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Then she heard something.
Lacey shot straight up in the bed, fingers gripping the comforter, her eyes probing the darkness. There wasn’t even a full moon to help light the room. Her breath quickened and her heart began to gallop in her chest.
Was someone there?
Her parents?
Or had Bethany come home?
Did she dare call out?
No, not with all the weird things that had been happening lately.
But it was possible, right? Itcouldbe Bethany trying to sneak in. Maybe. Maybe not.
Hope, that it was Bethany in the house mingled with terror that it wasn’t, curled inside her.
Slipping out from under the covers, Lacey tiptoed to the door then paused.
She needed a weapon.
A glance around the room brought nothing helpful in sight.
Pulling in a steadying breath, she paused, straining her ears for the slightest out-of-place noise. Nothing.
Had she just imagined that she’d heard something? Was it the wishful thinking that Bethany had come home making her crazy?
Or was it one of her parents moving around?
Only one way to find out.
Heart thumping so loud it almost deafened her, she kept to the shadows and made her way down the hall. Pausing at her parents’ bedroom door, she peeked in.
Her dad’s familiar soft snores reached her ears. A streak of light from the cracked bathroom door lit a line down her mother’s face.
Another light thump made her jump.
Smothering a startled gasp, Lacey silently pulled the door shut.
It wasn’t her parents.
Bethany?
Oh, please, dear God, let it be her.
Slowly she turned to the room across the hall. The door was shut.
She’d left it open since Bethany’s disappearance.
Eager, yet still cautious, Lacey placed her hand on the doorknob, turned it and pushed the door inward.
And screamed her horror.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The vibrating cell phone snapped Mason awake.
Confused for the brief second it took him to focus on the phone in his hand, Mason finally realized he’d fallen asleep in the recliner, his fingers wrapped around Georgia’s phone. His one connection with his missing daughter.