Chapter 4 - The Cabin in the Pines
The next 12 hours were a blur. Jake wired me with a tiny microphone and a GPS tracker hidden in my necklace. We stuffed a doll of Lily’s into a car seat in my Civic, covering it with a blanket to make it look like she was sleeping. Lila was a wreck, but she trusted Jake—he’d found her sister’s kid when he’d been taken by her ex-husband five years ago.
At 11:45, I pulled into the old lumber yard, the gravel crunching under my tires. The place was abandoned, piles of rotting wood stacked against rusted warehouses, the moon barely peeking through the clouds. I got out of the car, my hands shaking, and yelled into the dark: “I’m here! Where’s Mia?”
Derek stepped out from behind a stack of plywood, Mia in front of him, a knife pressed to her throat. “Alone, just like I said,” he purred. “Good girl. Where’s Lily?”
“In the car,” I said, nodding toward the Civic. “Let Mia go first.”
He laughed, a harsh, barking sound. “You think I’m stupid? Bring her to me. Then the brat goes free.”
I heard a soft thwip from the warehouse above us. Derek’s head snapped up, and in that split second, Mia bit his hand as hard as she could. He yelled, letting go of her, and she ran straight for me. I caught her, turning to run, when I heard Jake yell: “NOW!”
SWAT officers poured out of the warehouses, guns raised. Derek reached for his belt, pulling out a gun, but an officer tackled him before he could fire. They cuffed him, face down in the gravel, and I sank to my knees, holding Mia tight as Lila ran out of the dark, sobbing, grabbing her daughter.
Jake knelt next to me, holding up a crumpled piece of paper he’d pulled from Derek’s pocket. It was a hand-drawn map, X marking a spot deep in the woods. “The cabin,” he said, his face tight. “Lily was right. There’s a bunker under it. Let’s move—now.”
We drove 45 minutes down a rutted logging road, Jake leading the way in his truck, SWAT behind us. When we reached the cabin, it was just like Lily’s drawing: small, weathered, with a porch swing hanging crookedly from the eaves. The front door was locked, but an officer kicked it in, and we flooded inside.
The main room was filthy—empty beer cans, rotting food on the table, a mattress on the floor covered in stained blankets. But there were no girls.
“Bunker entrance,” Jake said, pointing to a rug in the corner. We pulled it back, revealing a metal trapdoor with a rusted padlock. An officer shot the lock off, and we climbed down a narrow set of wooden stairs, the air thick with mold and fear.
The bunker was a single room, lit by a single bare bulb. And there, huddled in the corner, were two little girls.
One had red hair, her clothes too small for her, her face gaunt. The other had braids, her hair matted, her eyes wide with terror. They couldn’t have been older than 8.
The red-haired girl spoke first, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Is he gone?” she said. “Did the bad man leave?”
I knelt down, slow, so I wouldn’t scare them. “He’s gone, baby,” I said. “You’re safe now. We’re gonna take you home.”
Jake was already on the phone, running their names through the missing persons database. He hung up a minute later, his face white. “The redhead is Chloe Bennett. She went missing from Conway five years ago. She was 6 then. The other one is Zoe Carter—no relation. She was taken from North Myrtle Beach three years ago, also 6.”
My throat tightened. Derek had been taking girls for years, one every two years, all 6 years old—exactly Lily’s age. And my parents had known. They’d let him.
The SWAT officers carried the girls out, wrapping them in blankets, and I followed them up the stairs, stepping out into the cool night air. I was just reaching for my phone to call Lila and tell her Mia was safe, when Lily’s voice echoed in my head: Grandma gave him my favorite stuffed bear so I’d go with him easy.
I turned to Jake. “My mom knew about this cabin,” I said. “She helped him. She gave Lily to him. And Megan—she was there. Lily said she watched.”
Jake nodded. “We’ll find them. But first, let’s get these girls to the hospital. Then we go after the whole damn family.”
We were just loading the girls into the ambulance when one of the SWAT officers yelled, pointing down the road.
May you like
A car was speeding toward us, headlights blazing. It was my parents’ SUV.
And my mom was leaning out the window, a rifle in her hands.
