THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (17 page)
“I’m sorry.” Emily’s voice was a whimper. “Are you okay?”
Sarah wiggled her arms and legs. No broken bones. Tomorrow, there would be bruises. “I’m fine.”
Huddled together at the bottom of the slope, they listened to shooting and yelling and a car engine starting. Emily stared up the hill. Even in the moonless night, Sarah could see the whites of her eyes and her fear.
“What’s happening?” Emily whispered.
“It sounds like they’re fighting somebody else. Maybe somebody from the oil company?” Sarah glanced at her. “We should call the sheriff. Do you have your cell phone?”
“I dropped it in the clearing.”
“Follow me. Try not to make noise.”
Though Sarah wanted to believe they were invisible at the foot of the cliff, she knew better. Anyone who knew about tracking would see the disturbance at the edge where they’d gone over. They needed to put more distance between themselves and the men in ski masks...or the men from the oil company. One was as bad as the other.
She picked her way through the forest. There were no marked paths in this area, but the trees thinned as they got closer to the creek. She paused to listen. “I don’t hear shooting.”
“Is that good?”
Either they’d left or they were spreading out in the forest to search. “I don’t know.”
Crouched beside a boulder, she looked back toward the ledge. In daylight, she would have had a clear view. She saw the beam of a flashlight and pointed. “They’re coming.”
Emily ducked down beside her. “What now?”
“Stay quiet.”
The flashlight beam bobbled along the path. When he passed the boulder where they made their desperate slide, her tension lessened. Maybe he wouldn’t notice their escape route. Maybe they’d be safe.
The beam scanned the forest. Though she knew the light wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate this darkness, she crouched lower, wishing she could disappear.
The light came back toward the granite boulder.
“Emily?” a deep, male voice called out. “Emily, are you out here? It’s Blake.”
Blake—the hulking, angry ranger—had come to their rescue. Sarah was so relieved that she almost burst into the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
Copyright © 2014 by Kay Bergstrom
ISBN-13: 9781460327739
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
Copyright © 2014 by Cindy Roussos
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