“The police are on their way,” I updated Harmony. Praying, praying, praying for their quick arrival on the scene.

“I’m so—” Harmony’s words were cut off by a loud, shrill string of barks.

If Alan hadn’t already discovered her, then surely Muffin had just given away that poor girl’s location.

The line went dead.

Chapter 31

Harmony

Muffin slipped free of Harmony’s grip and began barking like a maniac. The door downstairs creaked open and, soon after, heavy footsteps hurried toward her room.

“Please, God. Please,” she prayed through the tears, unsure exactly what she was asking. Perhaps it was that Alan would change his mind, give up, move on—then no one would have to get hurt in this.

Her Chihuahua companion whined and scratched frantically at the door, leading the intruder right to her.

She felt too terrified to call out to him, to look for a weapon with which she could defend herself, to do anything other than cry.

The doorknob rattled but didn’t open.

A knock on the door came next.

Harmony covered her mouth with both hands to silence her sobs. If she could just stay hidden for a few more minutes, the police would come to save her.

Her phone buzzed beside her with an incoming call, and the buzzing against the carpet seemed to ring out like thunder.

She hadn’t even realized she’d dropped the call with Pastor Adam, but now Nolan was calling her back and possibly sealing her fate.

Oh, God, save me.

“Harmony?” Nolan’s voice was among the last she expected to hear on the other side of that door. Could it really be him? Where was Alan? She’d seen him with her own eyes right through the living room window before she’d run to hide in her locked room. Had he really gone?

“Nolan?” she chanced, her voice a nasal moan like as if she were trying to hold back a sneeze.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he responded with another useless turn of the doorknob. She’d never heard a sweeter sound. Nolan’s voice meant she was safe, just as he’d promised. “Are you okay?” he asked with another rap on the door.

Harmony freed herself from under the bed almost as quickly as she’d initially dived beneath it. Stumbling to the door as quick as her shaking legs would take her, she sobbed freely. And then, a moment later, they were together at the threshold to her room.

Muffin let out a deep, throaty bark, and it almost sounded like he was reprimanding Nolan for not making it there fast enough.

Harmony laughed through the tears and pushed her face into Nolan’s strong chest. “Pastor Adam said he couldn’t reach you. How did you get inside? How did you know to come?” she mumbled into his shirt.

Nolan swayed gently with her and stroked her hair just as he had done upon learning she’d never eaten s’mores. Oh, how that memory now seemed a million miles away. “Mrs. Clementine once showed me where she keeps the spare key in that stone garden frog. I had to get to you, and you weren’t answering the door.”