Still, he didn’t look at Violet. “But I loved her,” he whispered, lost in his past. “How could she just leave like that? How could I just let her leave?”
Violet couldn’t tear her eyes away from the weapon, and her heart pounded painfully, thrumming violently. Loudly.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he admitted, his gaze finding Violet, trying to convince her, beseeching her to understand.
Violet’s heart exploded within her chest, and she was shaking all over as she waited to see what he wanted from her. What he planned to do to her.
She nodded, telling him that she believed him.
“I couldn’t let her take my children away from me. I couldn’t let them start a new family with him.” His eyes became fevered as he explained. “They love me, you know? And I tried to explain that to her, to tell her that she was wrong, that I could change. But she’d already decided. She said it was too late. She said I was never going to see them again.” He paused, looking confused, asking Violet, “Never see them again? How could she do that to me?”
He frowned and shook his head, determination set in every hard line of his face. “I tried to talk to her, and when she wouldn’t listen, I tried to stop her. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” He cried then, the sentence trailing off on a fractured sob. “And afterward I brought her here, so that she could be in the one place she’d always loved. Forever . . .”
He gripped the handle of the shotgun so tightly that his fingers turned white as he glanced up at Violet. “I’m really sorry that you found her,” he explained sadly. “I didn’t want anyone else to die.”
Chapter 32
Jay rolled over in his sleeping bag and stretched his arm out to Violet. When his hand swept over the cool surface of her pillow, he opened his eyes.
In the glow of the fading embers from the fireplace, he could see that she wasn’t there, that she was no longer lying beside him. She must have gone to the bathroom, he thought lazily, as he shifted on the floor and waited for her to return.
He listened to the even sounds of sleep all around him. Mike’s deep breathing bordered on snoring, and Jay thought about nudging him—maybe more of a punch in the arm—to get him to stop, but he decided he would rather be alone with Violet when she came back, and waking Mike would be counterproductive.
He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, how much time had passed, but eventually he realized that it was too much, and he got up to see what was taking her so long.
When he looked down the hallway, to the open doorway of the darkened bathroom, his stomach sank.
Violet wasn’t in there.
He hesitated briefly outside the closed bedroom door—Megan’s room—thinking that maybe . . . maybe Violet had slipped in there to talk to Mike’s little sister. Why, he didn’t know. But he had to find out.
He tapped as softly as he could, trying not to wake the others. There was no answer.
He took a deep breath, steeling himself as he turned the knob to peer inside. The lamp beside the bed was on, and the bed was unmade but empty. Nobody was in the small, chilly bedroom.
Panic took hold. Something was wrong. This was all wrong.
He hurried back out to where his friends were asleep, and this time he grabbed Mike’s arm, leaning down to wake him. “They’re gone. Megan and Violet, they’re not here,” he whispered loudly.
Mike was groggy and slow to grasp what he’d said. “What—” He held his arm in front of his eyes, as if the diffused light from the lingering fire was too much for him. “What are you talking about?” he croaked.
“Jay, where’s Violet?” Chelsea asked as she sat up, rubbing her face.
“I don’t know,” Jay answered, his voice getting louder. “She wasn’t here when I woke up, and I checked your sister’s room,” he said to Mike. “She’s gone too.”
Mike sat up now, grabbing his sweatshirt from the floor and tugging it over his head. “Is my dad here?”
But he was already going to the front of the cabin to see for himself. He came back and double-checked his sister’s room before hurrying up the stairs to the loft above.
“Well, his truck’s here, but he’s not,” Mike stated, fully alert now.
“Where do you think they are?” Claire asked, hugging her pillow to her chest.
Mike shook his head. “There’s really nowhere to go out here.” He looked to Jay for suggestions.
But Jay was already putting on his snow gear. He knew where Violet was; he should have known all night long that she’d try to go back out there after she’d discovered that echo . . . the pull was too strong for her to ignore.
“You and Claire stay here,” Jay told Chelsea. “Put some wood on the fire, and if Megan and Violet come back, you guys just stay put. Mike and I will be back as soon as we can.”
The confusion on Mike’s face was evident, but he got dressed anyway, following Jay’s lead.
When the two of them stepped out the back door, into the punishing cold of the night, there were three clear, and distinctly separate, sets of fresh footprints in the snow.
Chapter 33
“Are you saying she didn’t leave us?” It was Megan’s broken whisper that shattered the deadly calm hanging in the night air.
Violet wasn’t sure whether to be relieved by the interruption, or whether she should scream at Megan to run.
Even in the eerie glow of the flashlight lying in the snow, Violet could see the tears streaming down Megan’s face as the other girl struggled to understand what was happening. She stared at her father disbelievingly, revulsion and sorrow evident in her features. “Are you saying that she’s . . .” She pointed to the ground, to where Violet had been digging. “. . . here?” The last word was empty, absent of any real sound, but Violet still heard her, and felt the girl’s pain.