MY DAUGHTER WAS CRAWLING TOWARD A LOCKED DOOR WITH BREAD—THEN I FOUND HER BIRTH MOTHER’S PHOTO INSIDE 21.2

Daniel stared at the message on the screen, the words searing themselves into his mind.

*Mile marker 14.*

That was the edge of the Great Blackwood Marsh, a treacherous expanse of peat bogs, stagnant water, and overgrown hemlock trees located just ten miles north of the Mercer property. If Amelia had escaped Thomas into that swamp in her physical condition—malnourished, half-drugged, barefoot—she wouldn't survive the freezing temperatures for more than a few hours.

And Thomas Vance was out there hunting her with a gun.

Daniel looked toward the staircase. Officer Higgins was stationed at the top of the stairs, reading a magazine while keeping an eye on Lily’s bedroom door. The front porch was guarded by another deputy.

If Daniel called Marcus, it would take twenty minutes for the tactical team to redirect from the cabin to mile marker 14. In twenty minutes, Thomas could find Amelia. In twenty minutes, she could drown in a sinkhole.

*I can’t wait.*

Daniel quietly stood up, slipped into the mudroom, and opened his gun safe. He pulled out his 12-gauge Remington shotgun, checked the chamber, and loaded four buckshot shells into the tube. He grabbed his heavy winter hunting jacket, laced up his boots, and slid his spare Glock 19 into his waistband holster.

He slipped out through the basement cellar door, avoiding the officers stationed at the front and rear gates. Within moments, he was cutting through the dense woods behind his property, heading toward an old gravel service road where he kept his backup four-wheel-drive hunting truck inside a detached barn.

The truck roared to life, its engine muffled by the damp morning mist. Daniel slammed it into gear and tore down the dirt trail, bypassing the main roads where police cruisers might flag him down.

The drive to mile marker 14 was a nightmare of blind curves and gray fog. The trees leaned inward over the asphalt like twisted skeletons. Daniel gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. His thoughts were a frantic blur of memories: Amelia laughing on the porch swing while eight-month-old Lily clapped her hands; Amelia pressing a wild daisy behind his ear on their wedding day; Amelia’s hollow, terrifying handwriting in that notebook beneath the stairs.

*“Madeline is not my sister. Madeline is my warden.”*

He rounded a bend near mile marker 14.

Off to the right side of the shoulder, hidden partially behind a screen of weeping willows, sat a rusted gray pickup truck. The driver’s side door was ajar.

Daniel killed his headlights, coasted onto the gravel shoulder twenty yards behind it, and turned off the engine.

He grabbed the shotgun, racked the slide with a clean, heavy *clack*, and stepped out into the biting cold.

The silence of the swamp was deafening. The only sound was the slow drip of water from moss-covered cypress branches into the black water below.

Daniel approached the gray pickup. Inside, the cabin smelled of stale cigarettes and cheap whiskey. On the passenger seat lay an empty roll of heavy-duty duct tape, a pair of bloodied surgical gloves, and a hunting knife sheath.

On the muddy ground beside the driver’s door, two sets of fresh tracks headed directly into the swamp.

One set was erratic, dragging through the black muck: Amelia.

The other was heavy, purposeful, and flanking her from the high ground: Thomas.

Daniel stepped off the road and descended into the marsh.

The cold water immediately soaked through his boots, numbing his ankles. The mud sucked at his steps with wet, sickening noises. He moved as quietly as he could, using the thick trunks of the hemlock trees for cover, scanning the mist ahead.

Fifty yards deep into the marsh, Daniel heard a faint splash.

Then, a harsh, guttural voice echoed through the trees:

“Come on out, Harper! You think you can walk out of here? You don’t even know what year it is, you crazy bitch!”

Daniel moved toward the sound, slipping behind a wide willow tree.

Through the tangled branches, he saw a clearing of raised mossy ground.

Standing in the center was Thomas Vance. He was a massive, hulking man with a shaved head, wearing a soiled green field jacket and heavy combat boots. In his right hand, he held a black semiautomatic pistol, pointing it casually toward a fallen, hollow log twenty feet ahead of him.

Beneath the log, curled into a defensive ball, was a figure so thin she looked like a skeleton covered in paper-white skin. Her clothes were shredded rags. Her long, dark hair was matted with filth and dried blood. She was shivering so violently that the dead leaves around her vibrated.

It was Amelia.

“You made this way harder than it needed to be,” Thomas sneered, raising the pistol. “Vanessa told me to make it clean. But after you took a chunk out of my wrist? I’m gonna enjoy putting you in the bog.”

Daniel didn't shout a warning. He didn't ask Thomas to drop the weapon.