M.I.A.

Chapter 39

Chapter Thirty-Nine:

Sydney

I'm taking a step forward when suddenly something shatters behind me, startling me into losing my balance. I throw out my hands and catch myself just as my foot realizes that it's so black down that stairwell because there is no stairwell. Panting, I pull myself back into the room. The dog down below is barking again, his feet clicking in a tight circle directly under me.

Okay, maybe not the basement.

Then where?

I examine the kitchen. The coffee mug has fallen off the table, shattering and exploding its contents on the floor.

"Corey?" I whimper.

The coffee on the floor begins to streamer out from the main puddle in long lines. B-A-R-N.

"Oh," I breathe, stunned by my own stupidity to realize that sooner.

In a flash, I'm slamming my hands against the screen door and running across the yard in a blinding haze of sunlight. It takes a couple of attempts to kick and push and pull the sliding barn door open enough to slip through and even more precious minutes of standing in brilliant white spots to get my eyes to readjust to the dark.

Inside the barn, the light streams through the slats, illuminating dust motes. The dirt aisle is wide with stalls and closed-in little rooms on either side and a yawning loft above. Hanging on the beams are dozens of odd tools and pieces of equipment that look more like they belong at a slaughter house.

Shuddering, I creep out from under them. In front of me, there's a white van that just screams 'child molester' and I get the feeling that's exactly what it is. I give it a wide berth, checking in stalls as I go. Stacks of old blankets, bales of moldy hay, rat-chewed sacks of sawdust and feed, dried-out pieces of tack.

In one of the stalls, I find what I'm looking for. Two giant tool boxes, a work bench, and more handheld tools than I can identify. It makes Nick's dad's little collection in their garage look pitiful.

I rummage in a couple of drawers until I find what I hope are bolt cutters. Hefting the bolt cutters, I trot back toward the house...and stop dead in my tracks.

On the other side of the yard, a man that might as well be goliath is getting out of a beat up old Chevy pick-up. I shrink back into the darkness of the barn, breathing hard.

"Shit," I whisper. I thought Cutter was supposed to be gone? Well, apparently not.

I peek around the corner, watching him as he walks up the path, whistling, and gets to the door. He immediately notices something is wrong. He opens the screen door, examines the broken frame with his fingers, then pulling his cap down low over his hidden features, he sets his bulging shoulders and slips into the house.

Oh no...John!

Heart hammering and mouth dry as the dust in the yard, I slide out of the barn and scamper to the edge of the house. I peek around the corner and through the screen door. Cutter is standing in the kitchen, surveying the mess. The spilled coffee, the wide open basement door. He glances down at the barking dog and his displeased expression alone elicits a yelp and obedient silence from the beast below.

Footsteps above draw his glance and for the first time I see Cutter's face. He's not an attractive person, by any measure, but he's certainly not in possession of any of the kind of monstrous traits you assume murderers have. He just looks like an average Joe.

But of course, he's not. I tighten my grasp on the bolt cutters. Not by far. He's the monster who kidnapped my sister, kept her prisoner, tortured her, and did I-don't-even-want-to-know what else to her.

Hate seethes through me and an overwhelming urge to bash his brains in overpowers me, making me leap out and expose myself in the frame of the screen door. But Cutter has already turned away and is heading toward the stairs. Toward John. And Mia.

No. We've come too close to fail now.

And in that moment, I know I will incapacitate Cutter, or die trying. Because I can't let him keep Mia. I can't let him do to John and me what he did to Mia.

Taking a slow breath, I put my hand on the screen door handle and let myself in as silently as the squeaky hinges will allow and tiptoe after Cutter.