We were so close.

Just when she was on the verge of wiggling free, we heard the squeaking of poorly oiled door hinges. Greta pulled her legs the rest of the way free and turned around to stare at me through the hole with pure panic in her eyes.

“Carly!” she whispered.

I doubted I’d make it through the hole in time, and I was still unsteady enough that I’d never outrun him.

Grabbing her hand, I squeezed it hard. “Run for help. I’ll keep him busy.”

“How?” she asked in disbelief.

“I’ve got some weapons I can use,” I said. “He won’t be prepared for them. Now go!” I gave her hand a shove, and after giving me a look of hesitation and guilt, she ran soundlessly into the trees. Leaving clear tracks behind her. Hopefully he wouldn’t see them before he came into the shed.

I planned to buy her as much time as I could.

A man was whistling a happy tune, and the sound got louder as he came closer. I suspected he was taunting us, something he confirmed when he called out, “Carly, I’m comin’ to see you. We’re gonna have some fun.”

And I would be ready for him. If I’d had time, I could have refilled the bucket with screws and swung it at his head, but I really needed to use the element of surprise.

I grabbed a handful of the screws, pulling out the longer ones and placing them between the fingers of my right hand, the ends pointed outward, while I held the shovel in my left hand.

“Carly?” he called out again, sounding entirely too happy to suit me. “Are you awake yet?”

I remained silent, trying to formulate a quick plan. I’d never taken self-defense classes, but I knew one of the most sensitive areas for a man, so I crouched next to the door and waited.

“Hey, Greta,” he said next to the door. The padlock clunked against the wood. When she didn’t answer, he grew pissed. “You stupid bitch. Answer me.”

My pulse was pounding in my head, and adrenaline flooded my system. I gave this a twenty-five percent success rate, but I reminded myself of my main goal: buying time for Greta. Anything else was pure bonus.

There was a thud on the ground. The sound distracted me, and I realized too late he’d dropped the padlock on the ground. The door was already swinging open, and a beam of light shone against the back wall.

“What the fuck?” he snarled, turning around.

This hadn’t gone as I’d expected. I’d thought he’d walk in and I’d punch him in the balls with my fist full of screws, but obviously that plan was blown to bits. He taken a single step inside the shed.

Time to improvise.

“Hey, you fucking asshole!” I shouted, still crouched on the other side of the door.

“Carly?” he asked, spinning around and shining his flashlight into the shed again. This time he took a step. “Where are you, you stupid bitch?”

He hadn’t walked all the way into the shed, but at least he was standing still. I thrust my arm between his legs, but he shifted to the side and the screws sunk into his left thigh.

He screamed out in pain and started to reach for my arm—which was when I jabbed the garden shovel into his bicep, slamming the screws deeper into his leg as I did so.

He fell to the ground screaming in pain. I’d temporarily incapacitated him, but I’d neglected to take into account the fact that he might block the door. If I tried to go over him, he’d hurt me. But every second I hesitated gave him one more second to recover.

He sat up and pure rage covered his face. “I’m gonna beat the ever-lovin’ shit out of you.”

Keep him talking.

“Is that what you did to Greta?” I asked.

“Honey,” he said, grabbing a screwhead and pulling it from his leg. He threw it against the wall, where it pinged then fell to the ground. “What I did to Greta’s gonna look like patty-cakes. I promised her sister I wouldn’t hurt her too bad, but I didn’t make no promises about you.”

The thought that Melody knew he had Greta filled my head first, but it was quickly replaced with an image of Greta’s bruised and swollen face. If he called that holding back, I wasn’t sure I’d survive long enough for Greta to get back with help.

“What about Lula?” I asked. “What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do shit to her. I’m trying to find her, so it worked great when you started lookin’ for her too. But then you sniffed too close in my direction. That’s when I knew it was time to shut you up.”

“You realize I only got to you because you took Greta. If you’d left her alone, I’d have been none the wiser.”

He released a long growl of frustration as he pulled out another screw and threw it hard against the wall.

“What about Marco?” I asked. “You gonna shut him up too? And what about the sheriff’s department? You have enough people on the inside to keep them out of it?”

“The sheriff’s department’s not lookin’ into this,” he said, taking several rapid breaths to deal with his pain. “I checked this afternoon.” He reached for another screw but hesitated as though psyching himself up to deal with the pain.

Part of me wanted to tell him not to remove the screws, that doing so might increase his blood loss, but this man intended to hurt or kill me. If he was injured, it would work to my advantage. “Marco won’t let this go. He knows about you. He’ll find me.”

“There won’t be nothin’ left of you to find. Unless…” A grotesque grin spread across his face. “Unless you tell me where Lula is.”

“You know I have no idea where she is.”

He laughed. “Well, all right then. Now I can kill you with a clean conscience.”

Obviously his conscience was messed up.

“You’re workin’ for Pete Mobley, aren’t you? Lula was delivering packages for him, but she didn’t contact him after this last run.” I was grasping at straws, trying to goad the truth out of him.

“You really don’t know shit,” he said as he pulled out the last screw and threw it in my direction.

I batted it away as I shrank against the back wall. “If I don’t know shit, then tell me how it happened.”

“She called him and told him she wasn’t makin’ no more deliveries, and on top of that, she was havin’ his baby. Then she left town. He’s a respected man in the community. He couldn’t let the truth get out, so he asked me to take care of it. I suspect he meant to pay her off, but Lula knows more than she should. She’s a liability. Just. Like. You.”

He got to his feet, sagging against the doorframe. “You like to dig holes so much, I think I’ll have you dig your own.” He pulled a gun out from behind his back and pointed it at my chest. “Come on.”

He motioned for me to walk past him out the door, but I didn’t trust him. He was going to make me pay for causing him pain.

“I said come on!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Get the fuck outside.”

“I’ll go,” I said, hoping I was buying Greta more time. “But first I want to hear where Mobley fits into this situation. Is he the mastermind behind it all?”

He laughed, filling the doorway. “Mobley in charge? Mobley couldn’t be in charge of a clusterfuck. Hell no, he’s not in charge. Purdy was, and now it’s fallen to me by default.”