Page 67 of Dark Roads
Beth knew those eyes, but it couldn’t be. She stared back, took in every inch of the girl’s face. The arched eyebrows, proud chin, and flared nostrils. Copper-colored eyelashes. Her skin was dirty and tanned walnut-brown, but it didn’t hide her freckles. Hailey McBride.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 26
“You alone?” Hailey flicked her eyes to Beth, then around the forest, her finger still on the trigger. Another rifle was slung across her back, and a knife was in a sheath on her hip.
“Yes.” Had Hailey been living in the wild for ayear? It didn’t seem possible. She looked too healthy. Her faded shirt showed muscled arms, sinewy, and her legs were lean in her shorts.
“Give me your gun.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“The gun—or find your own way out of the pit.”
Beth thought it over, but she didn’t have much choice. She needed Hailey’s help. She’d have to hope that Hailey wasn’t a complete psycho. Beth made sure the safety was on and threw her gun up over the edge.
Hailey bent to retrieve it, then shoved it into the waistband of her jeans shorts. She stared down at Beth. “Hold on.” She turned and disappeared.
Beth heard the snapping of branches, a soft grunt, then the knobby end of a large log appeared over the edge of the pit. Beth ducked back as the log slid down and lodged itself vertically just a few feet from where Beth stood, pressed against the side of the pit. She climbed it like a ladder, bracing her feet on broken branches and gripping the rough bark that fell off in chunks. Hailey stood above, the rifle pointed at the ground. When Beth reached the top, she rolled onto her back, catching her breath. The dog nudged her neck with a damp snout.
“Hey, boy.” She reached up to pet him.
“Wolf, get back here.” Hailey whistled sharply and he came to her side.
So the sheepherding dog was called Wolf. Well, that made about as much sense as the rest of this situation. Beth moved into a sitting position, rubbed at her bruised shoulder.
“How did you find me?” Hailey demanded.
“I wasn’t looking for you. I had no idea you were even alive. I’m Beth—Amber was my sister.” Hailey didn’t seem surprised. In fact, her expression was blank. Beth thought about how she had felt followed in the woods before, how the dog had found her. The footsteps around her campsite.
“You’ve been watching me.” She must’ve gone through her car, her purse, read her ID.
Hailey’s silence was answer enough.
“Everyone’s been looking for you. Jonny thinks you’re dead!”
Hailey still didn’t answer, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes. Guilt? No, she was watching Beth like she was waiting for her to put the pieces together.
“Oh, my God. He knows you’re here.” His grief had seemedso real. More real than this moment, standing in the forest, looking at a girl who was supposed to be dead.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I was looking for the miner’s cabin. Jonny mentioned it once, and I saw the photo at the diner.” Beth looked at Wolf. “He said the dog was a stray. Guess that was a lie too.”
“Jonny’s been keeping you safe. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“Thentellme.”
Hailey lifted her chin, defiant. “Vaughn had pictures on his computer, other girls too. Amber. He has hidden cameras everywhere.”
Beth felt sick. She knew exactly what Hailey was gettingat—she could see the fear all over her face. She believed Vaughn was the killer. Could it be true? There was shame there too. That was why she ran away. She might have been abused. Amber had hinted at problems. Then another realization—Amber hadknownthat Hailey ran away. That was why she’d been so evasive.
“Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“I tried, but he threatened me. And there were no faces in the photos. I didn’t know Amber was one of the girls he photographed until I found her body…” Hailey stared at Beth’s wrist where her bracelet had slipped from under her sleeve. “Her bracelet was gone.”
Hailey had been the one to find Amber. Her face showed the horror of what she’d seen. Beth wanted to scream and rant and cry. Her trusting, sweet sister, who wanted to see the world, who was funny and charming. Who never wanted to hurt anyone.
