There was an unintelligible shout, followed by words in a foreign language. Her heart was beating so rapidly, she found it hard to concentrate, hard to breathe. It was a moment before the sounds registered: two men, speaking Russian.

She probed backward with her foot, feeling logs to her side, but nothing behind her. She scooted deeper into her hiding place, but she bumped into a log and it shifted, making a slight noise. The log landed on her leg, balanced, but ready to topple. She couldn’t move without making another, even bigger sound.

One of the men said something sharply. She guessed he was near the kitchen table. Probably ten feet from the box.

The second man replied, and then the first spoke again, this time in heavily accented English, “Dear Xavier, if something happens to me, I want you to know…”

No! He was reading her letter. She’d forgotten it was on the table.

She would bang her head against the box wall if it wouldn’t make a sound that would get her killed. But maybe it didn’t matter. From the blankets strewn about and her damp clothes in the bedroom, they’d have figured out that she’d been there anyway.

While the men were distracted with the note, she reached back and silently shifted the log from her calf and set it in the space between her knees. She scooted farther back and discovered the exterior part of the box was empty, the wood having been piled at the front. She sat up in the larger area and probed the exterior lid, hoping, praying for an escape.

It lifted. Hope surged. Then the latch caught.

One centimeter. That was as wide as it would open. Just enough to slip a finger through the gap.

She was trapped.

Chapter Ten

Chris zoomed in the magnification on his NVGs. The tires on the SUV were flat, and those were definitely bullet holes piercing the gas tank. Rivera and Cohen had gone all out to make this exercise look and feel real. This didn’t look like a beater SUV given to the Navy to use as a prop. It looked like it was maybe two or three years old. No big dents indicating it had been in any sort of wreck.

Must be a lemon. Or seized by the feds. However it ended up here, it looked strangely authentic. Like this was some horror flick where a group of teens find themselves trapped in the woods with a chainsaw-wielding psychopath.

“You think Rivera planned this to be like one of those murder-mystery dinner-party things?” Jonas asked. “Like, we’re given clues and we have to solve some sort of puzzle?”