Free A Shiver At Twilight by Erin Quinn Page B

light. In the center of it all, Sissy waited. She looked young and innocent, her enormous eyes filled with hope. She quickly moved to the closet door which stood open, though Carly remembered JD closing it. Then, Sissy vanished.
     
    “It’s in here,” JD said softly.
     
    He braced himself against the wall, using the upper shelf to heft his body high enough to reach the fat eyelet screw poking from the wooden hatch door. He was just inches too short. He motioned Carly forward and he lifted her until she could grab it and pull. The door swung down and a folded stairway opened out. The thumping came louder now.
     
    “You ready?” JD asked.
     
    Carly nodded, but she wasn’t ready. Not at all.
     
    Flashlight in one hand, he began to climb. Carly kept close, trying to keep her focus on that point of light, on JD.
     
    “Careful,” he warned as he reached the top and stepped off the ladder. He helped her do the same. The attic ran the whole length of the house. A cold draft gushed by, parting air warmed by the rising heat from the fireplace below.
     
    A plywood floor stretched out, covered by old boxes and broken furniture. A lamp stood in a cobweb shroud next to a mirror that caught the flashlight and sent it back. Slowly JD poked the beam into corners and shadows. They heard a muffled cry and he swung the light around. The beam landed on something that squirmed.
     
    Carly bit back her scream as he put the light back to the cranny between a tall, busted armoire and the wall. Shoes, legs.
     
    Without another thought, she rushed forward, JD right behind her, crouching beneath the sloping ceiling. There, crammed into a tiny space between the debris, bound at ankles and wrists, gagged and beaten but alive, lay Jillian.
     
     
     
    Chapter Fourteen
     
     
     
    Jillian shook so much she could hardly stand and JD had to help her. She’d been tied tightly, her wrists trussed and then looped through the binds at her feet. JD winced at the welts where the ropes had burned. The only thing she’d been able to move was her head. She’d pounded it on the wall until a lump had formed.
     
    Gently, he carried her down to the first floor, setting her by the fire on their blanket. Carly had been silent since she’d shouted her friend’s name. With each horror they uncovered as they unbound Jillian, Carly became more stoic. He hadn’t known her long, but he already knew her well enough to guess that she felt guilty for not knowing that Jillian lay just over their heads, in agonizing pain.
     
    “This isn’t your fault, Carly,” he said, after he’d settled Jillian in front of the fire. Carly’s eyes looked luminous with unshed tears. He pulled her to him and pressed kisses to her brow. “She’d still be there if it wasn’t for you.”
     
    Carly knelt next to Jillian, smoothed her hair back and held her. Jillian still hadn’t spoken, but Carly asked her again, “Who did this to you, Jilly?”
     
    In answer, the house began to rumble again and within the thunderous shaking, came another sound. Crying. The sobs carried in long and low wails. It seemed the very walls wept in deep, discordant harmony. The heart wrenching sounds seemed to emanate from everywhere. The house wept.
     
    JD watched the two women huddled on the blanket. Jillian stared at the fire, oblivious to anything but the flames. Carly looked around fearfully.
     
    “She told me—Sissy told me to think about the time,” Carly whispered. “What does that mean? She said I could figure it out, but I needed to think about the time.”
     
    At last Jillian spoke and her voice came like a rusted hinge, deep and painfully thin. “He told me to meet him here at four.”
     
    “Why here?” JD asked, though it hardly mattered.
     
    “He liked it here and this is where we came all summer. It’s not so bad when the sun’s out.” She laughed sadly. “We didn’t have to worry about getting caught together or being seen by some nosy