Page 94 of The Thinnest Air

“Don’t worry about it. Stay safe. Do what he tells you to do. I’ll find you, I promise.”

I don’t want to end the call. I want to bask in his voice, the promise of freedom.

“Get some rest, Mer,” he says. “I’ll see you soon.”

Harris ends the call before I get a chance to respond, and I delete the call log from the phone before returning it to the bottom drawer, beneath the stack of papers. Moving the bed back, I flick off the lamp, crawl beneath the covers, and slide the cuff of my free hand back over the spindle.

I’m exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep if I tried.

I’m getting out of here.

CHAPTER 44

GREER

Day Eleven

I’ve never seen a gun up close, and I never imagined the first time would involve the cold metal of the barrel pointed between my eyes.

I brace for the inevitable, imagining the boom in my ears, the smoky stench of gunpowder, the bright flash, and the subsequent darkness that follows—not that I would likely be conscious for any of that.

Only Ronan lowers his piece, his ear pricked toward the door.

Then I hear it, too.

Someone’s knocking at the front door—stiff, attention-demanding strikes.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

“Don’t say a fucking word,” he says, his voice low and controlled. “You make one sound, and I promise your sister will die cold, alone, and hungry.”

I nod, heart leaping in my throat. Whoever this is, he wasn’t expecting them.

Tucking his gun behind his back, he exits the room in silence, pulling the door closed. A minute later, the click and unlatching of the front door is followed by voices. A man, maybe two?

Silence comes next.

Then gunshots.

The house rattles—the walls, the windows, the doors on their hinges.

I count six, maybe seven altogether. But all it takes is one to kill a man.

Someone’s dead. I know it.

I envision a local or a park ranger who happened upon a truck at an abandoned property and maybe wanted to check on it, only to be met by a psychopath wielding a semiautomatic weapon.

I also imagine a scenario in which the police somehow tracked him down, pinned Meredith’s disappearance on him, and were quick on the draw the second they saw his weapon.

Only there’s one problem with both of those scenarios. If Ronan lives? I die.

If Ronan dies? No one knew I was with him. I hadn’t told a soul. No one would know to look for me here, behind a door hidden by a tapestry.

Looks as though I’m going to die either way.

CHAPTER 45

MEREDITH