Chapter 2 - THE RED NOTE UNDER THE FLOORBOARD
Ethan got the twins into the SUV before the engine reached the clearing.
He did not know who was coming.
He did not wait to find out.
Emma climbed into the back seat with Ella.
Ethan locked the doors.
The engine noise grew louder beyond the trees.
Not a car.
An ATV.
He pulled away from the cabin and drove downhill fast enough to spray gravel across the road.
Emma twisted around to look through the rear window.
“He saw us!”
“Who?”
She pressed both hands over her mouth.
Ella whispered:
“Mr. Wade.”
Ethan looked into the mirror.
“Who is Mr. Wade?”
Neither answered.
He drove until the cabin was six miles behind them.
Then he stopped beside a ranger station.
Empty.
Closed for renovation.
But exposed enough that no one could approach unseen.
Ethan turned toward the girls.
“Olivia was my wife.”
Emma’s eyes widened.
Ella stared at him.
“She said your name was Ethan.”
Every hair on his arms lifted.
“When did she tell you that?”
“Before.”
“Before what?”
Emma’s lower lip trembled.
“Before she disappeared.”
Ethan felt the words physically.
“Olivia died last year.”
The twins looked at each other.
Ella whispered:
“She said if she didn’t come back, we had to wait at the cabin.”
Ethan could barely process it.
“How long have you been there?”
“Three days.”
“Who brought you?”
“Mr. Wade.”
“Why?”
Emma started crying again.
“He said Olivia lied.”
Ethan called 911.
Then he called a friend in the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office named Aaron Bell.
He did not tell Aaron the whole story.
He did not know it yet.
When deputies arrived, the girls refused to separate from Ethan.
Social services came next.
That was when Emma finally remembered something.
“Olivia said the red note.”
Ethan crouched beside her.
“What red note?”
“In the cabin.”
“Where?”
Emma made a square with her hands.
“Under the floor where the stove used to be.”
Ethan knew the place.
Olivia had removed an old wood-burning stove two years earlier.
Underneath was a patched section of pine flooring.
He had never questioned it.
By sunset, deputies returned to the cabin.
They found a loose board.
Beneath it:
a red envelope.
May you like
On the front, in Olivia’s handwriting:
ETHAN—ONLY IF THE GIRLS COME BACK.
