She scanned the barn once more and could see a sliver of sunlight seeping through a crack in the barn door. It was slightly open, and she knew if she could only get her body free, she could easily make a run for it. And so she tried with all she had to wrestle her legs out of the rope, but it was too tight and too well tied and all it did was chafe her ankles. She then tried her wrists, but they too were tied too tight.

Can I make it? she thought to herself. If she could only get outside, find a rock, she might be able to cut through it. The door wasn’t far, so she threw her body onto the floor as quietly as possible and then shimmied herself toward it. At each thrust of movement, she could feel the pull of her wound and it racked her body with pain, but she needed to keep moving for her sister, and for herself.

And so she focused on the door, on the light shining through it, as she continued to lie on her side, bringing her knees up to her chest and then pushing them back out in one fluid movement. Over and over again she would do this, like an inchworm frantically fleeing a predator. Each time she gained length, she pushed even harder as hope dripped through her veins. And just when close enough, she squeezed herself through the crack in the barn door as it gave way.

She was outside. The smell of fresh cut grass filled her nose but as she looked around, she had no clue where she was. She lay in a field of green grass next to a home she’d never seen before. There were no neighbors, no other houses—only the forest surrounding the property, and a long dirt driveway.

If I can just get down the driveway, she thought to herself. There must be a road. But first, she needed to free herself. Her eyes fell upon a nearby rock. She didn’t have time to think it through. She rammed her legs into it and then continued to pull them forward and backward, in an effort to saw through the rope. It was thick but she could see each fiber give way as it slowly cut through.

But then she heard something, someone running toward her.

“Stupid girl,” she heard.

But this time, it wasn’t a man’s voice. It was a woman’s. And before she could even turn around, she felt a hand clasp her hair, and then her body being dragged.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Tara sat at the small table in her hotel room, staring at the slice of pizza she had just bought for herself. Her eyes moved toward the compasses, in their evidence bags, sitting upon a desk across the room. Tara had yet to look at them. She had second-guessed herself numerous times already, and she couldn’t yet bring herself to push a little further. She was afraid to go too far, afraid of what Warren said to her, and she was afraid of being wrong.