The Whispering Hollows Part 15

The man had white hair and a plaid cap and a very nice blue coat. He reminded her of her grandpa, how quiet and careful he was. He talked about the hawks and other wildlife that nested right in New York City.

"Natural beauty is everywhere," he said. "It finds a place for itself even right here. You just have to know where to look."

He let her daddy lift her up to the monocular, and the man adjusted the lens until it came into focus and she saw two fuzzy gray baby hawks in their nest, their beaks open, surrounding their mama, who was red with white feathers on her chest and who had alert, bright eyes. Penny watched, mesmerized, until her daddy said it was time to go. When she moved away from the monocular, she saw only the building again-except now with the small cl.u.s.ter of brown up high on a ledge. She never would have seen it. After that, she started noticing birds in the trees and always tried to listen to their songs. The squirrels that danced across branches in the park. A woodp.e.c.k.e.r one day. Her daddy even showed her an article about someone who'd woken up to find a wild turkey sitting on his balcony. What the old man with the monocular said, about knowing where to look, it stayed with her. He was right.

Before they'd left for the hike, Daddy had downloaded an app on his iPhone that would help them identify birdcalls. He also had the binoculars. She looked around at the leafy tops of the trees, s.h.i.+elding her eyes against the bright yellow light (was it ever this b.u.t.tery yellow in the city?). She tried to catch a glimpse of the bird that was singing, but she couldn't. She glanced back down the path-she wanted to show her daddy the log, to use the binoculars. Where was he?

"Where's Dad?" she asked her brother, a little whiny.

A single echoing crack came in answer. Then a kind of cry, a fluttering of leaves. She turned to her brother, who she could tell had heard it, too, because he was looking down the path toward where they had left their dad. The light s.h.i.+ned on his white blond hair and turned the lenses of his round gla.s.ses weirdly golden.

"What was that?" she asked. He shook his head to say he didn't know.

"Dad?" he called out. The birds had gone quiet. Louder: "Dad?"

When there was no answer, her brother said they should go back for him, so they did.

They walked back down the path, her brother taking the lead. She felt wobbly, a quiver in her stomach, tears threatening. She couldn't even say why she was scared. What had they heard after all? Maybe nothing. They turned the corner to see the path empty. The rocky dirt surface was edged by trees that sloped down toward the river valley. "It's not that steep," her father had said. "But you could still fall a good ways and hurt yourself. So be careful."

She was the first to hear the low moaning.

"Daddy!" she cried. "Daaaddddy!"

"Kids!" his voice was low and far away. He said something else, but she couldn't hear what. They moved toward the sound, her brother edging toward the side of the path, looking down.

"Stay back," her brother said. She pressed herself up against the trunk of a tree, feeling the rough bark through her s.h.i.+rt. Her father was still calling to them. It sounded like he was saying Get out of here! Run! But that couldn't be right.

"I see him," her brother said. "He must have fallen. Dad, what happened?"

Then another one of those strange echoing cracks. Her brother froze stiff, then grabbed his leg and started screaming, fell to the ground. It was a terrible sound, high-pitched and filled with fear. It connected to something deep and primal within her, and sheer terror rocketed through her, a lightning bolt. She heard herself shrieking, too, a sound that came from her and didn't.

A black flower of blood bloomed on her brother's thigh. He'd gone a frightening white, couldn't stop screaming. It was a siren, loud and long, deafening. She wanted to cover her ears, to tell him to stop. Her father was yelling down below. Her name. Her brother's name. Then a command as clear as day: Run!

She went to the edge of the path and saw her father lying among the trees, sloping downwards, arm looped around a slender birch trunk as if he was holding on, leg bent strangely. And then she saw the other man. Dressed in jeans and a flannel work s.h.i.+rt, heavy boots. He wore a baseball cap, the brim shadowing his face. In his arms he had a gun, long and black.

She froze, watching him. Her brother's screaming had quieted; he was now whimpering behind her. Her father was yelling still. But she couldn't move; she was so afraid, so confused, that her body just couldn't move.

She heard something, a chiming. A little tinkle of bells. The phone. Her father's phone was ringing. She turned and saw it down the path, screen bright, vibrating on the dirt path. It broke the spell, and she ran for it. She was fast. She was the fastest girl in her third-grade cla.s.s, always pulling effortlessly ahead of everyone else on the soccer field at relay races in PE. Coach said she was a rocket. But she wasn't fast enough today.

Another man, whom she hadn't seen, was coming up the path from the opposite direction. He got there first, crus.h.i.+ng the phone beneath his hard black boot as she dove for it, skinning her knees, the dirt kicking up so that she could taste it in her mouth.

He looked down at her, his expression unreadable.

"Don't bother running," he said. He sounded almost sad for her. "He's got you now."

But she did run. Her daddy had always told her if a stranger tried to take her that she was supposed to run and scream at the top of her lungs and fight with everything she had. Don't ever let them take you, he warned. No matter what.

Why? she used to ask. The conversation frightened and excited her, like a scary movie. What happens if they take me?

Nothing good, said her father grimly. And the way he said it meant that the conversation was over.

She used to lie in bed at night sometimes, thinking of how she would get away from a bad guy that tried to take her away from her family. In those imaginings, she was always strong and brave, fiercely fighting and punching like the kids in Antboy and Kick-a.s.s (which she was way too young to watch but did with her brother on those nights when Mommy was working and Daddy was in charge).

It was nothing like this. She couldn't breathe; fear was a black hole sucking every part of her into its vortex. Her brother was now yelling, too, telling her to run. And she did. She got up from the ground and she ran past the strange-looking man, leaving her brother and her father behind. She was going for help. She had to be fast, faster than she'd ever been. Not just for herself, but for her daddy and her brother.

How far did she get? Not far when a great weight landed on her from behind, bringing her hard to the ground, knocking all the wind out of her. There was a foul smell and hot air in her ear.

"You come like a nice little girl, and I won't kill your father and your brother. I won't go back and kill your mother, too."

She couldn't even answer as the man yanked her to her feet and started dragging her back up the hill-past her brother who lay quietly crying on the ground.

"Let her go," her brother said faintly. "Please let her go."

They locked eyes; she'd never seen anyone look so afraid. It made her insides clench. She couldn't help it; she started to shriek and scream, pull back against the man. But he was impossibly strong; she was a rag doll, no muscle or bone. Her movements were as ineffective as the flap of b.u.t.terfly wings.

When she looked back, she couldn't even see her daddy. And after a while, walking and walking with the man holding on to her arm, pulling her so roughly, talking so mean, it started to get dark. She had never been so far away from where she was supposed to be. Maybe it was a dream.

It couldn't be happening, could it? Could it?

Falling in love can feel like a dream . . . or a living nightmare.

Crazy Love You is a riveting thriller about a successful graphic novelist whose promising future is threatened by his sordid past , and a childhood friend with the power to destroy it all.

Crazy Love You.

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A darkly startling, finely crafted psychologial thriller by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.

A return to the dark psychological suspense that made Beautiful Lies a bestseller around the world.

In the Blood.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

JEFF UNGER.

LISA UNGER is an award-winning New York Times and internationally bestselling author. Her novels have sold more than two million copies and have been translated into twenty-six languages. She lives in Florida. Find out more about Lisa at www.LisaUnger.com.

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ALSO BY LISA UNGER.

Crazy Love You.

In the Blood.

Heartbroken.

Darkness, My Old Friend.

Fragile.

Die For You.

Black Out.

Sliver of Truth.

Beautiful Lies.

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