He scraped away three inches of shitty wet snow. Bulkhead doors. Ethan gave the handle a light tug. No lock?

Rusted hinges yielded with a slow groan. Ethan pulled a flashlight from his pocket and shined the beam down the stairs before descending. The cellar was empty except for the usual basement fixtures: washer, dryer, furnace, boxes of old junk.

Ethan crossed the slab. Wooden steps led up into the house. At the top of the stairs, he put his eye to the crack under the door. A short hall opened into a room. Shadows moved. More than one person.

A woman screamed.




Abby checked the time on her phone. Nerves jittered in her belly. Six minutes had passed since Ethan disappeared into the basement, and she’d had no response from Derek.

A muffled female scream carried across the freezing rain. Krista? Had to be. Mr. Sheridan lived alone.

Abby ran toward the back of the house. Ethan had gone into the basement more than five minutes ago. Was he all right? Was Derek inside too?

Even up close, she couldn’t see in the windows. She crept up to the back door. Wait. She peered through a tiny crack between the window frame and the blind. With the limited view, she could see the feet and lower legs of someone lying on the floor. Something red was smeared on the pale gray tile. The shoes were black, bulky, and looked orthopedic. Mr. Sheridan. Was he alive?

Abby strained for the sound of approaching sirens but heard nothing but freezing rain and sleet filtering through foliage and pinging off every surface. Heart thumping, she approached the bulkhead doors where Ethan had disappeared a few minutes before.

She put one foot on the first step and bent over to see into the space. The basement was dark. Way darker than the yard. Her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light outside. But down there…

Inside the sleeves of her winter coat, goose bumps crawled up Abby’s arms as she stared into the black hole. Dark and below ground. Like the well. Like a grave.




Leading with his gun, Ethan eased the basement door open. The house was small. A short hallway opened into a living room.

“Whoever you are, get your ass in here or I’ll slice the kid’s tongue out.”

Ethan’s stomach dropped. He stepped around the corner and took in the scene with a wave of nausea. Derek was taped to a chair, his body sideways to Ethan. Tears and blood dripped down the side of the boy’s face. Joe was on Derek’s other side, using the kid’s body as a shield. Joe had the kid’s mouth pried open with one hand, the glistening knife poised with the other. Ethan couldn’t shoot. Not without hitting Derek.