Chapter 28

TWENTY-EIGHT

SAW MILL ROAD

As Ellie drove toward Crooked Creek, she phoned Derrick and he relayed what he'd learned about the car. "I'm heading to the address for the owner, a man named Thomas Thacker."

"I'll meet you at the house. Just text me the address."

"Will do."

She ended the call, plugged the address from the text into her GPS, then headed in that direction. The slushy roads made for slow going, and darkness had set in, stars twinkling, the moon trying to break through the clouds, promising a clear night. The snowplows must have been up bright and early clearing the main road, two-feet snow drifts flanking the sides of the streets. Odd to believe a blizzard had struck the night before, stranding cars and hikers and even herself.

She maneuvered around a fallen tree and climbed the mountain toward Saw Mill Road. When the saw mill was in operation, mountain homes had once filled the landscape but now some had been abandoned and looked rundown and shabby.

The woods were thick, snow and icicles clinging to the tips, the limbs bowing with the weight of the snow. The snowplows hadn't made it this far up the mountain and the road was slippery and still thick with snow. Tire tracks in the road indicated another car had recently come this way. Grateful for her four-wheel drive, she chugged along. Just as she reached the turn-off to the house, her phone buzzed.

She pressed accept call on the Bluetooth screen and answered. "Shondra?"

"I'm at the hospital."

"Is the woman talking?"

"No, she's gone."

"What?"

"The nurse went in to check on her, but she wasn't in her room."

"Did the doctor release her?"

"No. And she was really weak and dizzy so they don't know how she left the hospital."

Ellie thumped her hand on the steering wheel. If she'd snuck out of the hospital, the woman must be hiding something.