Page 88 of Hart of Hope
I grabbed hold of the bars, squeezing as though I had the superpower to disintegrate them. If Brian saw his daughter now, he would go on a murderous spree. Then again, if I got out of this cage, I would too.
“You’re our only hope,” Fran said in a small voice.
She had too much faith in me.
Girls around us whispered the same message.
You’ve always wanted to save victims in situations like this. Now is your chance.
A strangled laugh broke out in my head. As much as I would like to be their savior, I had no way out.
But you do. Find out where you are. What’s around you? Who’s behind this? What do they look like? Is there a guard, or several of them, outside? Are there cameras in the barn?
I knew Josh was Zane. I knew he had kidnapped Fran as part of his revenge on me.
I didn’t see any cameras. This place wasn’t state-of-the-art. Zane’s father hadn’t liked cameras. He didn’t want evidence to come back and haunt him.
Still, I threw out the question. “Does anyone see cameras in the barn?”
“There aren’t any,” the redhead piped up in the cage next to me.
“Tell her everything you know, Eve,” Grace urged.
Eve’s piercing blue eyes focused on me as she hugged her bare waist. “I’ve been here for a month. It seems the buyers pass me up each time. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But I somehow have become Harris’s sex toy, and since I’m tainted, according to him, no one will buy me. So after my initial shock wore off, I tried to learn as much as I could when Harris brought me to his room. The layout of the house. The people in it. Listening to conversations. Anything I could to hopefully find a way out.”
“Harris? Not Josh?” Maybe Josh Kinley had a third alias.
Eve looked at Fran. “She knows both of them.”
She knew Josh, but who was Harris?
“Harris is Sabine’s son,” Fran explained, chewing on her bottom lip. “Sabine is my dad’s former waitress.”
Another puzzle piece fell into place. Brian had wracked his brain trying to figure out why Sabine stole his folder, which was still a mystery. Nevertheless, I knew of the woman, at least.
“I thought she was a sweet woman,” Fran said. “Whenever I spent time with my dad on breaks, I helped out at the restaurant. And Josh”—she trembled—“seemed so nice and caring as Ryan’s counselor. I guess that was a lie.”
“How does Sabine know Josh?” I couldn’t figure out the connection.
“Her son, Harris, sold drugs for Drew Lopez’s sister, Loretta,” Eve said.
I recalled Brian saying that Arturo had met with a Loretta Lopez in Nashville. More pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit.
“Sabine and Harris have been watching my dad and me for a long time.” Fran sniffled. “Why?”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that she was in a cage because of me.
I rose on shaky legs. “Listen up. We will get out of here. How? I don’t know yet. I need each of you to be strong. Dig deep for that fight in you.”
The rustling sound of girls standing up echoed through the high-ceilinged barn.
“Does anyone know where we are?” I asked. “Are there guards outside the door? Are we still in the state of Massachusetts? What day is it?”
After John had purchased me, he’d kept me drugged until I woke up in the backcountry of Missouri.
“Freetown, Massachusetts,” one girl said.
“The Freetown Forest, to be exact,” Eve added.
