And she’d relaxed, even laughed a little at her paranoia. She didn’t own the park. It made sense someone else would be out walking. It was a perfect night for it, still just cool enough for a sweatshirt, despite the heat of the day. She’d pulled out her phone to call an Uber after all.

Then, out of nowhere, she felt a presence next to her. She turned…

And was slammed to the ground, the air knocked out of her. She tried to suck in oxygen, to scream, but her face was being ground into the dirt. She remembered something jabbing her in the neck, remembered struggling as she tried to lift her head, panicking when she realized she couldn’t because every part of her was paralyzed – her feet, her hands, everything. All she could feel was… heaviness.

Then came the whisper, ‘Nighty-night.’

I know that voice, she thought as the darkness closed in around her.

Sometime later she woke in an unfamiliar room, a seedy hotel by the look of it, but before she could think much about why she was there, she was out again, but not before that familiar voice penetrated through the fog as it told someone, ‘She’s here and ready for transport.’

Chapter Seven

Monday, May 20

After being inside the nice air-conditioned house of Mr. and Mrs. Otis, stepping outside into the heat and wind was almost like stepping into another country. People might call Chicago the Windy City, but Albuquerque could give it a strong run for its money – even if it was true that the ‘windy’ in Chicago’s nickname stemmed not from the cold breezes that came off Lake Michigan but from politicians who were full of hot air.

As soon as Alyssa and Cord were back in the car, buckled in with the air blasting, Cord said, ‘Angela Kazminski called that, didn’t she? Mrs. Otis is one cold individual.’

It was unlike her partner to make such comments, so Alyssa shot a quick peek at his profile where she could see there was something more on his mind than the nastiness of Rachel Otis’s mother. For a brief moment, she considered asking what it was, but knowing how much she hated being asked that question herself, she opted to let him tell her when he was ready. Instead, she agreed with him. ‘Took the words right out of my mouth.’

As she headed for the open wrought-iron gate, she spotted Nick in her rearview mirror, standing on the porch, hands pushed deep into his pockets, staring off into the trees beside the house. It seemed like he was the only one in his family concerned for his sister’s welfare, the only one who thought something was off, that Rachel’s disappearance could be a foreboding of danger. Alyssa usually had what her team liked to call a sixth sense about these things, but after visiting the Otises, she didn’t have a gut feeling that leaned strongly one way or the other. In Rachel’s shoes, she’d be tempted to run away, too.