Silent Night by Colleen Coble

Harper had found out.
    The dogs leaped over snow-covered logs and darted around small bushes and stands of pine. The tree canopy dimmed the sun here, and Bree squinted to see through the shadows. Was that a cabin ahead? She pointed and Lauri nodded. The dogs reached the cabin and stood barking at the door.
    Bree stopped at the front of the structure and peered inside. The windows were too dirty and the light was too dim to make out much more than the shadowy outlines of some rough furniture. Samson barked and ran in circles around her. “She’s here somewhere. He’s too excited.”
    She tried the door. Locked. Samson lunged at her and grabbed her coat sleeve in his teeth, then pulled her toward the corner of the house. “He wants me to go with him. Let’s see if there’s a back door. Search, Samson. Show me.”
    Her dog barked and raced to the back of the cabin where he leaped against the door. This door was locked as well. They would have to break in, something she hated to do. What if Garrick hadn’t owned this place?
    Samson flung himself against the door again. “Easy, boy. We’ll get in there.” She dropped her backpack from her shoulder and dug out the satellite phone, but there wasn’t a good signal here. Too many trees. She’d have to find a clearing to call Mason and ask for permission to break the door.
    “Bree?” Lauri’s voice sounded panicked. She came around the corner of the building. “I think someone’s in there. I heard something.”
    The owner? Bree pressed her ear against the door. Sure enough, there was a muffled thump from inside. “It might be an animal.” She rapped on the door. “Hello? Anyone in there?”
    At the sound of her voice, a frenzied pounding began as though a chair was being thumped on the floor. Samson began another volley of frenzied barking. He leaped at the window and smashed through the glass. His tail was wagging as he disappeared through the opening.
    “I’m going in.” Leaving her backpack where it lay on the back porch, Bree rushed to the window. “Give me a leg up. I’ll unlock the door when I get inside.”
    She fitted her boot into Lauri’s cupped hands, then went headfirst through the window. A rough cabinet was under the window, so she grasped the edge of the wood and pulled herself all the way through until she crouched on top of the cabinet.
    Samson was barking in the living room. Bree hopped down and ran to the door. She struggled with the rusty lock and finally got the door open. “Follow me!” Zorro raced past her feet. Her heart burned in her chest as she wheeled and ran after him.
    She burst through the doorway into the living room. Her gaze swept the room and took in the rounded log walls, the smeared windows, the battered floors. There was a chair in one corner with a leg missing and a sofa with its back facing her. A wooden table held only a small key that wouldn’t fit the door. A stepladder perched in another corner.
    “Hello?”
    Samson barked at a grungy brown sofa, and his ruff stood at attention. He tried to get his head under the couch but didn’t succeed. Zorro joined him, and both dogs were clearly excited.
    She glanced around. What was it she’d heard earlier? “Hello? Anyone in here?”
    Something under her boots thumped and a voice called out. She and Lauri stared at one another, then Lauri shoved the sofa out of the way to reveal a door in the floorboards. A shiny padlock kept the door in place.
    “The key!” Bree grabbed the small key from the table and fitted it into the lock. When it sprang open, she removed it and yanked on the door.
    Lauri had her flashlight out, and she shined it into the darkness yawning in the hole below. The yellow glow illuminated the face of a young blond woman. Bree recognized her immediately. “Frannie?”
    The young woman burst into tears. “Get me out of here, please get me out of here, Lauri!”
    There were no stairs to the basement area. Bree looked around for a rope or something to