Breaker's Reef

  She felt the car come to a halt, and she held her breath, waiting for the worst. Several moments passed, and nothing happened, then finally the trunk swung open. Light bore down into her eyes, and squealing into her tape, she looked up at Nate.

  He was holding rope, and before she could fight him, he began tying the rope around her waist. It was too tight, but she couldn’t stop him. She fought the bindings on her hands and feet, wondering if he intended to hang her. But wouldn’t it go around her neck if he did?

  He lifted her out of the car, dropped her down hard on the ground. She groaned.

  He got the switchblade out of his pocket, clicked it back open. She squeezed her eyes shut as he bent over her.

  She felt him slashing the tape at her ankles, nicking her shin as he did.

  “Get up,” he said. “I’m not carrying you. You can walk.”

  Her feet were free! She pulled herself up, thinking that she could escape if she could just get far enough away from him. If she pretended to cooperate, to go where he told her …

  He tugged on that rope around her waist. “Come on. This way.”

  She looked around and saw a house a couple of acres away. Maybe someone there would see this and come to her aid. Maybe they would have a gun. Please, God.

  He dragged her beside him, using the rope, jerking on her and chafing her ribs and her waist. She fell down and he jerked her back up.

  Finally, they came to a door in the ground that looked like the opening to a tornado shelter. He threw the door open and turned back to her.

  “Get in there.”

  She wasn’t sure which she feared more—staying with him or going into that dark place. And what if he came in with her?

  She didn’t move, so he jerked on the rope, knocking her forward. She fell to her knees at the opening and looked in. There were no stairs, and it looked like a deep dark pit, too deep to be a shelter.

  She turned back to him and looked up, her face pleading.

  He kicked her then, knocking her off her knees. Bending over her, he grabbed her shirt, lifting and dragging her.

  She fought as he got her over that hole, trying not to let him push her in, but her hands were still bound, and her feet weren’t enough.

  Suddenly, she lost the fight and fell into the hole. She screamed in the back of her throat as she free-fell into the darkness …

  The rope caught her before she reached the ground, jerking her to a stop before she shattered at the bottom. Her ribs cracked with the sudden halt. She hung there for a moment, terror radiating through her limbs, bolting through her like lightning.

  “I ain’t going to kill you just yet.” His voice drifted down from the opening several feet above her. “There might be another use for you before that.” He laughed long and hard and let go of the rope. She fell the remaining few feet, landing flat on her face, her hands bound beneath her.

  His laughter rang cruel and piercing above her. “You wanted to find your sister, didn’t you? Well, there she is.”

  Sadie scrambled to her knees. Light from the opening kept the darkness at bay. She turned around, searching the dirt hole he had thrown her in.

  And then she saw her.

  A girl, bound hand and feet just like Sadie, hunkering in the corner, her eyes wide with rabid fear.

  CHAPTER 39

  The girl screamed, and Sadie’s abductor laughed harder, then dropped the door shut. Sunlight razored in through the slats, providing a dim light in the hole.

  The girl kept screaming, her heels digging into the dirt as she tried to back as far into the dirt wall as she could to get away from Sadie. Her face was scraped and bruised, and lines of scabs scarred her cheeks, as if duct tape had been ripped off of her.

  Amelia! It had to be her. She had blonde hair and a small frame like her own.

  She was alive!

  After a moment the screaming stopped, replaced by a terrorized whimper. Amelia’s bound hands balled under her chin. Sadie grunted through her tape and crawled closer, trying to make her see that she was no threat. Finally, the girl cried out, “Who are you?”

  Sadie made a noise through the tape and raised her bound hands to try to work it free. But it was wrapped around her head, and she couldn’t find the seam.

  She crawled across the floor to Amelia, and the girl pulled her knees up to her chest, trying to back further away. “Leave me alone! Get away!” She was crazed, terrified, and Sadie didn’t know how to calm her.

  Sadie stopped, her hair stringing into her eyes and sticking to her wet face. The girl looked weak, pale, as if she was near collapsing, and Sadie wondered if she’d had anything to eat in all this time. Had he left her here to starve to death?

  Sadie shook her head. If only Amelia would understand that she was as helpless as she, that she wasn’t going to hurt her. She held up her bound hands, pleading with her eyes for Amelia to help her.

  Finally, Amelia seemed to calm down, and she sat there, staring at her. A vein strained against the skin in Amelia’s forehead, and she sucked in sobs, mucus running from her nose and tears streaking through the dirt on her face. She’d clearly been through a scuffle before being thrown into this place … or since. She’d been beaten, broken.

  Sadie wanted to help her, but she couldn’t even help herself. She inched closer, careful not to set Amelia off again. Reaching her bound hands out, she touched the tape on Amelia’s wrists. Amelia seemed to understand and held out her hands. “Yes … p-peel me loose.”

  The girl’s hands trembled harder than Sadie’s did. Sadie dug her fingernails into the seam on the tape and began to work it free. It had been there too long and resisted being peeled, but slowly she pulled it from Amelia’s wrists.

  When her hands were unbound, Amelia rubbed her chafed wrists. “Thank you,” she whispered. She looked at Sadie then, her eyes assessing her. “I’ll … I’ll do yours.” She reached for the tape across Sadie’s mouth, wrapped around her head, and started to peel it off.

  Despite her weakness and the tremor in her hands, she was careful as she peeled it from Sadie’s skin. When Sadie’s mouth was free again, she started to cry. “You’re Amelia, aren’t you?”

  Amelia stared. “How do you know me?”

  “Everyone’s looking for you.”

  “Then they know I’m missing?” Her mouth trembled.

  “Your parents are in Cape Refuge. They’re frantic.”

  Her face twisted and reddened, and that vein on her forehead bulged even more. Weakly, she said, “Why did I do this to them? They don’t deserve it. I should never have come. My friend … she was taken with me, but they shot her. Has anyone found her?”

  Sadie didn’t know if Amelia could take the truth. She thought of lying, saying she hadn’t heard anything about her, but the words got caught in her throat.

  Her hesitation was answer enough. “They have, haven’t they?”

  Sadie swallowed hard and nodded. “They found her body a couple of days ago.”

  Amelia wilted back against the wall. “Oh, no. I was hoping I was wrong. That she wasn’t really dead. That she got away somehow.”

  Sadie sat there quietly, watching her sister cry. She wished she knew how to help her, but they were both in such a mess that she saw no way out. Amelia wept, and Sadie sat still, waiting.

  Finally, Amelia wiped her face on her shirt and got a look of resolve on her face. She reached out for Sadie’s hands and began unpeeling the bindings. “So how did you wind up here?”

  Now that the dirt was wiped from her face, Sadie could see her sister’s delicate features. She had her mother’s eyes, just as Sadie did, and her nose was pretty and delicate, her lips full and shaped just like her own.

  “I was looking for you and I got too close to the truth. I guess he had to get rid of me.”

  Amelia got Sadie’s hands free. “You were looking for me? Why?”

  Sadie stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was dumping too much on the girl all at once. Finally, she said, ?
??Because I’m your sister.”

  Amelia’s eyebrows came together, and she sat back, staring at Sadie.

  “I’m Sadie Caruso.”

  Amelia drew in a breath so hard that Sadie thought she might choke. “Caruso? Sheila’s daughter?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “My birth mother? She knows about me?”

  “When they found your friend … the police came to my mom and told her that you had come there looking for her. I didn’t know I had a sister. I’m a year younger than you.”

  Amelia seemed disoriented again as she stared at her, taking it all in.

  “I can’t believe this. When they said my birth mother had two children, I expected them to be ten or twelve years old. Not practically my own age.”

  “We have a little brother, Caleb. He’s only two and a half.”

  A look of awe came over Amelia’s face. “Caleb …”

  Sadie got up and inspected her own injuries. She had heard her ribs crunch when she’d fallen in, and pain stabbed through her. Her knees were bloody, and her shoulder ached. The rope still hung from her waist. She tried to undo the knot, and an urgency suddenly took hold of her. “We’ve got to find a way out of here.”

  “There’s no way. I’ve been trying to figure one out for days.”

  “I don’t understand why he’s holding us here,” Sadie said.

  “He’s waiting for something. He told me he fully intends to kill me when the time is right.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know. But every now and then he comes down here, and …” Her voice trailed off, and Sadie knew what she was going to say.

  “Has he hurt you?”

  Amelia couldn’t answer that directly. “He’s a monster.”

  Sadie looked up at the door. “The next time he comes we’ll overpower him. He can’t handle us both.”

  “What if he has his friend with him?”

  Sadie looked at her. “What friend?”

  She looked too weak to answer. “The other guy who was with him when he took Jamie and me.” She leaned her head back against the wall. “We heard them talking outside our motel room, about some girl that one of them had killed. The other one was furious at him, telling him he’d gotten him into all sorts of trouble. That he’d made a mess of things. He told him to leave town and never come back.”

  “Emily Lawrence! She was found in a boat, and the police said she was dead before the killer put her there.”

  “We were listening to their conversation, and all of a sudden, I knocked a glass off the table and broke it. They realized we were in there, and that we’d heard them.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yes. We heard them go back into their room, so we waited for a while, then decided to leave. Then somebody knocked on the door. Jamie answered it, and there they were. They had a gun. They forced us to go with them and get into their car, and they brought us here. Jamie fought them with all her might and tried to make a run for it, but they shot her. Then they threw me down here.”

  “Who was the other guy? Was it a flaky middle-aged man?”

  “No. He was my age. I never heard his name. He was cleaner cut than Nate. Light brown hair, about five-ten.”

  That described dozens of guys. “Well, we’ll just have to find a way out before they come back.” She looked fully at Amelia now. “Are you all right? You look really weak.”

  “I haven’t eaten in four days. I wouldn’t have had anything to drink except that it rained a couple of times.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “We’re going to die here, you know.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “We are. They’re never going to let us go. We can identify them. They have to kill us.”

  “That might be what they think.” Sadie got the rope off of her waist, wincing with the pain in her ribs. “But they don’t know me. I’ve had a lot of experience fighting for my life. They just may have met their match.”

  CHAPTER 40

  My birth mother occupies a special place in my mind, a channel in the sea of my existence, leading me to where I am today. I wonder about her sometimes. Was she an unmarried teen when she gave me up? Did she agonize over the decision? Did she hold me when I was born? Did she weep for days—months—afterward? How did it change her life?

  I know that it may not have been significant at all. Maybe it didn’t faze her. Maybe she hasn’t thought about me in years.

  I can’t explain why it matters so much to me, except to say that I need to know the first chapters of my life story. I need to understand who I came from so I can understand who I am now, and maybe even why I’m here.

  Sheila put down the stack in her hand, and stared at that entry. She’d cried more today than she’d cried in years—even more than the day she was taken to prison, leaving her children in the hands of a violent, selfish man.

  But the tears were useless. They did nothing to help her daughter.

  She heard Morgan coming up the stairs. She was rubbing her belly and looked tired as she came to stand in her doorway. “Sheila, did Sadie say anything to you about not coming home for supper?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. She might have said something that didn’t register. I was a little preoccupied.”

  Morgan had that look she got when she was worried but trying not to show it. “I can’t decide whether to wait for her or go ahead and eat.”

  “I’ll call her and see.” She picked up the phone on her bed table and dialed Sadie’s cell phone. No answer. “Maybe her battery died. She’s always forgetting to charge her phone. Or maybe she’s in a noisy place and can’t hear.”

  Morgan looked worried as she came in and sat down on her bed. “Try the newspaper office. See if Blair knows.”

  Sheila dialed that number. Blair picked up quickly. “Cape Refuge Journal.”

  “Blair, this is Sheila. Is Sadie there, by any chance?”

  “No, I thought I was going to see her late this afternoon, but she didn’t come in.”

  Sheila drew her eyebrows together and looked up at Morgan. “Not at all? When she left here earlier she said she was going to the office.”

  “Nope. She didn’t come at all.”

  A sense of sudden dread tightened her chest. “Well, if you see her, would you tell her I’m looking for her? Ask her to come home or call? She’s not answering her cell phone.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Sheila hung up and turned her troubled eyes to Morgan. “Where could she be?”

  Morgan’s gaze locked on hers. “Maybe she just got a lead on a story and took off after it.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  As the next hours drifted by with no word from Sadie, Sheila began to get more concerned. Jonathan was pacing on the front porch, watching for signs of her, and Morgan was on the phone calling everyone who might have seen her. Sheila sat on the back porch, begging God to bring Sadie home soon. But something in her heart told her Sadie hadn’t simply neglected to call. She was sure Sadie was in trouble.

  By ten o’clock, Sheila had had enough. “I have to go look for her. Something’s happened. Sadie wouldn’t do this.”

  Jonathan agreed. “Take the car and my cell phone. If we hear from her, we’ll let you know.”

  When her search around the island turned up nothing, Sheila thought of Scott Crown. Maybe Sadie had run into him, and he’d taken her out. It wasn’t like her to go out on a date and not let anyone know, but with all that was going on today, who knew where anyone’s head was? As far-fetched as it sounded, she wanted to believe it.

  She drove to the police station, hurried inside. Joe was there, even though it was late. He seemed glad to see her.

  “Joe, I need your help. We’re looking for Sadie, and I wondered if she’d been in here to see Scott or something.”

  “I haven’t seen her. Scott’s on duty, but he’s out in the squad car.” He stood up and called across the room to the dispatcher. “Hey, Myrtle. Radio Scott and ask
him if he’s seen Sadie Caruso.”

  Sheila kept standing and watched Myrtle as she made the call. Finally, the woman turned back to her. “He says he hasn’t seen her since this morning, Joe. Said she didn’t say where she was going.”

  Sheila wilted, and tears burned in her eyes. “Where could she be?”

  Joe sat back in his chair. “You’re really worried, aren’t you?”

  “Yes!” She raked her hand through her hair and bent over his desk. “I’ve already got one daughter missing. What if something’s happened to Sadie too? What if she’s been taken—” Her voice broke off, choked by a sob.

  Joe came around his desk and pulled her into a hug, and she melted against him and wept into his shirt.

  He stroked her back as he held her. “Sadie’s okay, hon. I bet she ran into some friends and just forgot to call.”

  She drew in a ragged breath and looked up at him. “Could you look for her, Joe? Could you radio the other cars and ask them to look for her?”

  “Sure, I can.” He let her go, handed her a box of Kleenex from his desk, and headed for Myrtle.

  Sheila blew her nose and tried to calm down. But fear was like a fog around her, and she couldn’t see through it to the light that might wait just beyond it. Sadie, where are you?

  When Joe finished radioing his patrol cars, he came back to her. “I’m sure she’s fine, Sheila. Maybe she just ran into some friends. Any minute now she’ll check her watch and realize how late it is.”

  She wiped her tear-streaked hands on her jeans. “Do you think so?”

  “I sure do. Sadie’s got a level head, but she’s still a kid. And you know how kids can be sometimes. She’s probably home already.”

  Sheila pulled Jonathan’s phone out of her pocket, checked the display to make sure she hadn’t missed a call. “No, Jonathan said he would call if she came home. The thing is, Amelia’s disappearance was heavy on her mind. Whatever she’s doing, it has something to do with her, I guarantee you. What if she found her and got into trouble herself?”

  “If we haven’t been able to find Amelia yet, I doubt Sadie could. No, I’m sure she’s okay. Just go home and relax. One of our guys will find her soon. I’ll have them bring her right home.”