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Clare would have given anything to speak with Beth, even for just a moment. She was more than a sister—she was the closest thing Clare had to a mother. Nearly a decade older than Clare, she’d taken on her care after their parents passed away. Bethany worried endlessly, but any time Clare was faced with a bad situation or an impossible choice, Beth was always the voice of reason that guided her to the right solution.

She itched for her phone—or any phone. The stranger, Dorran, had said his didn’t work.

Can I trust him?

The closed door separating her from the strange man felt too flimsy. If he wanted to keep her isolated or trapped, cutting off her contact with the outside world would be the first step. Clare tried to imagine where her phone might be. If the stranger had taken it, she would probably never see it again.

She fought to retrieve her last memory. She’d been driving as she talked to Beth. The phone had been in the cup holder. That was where she always put it.

If she had crashed, the impact probably would have jarred it free. Maybe Dorran really hadn’t found it. Maybe it was in the back of the car or hidden under the seat.

She chewed on the corner of her thumb. Dorran said she had been in the room for two days. The phone’s battery would be almost certainly dead, and she didn’t have any cables in the car to recharge it.

But there might be another alternative. The phone wasn’t the only item hidden in her car. She still had the little black box in her trunk. He couldn’t have found that, surely.

She ran her hands over the bandages on her stomach. She was weak, but the forest had been visible through the snow, which meant it wasn’t too far away. I can make it. As long as I can get outside, I can make it.

Clare’s eyes drifted to the bathroom’s second door.

Chapter Four

Clare moved quickly. She turned on the sink’s tap. It gurgled and choked, then finally, a splatter of freezing water fell into the basin. Clare crossed the bathroom and opened the second door. Like she’d thought, it revealed another bedroom. Hers had been decorated with grey-and-blue wallpaper. The new room was painted all in red.

The running tap would buy her a few minutes, but if she was silent for too long, Dorran would check on her. She couldn’t afford to waste time.

Her feet were bare, though. She could deal with the cold for a few minutes, even cope with being underdressed, but she didn’t think she could wade across a field of snow then walk through the forest without shoes… at least not without slicing up her feet.

The new bedroom was almost a mirror of hers. A coat hanging on the back of the main door told her it was probably in use. The lights were off, and she didn’t want to risk wasting time or drawing attention by hunting for the switch. The bathroom’s light was strong enough to work by. She wrenched open the wardrobe door. It was full of men’s clothes, and, like she’d hoped, several pairs of shoes were lined up on the floor.

She assumed they were Dorran’s. They would be miles too big for her, but she could deal with that.

She pulled out the thickest pair—boots that went up to her knees—and tied the laces as tightly as they would allow. Her mental clock was ticking down. She kept one eye on the bedroom door and the other on the bathroom door as she worked.

Her dressing gown was thick enough to keep her warm indoors, but it would be useless outside. She grabbed one of the jackets from the closet and pulled it on over the top. Then, trying not to let the new boots make too much noise, she moved to the main door and cracked it open.

Outside was quiet. Clare listened for a moment, waiting for any sign of movement, and when it remained still, she pushed the door fully open.

The hallway was just as opulent as the bedroom had been, with plush carpet, decorated walls, and light fixtures every few feet. None of the lights were on, though. The bathroom’s bulb didn’t reach far. She could see a glow coming from under a door a little farther down the hall—her own bedroom, most likely. She pulled the jacket tighter, rolled her feet to keep the boots from thudding too awkwardly, and set out into the shadows, guessing a direction.

As the gloom grew thicker and harder to parse, she became less and less oriented. Her legs were gradually remembering how to walk, but her energy was failing. She was breathless by the time she found the stairs at the end of the hall.

Clare looked over her shoulder a final time. No motion disturbed the gloom. She faced the stairs and tried to navigate them without breaking her neck.

She was almost blind except for a pale white glow spreading across the staircase’s bottom steps. She used it to guide her path. One hand ran along a bannister to hold her balance. The carpet was thick enough to muffle her steps, even when she increased her speed.

The ground floor was washed in light filtered through snow-crusted windows. It was simultaneously dim and harsh enough to hurt her eyes. Clare squinted as she examined the space.

Antique furniture, just as decadent and outdated as the set in her bedroom, filled the space. Doors led to different parts of the house. The tiled floor was polished into a shine.

There has to be a phone somewhere.

She hesitated a second, torn between hope and fear of what would happen if she wasted more time. But she was horribly tired. If there was a phone within reach, she couldn’t afford to ignore it.

She crossed the foyer, turning in a slow circle as she hunted through the furniture. Cabinets and bookcases were recessed into the walls. Side tables held items she couldn’t even name but were probably worth more than her car. Then a glimmer of bronze near the stairs caught her eye. Clare hurried to it. An old rotary phone sat on a small table, alongside a pen stand and stack of thick card paper.

She picked up the receiver and listened for a dial tone. There wasn’t one. She tried entering Beth’s number, dragging the dial around like she’d seen in movies, without any success. Then, acutely aware that her time was running out, she tried the emergency helpline. There was no ringing and no answer. Dorran might have been telling the truth… or he might have deliberately disconnected the phone. She had no choice except to brave the snow.

The house’s entrance stood at the opposite end of the foyer. Just like the one to her bedroom, the door was tall, dark, and seemed threatening. Clare had no time to waste on hesitation, though. She crossed the entryway in a dozen stumbling, unsteady steps, pulled the bolt free, and yanked on one of the oversized rings.

The door opened smoothly. Its hinges didn’t creak, but the door’s weight made it unwieldy. Almost as soon as its seal was broken, freezing air hit Clare. She sucked in a pained breath and squeezed her eyes closed.

It was horrendously, achingly cold, the kind of cold that slapped the breath out of her and made her double over. She didn’t know how low the temperatures had dropped, but it was significantly worse than it had been when she’d left her home.

But she couldn’t turn back. She stepped over the threshold and stumbled on a drift of snow. That side of the house faced away from the wind, and the snowbanks hadn’t built up too high against the door. Even so, there was more than a foot of snow outside.

Clare pulled on her strength reserves and leapt onto the pile of white. She staggered forwards, fighting against the chill spreading through her limbs. Walking was hard enough. Struggling through the snow was a thousand times worse.

Still, it was her best chance to reach safety. Hell, it was her only chance. She focussed on the dark line visible through the driving snow: the forest’s edge. She thought Dorran might have told the truth about that at least. She was looking at Banksy Forest, and it was no more than ten minutes away. She could make it that far then find the road and her car. Her nightmare would be over.