Page 95 of The Thinnest Air

Two Days Ago

“Meredith.” He wakes me with a kiss, my name a whisper in this dark room. “I’m going to be gone for a couple of days.”

Ronan takes a seat beside me, dragging his hand over his face.

“Your sister,” he says, rolling his eyes, “has decided we should be looking for you in Vermont of all places. Don’t ask why. It’s a long story. I’m just going along with it because ... well, it’d look odd if I didn’t.”

He trails his fingertips down the inside of my arm, smiling.

“We’re so close,” he says. “So damn close.”

The hope that’s been burning inside me the last few days is nearly extinguished. I thought Harris would be here by now. I thought he’d find me. Every part of me believed I’d be a free woman, and yet here I am, still tied to this bed, smiling at everything Ronan says, professing my love for him, my excitement for a lifetime spent off the grid with him.

Ronan hasn’t drugged me the last couple of nights, and he hasn’t noticed the broken spindle on the headboard. Had he not locked the door from the outside, I might have been able to escape by now.

I managed to dig out the satellite phone last night after I was sure he’d left, and I tried to call Harris, only it went straight to voice mail.

Wherever he is, I just hope he’s okay.

“These are for you.” Ronan points to a nightstand covered in bottles of water, towels, and granola bars. Three buckets rest by his feet. “This should get you through the next couple of days. It’s not ideal, I know, but we have to make it work.”

Dragging his fingers through my snarled hair, he gathers it into his fist, tugging gently as his mouth lifts at the corners. He looks at me the way he did before, the same look that used to send a swarm of butterflies circling my middle.

He was so normal then.

Now I know it was all an act.

“I’m going to miss you, Meredith,” he says, bending forward to kiss my mouth. The familiar taste of his spearmint chewing gum lingers on my lips, and I want to be sick. “But I’ll be back for you soon.”

Ronan leaves, removing the knob from the inside and latching the door from the outside.

Two days.

Harris has two days to find me.

CHAPTER 46

GREER

Day Eleven

Exhaustion blankets my body, but adrenaline keeps me on edge. Footsteps shuffle outside the door, and after that a man’s whispered voice. My heart gallops, heat creeping up my neck as I straddle the line between two very different futures.

Ronan’s warning plays in my mind ... if I make a sound, my sister will die.

And I believe him.

I believe him because crazy and determined make for a desperate man.

The shuffle of feet grows louder, heavier. Whoever it is must be on the other side of the wall.

My voice rests at the bottom of my throat, words choking as I fight the urge to scream for help.

“Did you check in here?” a man’s voice asks.

A door opens.

It isn’t mine.