“What did you hear?”
“Dad was on his cell phone. I heard him say, ‘Owen has her somewhere. If the police see this house before we clean it up, we’re done. We need to find them right now.’ Then Kelly—my own mother—said she was calling every hotel and motel in a fifty-mile radius, claiming to be you calling about a medication you forgot.”
My chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. “They’re hunting us. Like we’re animals.”
“Dad said something else,” Owen said, looking at me with eyes that had seen too much. “I heard him clearly. He said, ‘We’re too far into this now. There’s no going back. We have to finish what we started.’”
The phone on the nightstand rang, shrill and startling.
We both froze. It was the hotel’s landline, a number we’d never given to anyone.
It rang four times, each ring like a nail being driven into a coffin. Then it stopped.
Thirty seconds of terrible silence. Then my cell phone began ringing. The screen displayed: Jessica.
“They found us,” Owen whispered, his face going white. “Kelly must have used her real name when she called around pretending to be you. She found out which hotel has a Claire Bennett registered.”
He ran to the window and carefully peeked through the tiny gap in the curtains. His whole body went rigid.
“Dad’s car is in the parking lot,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Silver Lexus, three rows back. And Aunt Jessica’s black SUV is near the entrance.”
“Oh God,” I whimpered, fear flooding through me. “Owen, what do we do?”
Owen pulled out his phone with shaking hands and dialed 911.
“My name is Owen Bennett,” he said clearly into the phone, forcing his voice to stay steady. “I’m at the Sleep Inn on Route 42, room 214. My father Steven Bennett and my aunt Jessica Morrison are here right now. They’re trying to hurt my grandmother, Claire Bennett. We have photographic evidence of attempted murder. Please send police immediately. This is an emergency.”
He left the line open and shoved the phone in his jacket pocket so the 911 operator could hear everything that happened.
A knock at the door. Gentle. Almost friendly.
“Mom?” It was Steven’s voice, calm and reasonable. “Mom, I know you’re in there. Please open the door. We just want to talk to you. Owen has confused you. We need to clear this up.”
Owen grabbed my arm and pulled me quickly toward the bathroom. “The maintenance exit,” he whispered urgently. “Through the back hallway. It’s our only chance.”
We moved as quietly as we could through the connecting door that maintenance staff used, entering a concrete hallway that smelled of chlorine and industrial cleaner.
“Mom!” Steven’s voice turned sharp, angry, the mask slipping. “Open this door right now! This is ridiculous!” A heavy thud shook the wall. He was kicking the door, trying to break it down.
We ran. Down the concrete emergency stairs, our footsteps echoing, bursting out through the back exit into the alley behind the hotel. The cold morning air hit my face like a slap.
We sprinted—or rather, Owen sprinted while pulling me along—toward where his truck was parked at the far end of the lot.
“Going somewhere?”
We skidded to a halt, our momentum almost sending us sprawling. Jessica stood at the end of the alley, blocking our path to the truck. She looked exhausted, her carefully styled hair messy, her expensive coat wrinkled, but her eyes were cold and calculating.
