A woman stepped out onto the wooden porch. She was carrying a plastic laundry basket filled with wet clothes.
It was Sarah.
Vance’s heart slammed against his ribs with such force it actually hurt. She looked older, her blonde hair tied back in a messy knot, her frame thinner than he remembered. She wore a faded grey sweater that looked two sizes too big. But it was her. The exact same tilt of her chin, the same delicate profile he had memorized in the dark all those years ago.
She wasn't restrained. She wasn't tied up. She walked down the porch steps and began hanging clothes on a wire line strung between two trees in the side yard.
Vance watched, a terrible, confusing knot tightening in his stomach. If she wasn't tied up, why hadn't she left? Why hadn't she called him? Did she choose this? Did she leave him for this man?
Then, Vance noticed her body language.
Sarah kept stopping every few seconds to look over her shoulder toward the driveway. She flinched when a crow cawed loudly in the branches above her. Her movements were hurried, anxious, deeply fearful. She didn't look like a woman who had chosen a new life. She looked like a prisoner operating on an invisible leash.
At 3:30 PM, Greg Thorne came out of the house. He was dressed in his work clothes. He walked over to Sarah, grabbed her roughly by the upper arm, and said something close to her face. Sarah shrank back, nodding quickly, her eyes lowered to the grass.
Greg let her go, got into the blue sedan, and drove away, leaving a trail of dust in his wake.
Vance waited until the car was completely out of sight.
He stepped out of the tree line and began walking across the overgrown yard.
Sarah was reaching up to clip a towel to the line. She heard his footsteps crunching in the dry grass and froze.
“I told you I’d have it done before you got back, Greg,” she said quickly, her voice trembling, keeping her back to him.
“I’m not Greg,” Vance said softly.
Sarah’s entire body went rigid. The clothespin slipped from her fingers, dropping silently into the laundry basket. She turned around, moving as if she were underwater.
When her eyes met his, the color drained entirely from her face. She took a stumbling step backward, hitting her shoulder against the clothesline.
“No,” she whispered, raising a shaking hand to her mouth. “No. You’re… you’re dead.”
Vance stopped ten feet away from her. The words hit him like a freight train.