With her heart beginning to beat unnervingly fast, Amy tried phoning a bunch of her contacts at random, including her best friend, but nothing was getting through. Text messages weren’t sending either. Contact with the outside world had seemingly been cut off. Ordinarily she would have assumed it was some fault in the network, but there was too much weird stuff going on for this to be a coincidence. She was so disturbed by it all that she considered calling the police, even pulled up the keypad and entered 911, but before she had a chance to hit dial, the cab came to a stop.

“We’re here,” the driver said.

Amy had been so lost in her head that she hadn’t realized they had already made it back to Seabrook. She glanced out her window, her eyes widening at the sight of the hotel’s brightly lit lobby. She unclicked her seat belt and tried to exit the cab, but the driver hit a button and locked the doors. She met his eyes in the mirror and furiously shook the handle, pleading with him to let her out.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he said, rubbing his fingers together, signaling that he’d yet to be paid.

“Right, sorry.” Amy pulled out her wallet and asked how much she owed.

“Well, like I was sayin’, miss, you ran her up pretty high.” He grumbled as he tapped the meter with his finger. “Three hundred and twenty-two dollars.”

“What?” Amy slid to the middle seat and lunged forward to inspect the meter herself. “Are you kidding me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t have that much.”

“That’s the fare.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s what happens when you hire a cab for half the day.”

“But you disappeared on me!”

The cabbie shook his head. “I went nowhere, miss.”

Amy glared at him. “Is this some kind of joke? Three hundred dollars? How am I even supposed to pay that?”

“Not my concern—you just better come up with something.”

“Then let me out so that I can go up to my room. I’ll try to find a credit card or something.”

“Don’t you think I haven’t seen that one before? As soon as I do that, you’ll make a run for it. You asked me to wait for you, and I did, so you’ll pay up or else I’ll have to put in a call to the sheriff.”

“Look for yourself!” Amy shouted impatiently. “I have nothing. I have twenty dollars. Call the sheriff. Call him if you want. Please do, actually, because I’d like to talk to him myself.” She slumped back into her seat and folded her arms.

“As you wish.” But just as the driver was fiddling with an old flip phone, a figure appeared outside the driver’s side window. There was a tap on the glass. Amy leaned forward to see who it was.