4

      The house was quiet. But the lights in the kitchen and living room would’ve told anyone who really knew Milly that all was not as it should be. She never stayed up past ten o’clock and, other than on the porch, she never left a light burning when she went to bed.

      Adelaide had hoped to slip into her room and put on some clothes before she disturbed Gran. She didn’t want Milly to see her looking so battered. But she heard her grandmother call out the second she returned the hide-a-key container to its place under the porch. Gran had probably been lying in bed with her hearing aids in and turned up high, praying for her safe return and listening for the door.

      “Addy? That you?”

      The worry in her voice upset Adelaide, made her even angrier with the man who’d thrown her down the mine shaft. She’d always live in the shadow of the past, but Gran had nothing to do with graduation night fifteen years ago. Stephen, Derek, Tom or Kevin—whichever one of them had abducted her—had no right to put Milly through the panic of finding her missing.

      “Yeah, Gran, it’s me. Sorry to wake you.” Intent on getting into a pair of sweatpants, she started toward her bedroom, but her grandmother wasn’t in bed. Gran intercepted her at the hallway entrance, fully clothed, walker and all.

      “Wake me?” She definitely had her hearing aids in. Addy could tell without having to look because Milly was speaking at a normal volume. “I’ve been absolutely frantic. Where’ve you been?”

      She was carrying her eyeglasses, hadn’t put them on yet. Adelaide was grateful for that small reprieve, even though she knew it wouldn’t last long.

      “I didn’t mean to give you a scare. I had a little...” God, Noah was right. No way could she keep this quiet. Not in Whiskey Creek. Her injuries, not to mention the timeline, refuted every excuse she could devise. “Mishap,” she finished weakly.

      “What kind of mishap? What happened?” Her grandmother’s hands shook worse than Adelaide had ever noticed but, steadying herself with the walker, she managed to slip her glasses on her nose. Then she covered her mouth. “Good Lord!” she breathed through her fingers. “Who did this to you?”

      Thanks to shock and righteous anger, Gran’s voice rang truer and stronger than it had in months. For a moment, Adelaide felt like the little girl who’d been so well cared for by this woman. Part of her wished she was still young enough to crawl into Gran’s lap for the love and solace she used to find there.

      But Gran was almost eighty. It was Adelaide’s turn to take care of her. And she wanted to do that. Her mother certainly never would help out. She always had an excuse to be off doing whatever she pleased. “I don’t know,” she said. “Someone cut the screen on the outside door to my room and dragged me from my bed.”

      Gran’s fingers, gnarled with arthritis, gripped Adelaide’s arm. “I saw that. Scared me so much I called Chief Stacy right away.”

      There went Adelaide’s hopes for not involving the authorities. But, deep down, she’d known she wouldn’t be able to avoid it. “You’ve called the police?”

      “Of course! Chief Stacy’s been as worried about you as I have. He started searching the minute he left here, him and the other officers.”

      “All three of them?” It wasn’t a large force; it never had been.

      “All three of them,” she confirmed, oblivious to Adelaide’s sarcasm. “But...how’d someone get past the door? Wasn’t it locked?”

      Adelaide was embarrassed to admit she’d not only unlocked it, she’d left it open. Gran kept the house so hot she couldn’t sleep. “I needed some air,” she explained.

      The skin below Gran’s throat wagged as she shook her head. “In this day and age, you can’t go to bed with your doors unlocked. Even in Whiskey Creek. I haven’t done it in twenty-three years, ever since your Grandpa passed.”

      The house had no air-conditioning. During the summer, they had to open their windows—essentially the same thing, but Adelaide didn’t argue.

      Gran’s gaze lowered to Adelaide’s bare legs. “The man who took you...he didn’t—”

      “No.” She understood where her grandmother’s thoughts were going. Noah’s had just traveled down the same path. Anyone would think of sexual assault, especially since she wasn’t fully clothed.

      “Then why’d he do it?” Gran persisted.

      She needed to downplay what had occurred. Tell only as much as she had to so it would go away as soon as possible. And whatever she said had to be believable, first and foremost. “I think he intended to rape me but...I fought him off.”

      “What took you so long to get home? You haven’t been with him this whole time, have you?”

      Adelaide wished she didn’t have to mention the mine. She didn’t want it connected to her, didn’t want anyone to be reminded of Cody and his graduation party. But even if she lied about that part, Noah would give away the truth when he said where he’d found her. She hadn’t been able to offer him a single compelling reason not to share that information. She couldn’t, not without raising his suspicion as to why she wanted it kept quiet. And, other than Chief Stacy and maybe his father, he was the last person whose curiosity she wanted to arouse.

      Left with no choice, she told Gran what’d happened, and who’d saved her.

      “Noah’s such a nice boy,” she said.

      Not if he was anything like his brother. Adelaide owed him for what he’d done tonight, but she didn’t have a positive impression of him from high school. He’d been one of those senior “gods” she’d worshipped, one who’d acted as if he owned the school. Never had she known him to be aware of the plight of those around them or to care. She told herself it was a miracle he’d bothered to come to her rescue.

      “Thank goodness he was in the right place at the right time,” Gran was saying. “That’s one of the Lord’s tender mercies. But why didn’t he take you to the hospital?”