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ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO

“Why are you doing this, Nate?” Barbara asked.

He shot her a menacing look. “So you finally remembered who I am. Took you long enough.”

Barb’s chest ached with the effort to breathe. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Fear clawed at Barb but she clamped her mouth shut. He left the town and drove into farmland where the houses came fewer and farther in between.

Thirty minutes later, he turned onto a dirt road and followed it to a dilapidated house and group of chicken houses that looked as if they were rotting and deserted.

There was literally nothing out here. She had no phone or weapon. And even when someone realized she was missing they would have no idea where she was. Maybe she should have tried to send a message to the deputy.

The van chugged to a stop and he slid out of the vehicle, came around to her door and opened it. He waved a gun toward her.

Her breath stalled in her lungs.

“You have to tell me what’s going on now,” Barb demanded. “Why you’re hurting these children. Yon don’t even know them.”

He jerked her arm and shoved her forward. “I know they belong to you, but you threw them away just like you did me.”

“You don’t know anything about me. I didn’t throw them away,” she cried. “I love those girls and will do anything to protect them.”

“You didn’t keep them,” he said. “Just like you didn’t keep me.”

“Keep you?” Barb asked, confused. “When I knew you, you were only four years old and I was fifteen. I didn’t have a choice about what happened after our parents died.”

He yanked her hand in his, turned her palm over and drew a heart in the center. “Remember doing that,” he snarled. “You said we were family.”

The memory tugged at Barb. Her mother had drawn a heart in her palm and promised to love her forever. The day her mother married his father, they were at Emerald Falls, and she had held Nate’s hand and done the same. “I’m sorry. I was devastated and grieving and… the social worker told me you had family who wanted you. I even saw your uncle when he came for you. He seemed so nice.” She pounded her chest, emotions flooding her. “I had no one. I had to go live in a group home and believed you were safe and had a nice life with your uncle.”

“My uncle was a psychopath,” he said between clenched teeth. “He brought me here. He abused me, made me sleep in the chicken house, made me work the chickens instead of going to school.”

Barb’s head reeled. “What?” She shook her head. “Why didn’t the social worker help you?”

His brittle voice sent chills through her. “Do you have any idea how overworked those people are? Besides, my uncle had everyone wrapped around his finger. He built a bunch of nice houses that led to his own business. His damn name was even in the paper. No one suspected what a monster he was behind closed doors.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she said sincerely. Still his betrayal stung. “So you came to work at my school to spy on me?” He’d always worn headphones but what if he hadn’t been listening to music? What if he’d overheard her private conversation with her friends?

He’d drawn that red heart on her mirror and written the word LIAR inside. He’d been in her house, seen her pictures.

“You treated me like a nobody. Like I was invisible,” he growled. “Do you know how many times I dreamed you’d show up and save me from him?” His eyes turned crazed. “Every holiday I thought you’d try to find me and we’d be a family again. But you never did.”

Tears blurred Barb’s vision. “I’m sorry, Nate… I am. But I was a kid myself and traumatized from the accident.” She doubled over as the horrifying memory flashed back. The crunch of metal. The smoke. Her mother’s scream. Her legs pinned in the back. The rescue workers coming. The deafening noise of the jaws of life. Her mother’s still body and wide vacant eyes. The blood on her head… “I… was trapped in the car with them. And… I watched them die.” Tears choked her voice. “For a while I blocked out what happened. But… after a while the memories started to return… And I had to go into therapy.”

“You forgot me. When I grew up, I looked for you. It took forever to find you because you got married and changed your name. He paced, the gun in the air, his movements agitated. “Then one day I heard you talking to one of your friends about the babies you gave away. How much you loved them. How much it meant to you that you were there for the milestones in their lives.” His voice grew husky. “I broke into your house and saw all those pictures of birthdays and holidays with you and them. But no one was ever there for me. I didn’t have birthday parties or Christmas gifts. And I knew then…”

“That you had to punish me by killing them.”

Hope died in Barbara’s chest as he pressed the gun to her temple and shoved her toward the chicken house.