Her Mother’s Grave

Chapter Seventy-Six

Josie had no sense of how much time had passed, but suddenly a face floated above her. Not Lila. A boy. It took her panicked brain a moment to process what she was seeing. She tried to remember which boy was which. The shaggy-haired one was older. Was he Troy or Kyle?

“Kyle?” she croaked.

He nodded. In his hands, he held a long gun with the words Red Ryder emblazoned on the stock. A BB gun. His simultaneous innocence and bravery brought tears to her eyes. “Can you untie me?”

He nodded again. Carefully he placed the gun onto the bed next to her and helped her turn onto her stomach so he could work at her bindings. He struggled for several minutes, until Josie could feel hot drops of sweat falling from his face and landing on her arms. “Go get a knife,” she told him. “From the kitchen.”

Wordlessly, he left and came back, then started gently sawing away at the ropes. Both of them kept silent, listening for Lila to return. Her hands came free first, allowing her to flip onto her back and stretch her legs out in agony and ecstasy. Kyle handed her the knife, and she quickly sawed through the ropes binding her feet. “Thank you,” she told him.

He snatched the gun up from the mattress and motioned toward the door. Josie couldn’t help but smile. He wanted to go in front of her, to protect her. “I’ll go first,” she said. Then she stood up and fell right to the floor. She hadn’t been bound as long as Trinity, but her legs were numb and weak. Kyle helped her stand and tucked himself under her left arm. Together, they hobbled out to the living room of the trailer, where they found a kitchen table covered with fast food wrappers and prescription pill bottles. On the couch sat a laptop and two cell phones.

Outside it was dark, with only the golden glow of the exterior light over the Price trailer’s front door. The air was cool, and after several deep breaths, Josie’s head started to clear. Leaning on Kyle, she flexed and tested each leg until she could stand.

Kyle pointed to the dark wooded area across the street. “They went into the woods. Come on.”

He took a few steps toward the forest and stopped, turning back to her. “Aren’t you coming?”

Josie wanted to squeeze him, but instead she smiled again. “Kyle,” she said. “Thank you for saving me, but I can take it from here. I do need your help with one more thing though. I need you to go inside, wake up your mom, and have her call 911. Tell them that your neighbor was holding two kidnapped women next door—a reporter and the chief of police—and tell them she took us into the woods. Can you do that?”

He nodded solemnly.

Josie laid a hand on his shoulder. “And then I need you to stay here and wait for the police, okay? So you can point them in the right direction.”

“I can do it,” he assured her.

“Thank you,” Josie said. She waited until he was inside the trailer before she took off into the moonlit woods.