“We were talking outside, in this little graveyard, and the next thing I know, she’s walking toward this building. I go to grab her and it’s like grabbing air, and all of a sudden she’s ten feet ahead of me, and when I get in here, she’s gone completely. I know something like that happened with you, so I went back out and waited, figuring I hadn’t really seen her leave. When she didn’t reappear, I came in. Only I can’t find her, and it’s been two damned hours. I’ve scoured every inch of this place.”

Gabriel nodded. “We’ll do it again. Systematically, room by room.”

“That’s what I did.” That flash of annoyance Gabriel knew well. Ricky’s don’t-treat-me-like-a-child look. Which was never what Gabriel intended—he simply didn’t trust anyone else’s intelligence, which was perhaps equally insulting. Ricky’s intelligence, like his maturity, was just fine. Unfortunately.

“Never mind,” Ricky said. “You’re right. We’ll do it again. Reverse order this time. Starting up here. You search rooms while I stand in the hall. That way there’s no chance she’ll get past us accidentally.”

While there was a niggle in Gabriel’s gut that wanted to amend the plan, simply for the sake of amending it, he did as Ricky suggested, searching room by room, checking behind every item that could hide Olivia, unconscious. He didn’t hear so much as a rat scuttling until he reached the belfry. That’s when he caught a moan, half stifled, as if it had escaped unbidden, Olivia injured and gritting her teeth, trying not to cry out. Which is exactly what he’d expect of her, so much so that he didn’t pause. He loped straight for the ladder and climbed up, ignoring Ricky’s “Hey!” below.

Ricky’s boots pounded as he ran into the room below the belfry. Gabriel was already at the top. The room was bigger than he’d expected, perhaps eight feet square. And empty. Completely empty.

He heard the moan again. Coming through a hole in the opposite wall. He started toward it.

“Whoa!” Ricky said. “Stop!”

Gabriel rocked there, shooting a look back at Ricky.

“Hey, don’t glower at me, big guy. I’m not trying to stop you from finding her. I’m saving your ass again. Look down.”

Gabriel did. Like the stairs, the floor was rotted, boards missing or half broken.

“I heard—” Gabriel began.

“Yeah, so did I. But you’re a good thirty pounds heavier than me. Which means I’ll be the one crossing the rotting floor and hoping I don’t plummet to my doom.”

He wants to rescue her. He wants to be the first face she sees.