If Only She'd Loved Him

Chapter 66

Saturday 5:20 pm

Jean had been right all along. Matt was in shock. He snatched the note out of her grasp, wanting to confirm with his hands what he saw with his eyes. "Help, it says help. Your roommate really is in trouble!"

"What else does it say? There's two other words here, but I can't read them." She pounded the dash in frustration. Matt squinted as he held the paper up to the light. "These other words below help weren't here a few minutes ago," he said. "They just appeared. What were you doing before?"

"I don't know," she replied, completely frustrated. The words had appeared like magic, one minute nothing, and the next a plea for help. "I wasn't doing anything special. I just took the letter out and read it."

"You must have been doing something. C'mon Jean, think!"

She ran her fingers through her hair reflexively. "Let me see, I held the letter up to the window to get a little more light on it. And, and I remember my hands were cold, so I turned the heater on to warm them up, but that's all I did. I didn't do anything else. Just turned on the heat and read." She tapped at the vinyl with her nail tips. "Wait a minute," she cried out. "The paper! It got hot from the heater! That's when the words appeared. It's got to be a secret message, that is so Megan!"

Matt didn't hesitate. He held the note right next to the heater, twisting the page around to where he thought the letters should be. Slowly, faintly, two other words began to emerge.

"E...R..." He spelled out loud. "Is that an I?" he asked, squinting to get a better look.

"E...R...I... Erik, that's Erik. I knew he was involved in all this!" Jean cried in triumph.

"That's fine," Matt replied, "congratulate yourself later though. There's still another word here. It looks like an O, then an A, a B? What kind of word starts with an O...A?"

Jean used her finger to spell out the letters across the condensation forming on the window. "Umm, Oats? Oar? Oak? Maybe she's in the woods and there's oak trees around?"

"Maybe," Matt said doubtfully. "But what about the rest of these letters? What are they?"

She stared hard at the paper. "O...A...B...I...H, OABIH? That doesn't make any sense." Jean peered closer at the note. "Hold on, that last letter's an N, not an h. OABIN? AHBIN?"

"Not Ahbin. Cabin!" Matt kissed Jean on top of her head with a big wet smooch. "You were right, Erik's cabin. Megan must be there. Now all we have to do is find this place." In less than a minute, he'd pulled the car back onto the road.

"Matt, shouldn't we call the police?"

"Hell yes,  do it."

She opened her phone immediately. "No bars," she swore.

"Try mine.  It's in my coat."

Jean rummaged around in the backseat for a few minutes before it hit her.  "Matt, you weren't wearing a coat when we left."

"Damn!  It was such a nice day out and you were in such a hurry..."

Jean stared out the window at the pouring rain.  It slid down the glass like tears.  She felt like joining them.  "It's not such nice day now, is it?"

Matt put his hand on top of her leg and rubbed her knee.  "No, not a real nice day at all."

"I'll turn around, get us back to where there's service."

"No!" Jean was frantic, panicked. She dug her nails into Matt's arm, shaking it hard "No Matt, we need to keep moving. We don't have time I can feel it. We need to find her tonight!"