“Let’s go!” Leah commanded, grabbing Kim’s arm and pulling her toward the brightly lit house.
They ran across the yard to crouch by a window. Inside everything looked perfectly normal, with no one to be seen. “Where’s the room with the hidden closet?” Leah whispered.
Kim, obviously too frightened to speak, managed to point to a far window.
Leah, holding Kim’s hand, made her way down the side of the house, crouching all the while to keep her head below the windows. Cautiously she raised herself up to peer inside the house. What she saw made her gasp. On the floor, lying in a pool of blood, lay Justin, dead still.
Leah slid back to the ground. “Justin,” she managed to whisper.
Immediately Kim stood up to look, and just as quickly she bent down again. “I think John may have seen me,” she said.
“We have to hide,” Leah said, looking about the unfamiliar farm. “Where?”
“Follow me,” Kim said, standing and raising her skirts, running with extraordinary speed toward the forest.
Leah followed her friend, running until her heart was pounding hard.
Once inside the forest Kim kept going, jumping over fallen trees, pushing aside briars and brambles with ease.
“Wait, Kim,” Leah urged. “Stop for a minute.”
Reluctantly, wild-eyed, Kim obeyed.
“Where are we going?” Leah asked.
“Into the forest,” Kim answered.
“Yes, but where? Surely you have a destination in mind.”
“The forest,” Kim repeated, puzzled, frowning as she panted from her run.
“But—,” Leah began, but she didn’t finish because a shot rang out and landed in a tree behind her, missing Kim’s head by inches.
No one had to tell either woman to start running again, and Leah didn’t care where they were headed.
They ran until their legs and lungs ached, and Leah caught Kim’s arm. “We have to stop and rest. We have to figure out where we are and head back toward Sweetbriar.”
“I don’t know where anything is,” Kim said. “Do you?”
“Not until the sun rises and I can find a direction. Kim!” Leah cried. “See that black space up there? Is that a cave?”
“I don’t like caves,” Kim said, her jaw tight.
&nbs
p; “But maybe we could hide in it, get some sleep, and in the morning we can make our way back to Sweetbriar.”
“Couldn’t we stay here and not hide in that place?”
“John’ll see us with our light-colored dresses. We have to hide somewhere. Come on, let’s start climbing.”
The climb up the side of the cliff wasn’t easy, but they made it in record time and when they slipped inside the little limestone cave, Leah leaned back in relief. She hadn’t told Kim that her biggest fear had been a bear in the cave, but now she could see it was empty. The cave was about ten feet deep, fifteen feet wide, and eight feet tall.
With a smile she turned to Kim. “We made it.”
But her smile was soon wiped off her face, as from outside came John Hammond’s voice.
“So my stupid little wife and her stupid friend have trapped themselves,” he said with amusement in his voice, his words echoing so they couldn’t tell whether he was close or far away. “I gave you a chance, Kimberly, to join me. In fact, I chose you because you seemed to have no useless morals against trying to kill somebody who was in your way.”