Page 50 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

Gail’s last known location is somewhere on the property. That’s all I can really say.

I check the time of that last ping. Seven hours ago. So just past one in the morning.

Did that mean she went out to see the lights? Maybe. That’d been closer to midnight, but her phone could have died around one, maybe even after she’d gone back inside.

Except she’s not inside.

I retreat to the porch, sit on the step and bury my face in my hands. I keep hearing Gail from yesterday, seeing the way she looked at me, that combination of fear and pity. Thinking I’d mutilated those animals and—

I swallow.

I’m trying very hard not to panic because I don’t want her strolling back from a walk, finding Sheriff Smits in our yard and me in hysterics, babbling about footprints and drag marks and her phone signal in the lake. I don’t want to prove she’s right and I’m losing it. But in stifling the whirling fear, am I also doing what she accused me of? Reacting too calmly?

She thought I cut up those animals and “hid” the hatchet—

My head snaps up. The shed! Yes! Where might Gail go this morning? To the shed, for another look, to think this through while I’m sleeping.

I’m halfway there before I remember the keys. I pause, ready to run back. But if she’s there, she’ll have opened it with her keys.

Except her keys are on the counter.

No, I’m actually not sure she put the cottage and shed keys on that ring. After my overheated brain spends much too long deciding, I continue running for the shed. I reach it to find the door shut, and yet I still check the padlock, as if she could somehow be in there with it latched. It’s locked.

“Gail?” I back up and look around. “Gail!”

Tires crunch on the road, and my heart sings. Even as my brain says this can’t be Gail—her car is beside the cottage—it also comes up with explanations. Her car wouldn’t start, and she walked to Paynes Hollow for help because her phone was dead.

Does this make sense? Of course not, but I cling to it as I run back to the cottage. I’m halfway there when a much more plausible explanation hits, and I skid to a stop.

What if those tires were the sounds of Gail leaving? If she’d been outside, thinking things through, and then saw me running about like a madwoman and realized she should leave. She waited until I was gone and now she’s fleeing.

Fleeing me.

No, she wouldn’t do that.

She thinks I carved up—

She thinks I’m traumatized. She’s not afraid of me.

Am I sure?

I break into a slow jog, and soon I see Gail’s car where she left it. On the other side is a familiar pickup.

I race around the cottage just as Sheriff Smits is climbing from his truck. The morning sun is in his eyes, and he shades them as he looks my way.

“Morning,” he says. “Sorry for the early visit, but I wanted to check on you girls. See if anyone left any more grisly presents this morning.”

I shake my head. “Nothing, but my aunt’s gone.”

“Oh?” He’s still shading his eyes, trying to see me. “Left early for…” He trails off as he turns toward her car.

“No, she’s missing. Gone. I don’t know where.”

He’s walked into the shade of the cottage, where he can see my expression, and he stops walking. “Missing?”

The words tumble out. “I was up at dawn. The screen door was banging. She was gone, and at first, I thought someone kidnapped her, but her sandals are missing. I can’t find her. Her phone’s dead. There’s been no signal for hours. There are footprints on the beach, and her last signal was from the lake and—” My breath catches so hard it nearly doubles me over. “The water. An undertow. A riptide. I never thought about—”

“Sam?” His hands land on my shoulders. “Take a deep breath.”