Cassidy sat in the front seat of the truck with Lucas, Austin in the back. The ranch was far larger than she suspected, even after David told her it was over four thousand acres. It was something that had to be seen to be believed.

She was distracted, and while she was looking for anywhere Julianne could possibly be hidden, her mind kept replaying her conversation with Austin.

He wanted a second chance with her. She bit her lip. The first one had knocked her heart around but good. That man had felt like home to her the first night in his bed, and her feelings for him had only grown in the weeks they spent together.

It wasn’t rational. She knew that. She hadn’t known him long enough to truly fall in love, but the feeling was as real as any she’d had before or since. Which was to say she’d never felt it before — nor felt it after.

There were men in her life. Good men who looked like decent matches on paper. They fit into her world like they were to the manner born, perfectly casted for the role of boyfriend, lover, husband. Yet each one of them had chafed at her soul, only serving to remind her of the man she had lost and the feelings she was incapable of recreating.

I was okay for a little summer fun, but that’s where it needed to stay.

His earlier words mocked her. He seemed to think she’d been using him for sex and hell, maybe she had. But Austin Dixon had broken her heart, no matter her initial intentions.

“Pretty impressive, huh?” asked Lucas.

“Definitely,” said Cassidy. There were fields upon fields, most lying fallow, unused. “David’s parents must have had quite a large business.”

“They did, though not by today’s commercial farm standards. They were potato growers. It would be hard for a farm this size to sustain itself on potatoes alone these days.”

“How did they get their crops to market?” asked Austin. “This place is pretty isolated.”

Lucas nodded. “Now it is, but it didn’t used to be. There was a dirt road that wound all the way up here from town and the interstate, back in the day. Years of disuse and it all went wild.”

“Wasn’t it a public road?” asked Austin.

“Oh, no. The Kellehers owned all that back then, all the way down to the highway. When David’s parents passed on, he let it all go.”

“It seems odd he would choose to be more isolated,” said Cassidy.

Lucas chuckled. “If that seems odd, then you don’t know David near as well as you think. The farther away he can get from traditional society, the better. That’s what makes The Community work. It’s its own little world up here.”

She’d been expecting more buildings, barns or places Julianne might be, but there was very little in the way structures out here.

“Where did they store things?” asked Austin, echoing her thoughts. “Seeds and machinery, crops, that sort of thing?”

“There’s a big pole barn on the other side of the property, not far from the main house. That’s where the equipment is kept. The crops used to go into the potato cellars up there on the hill.”

Cassidy narrowed her eyes. “I don’t see anything.”

“Sure you do. See those five little hills all in a row?”

“Yes.”

“That’s them. They have concrete floors dug down in the earth and cinderblock walls. The roof is a big metal half-circle that can take the weight of the ground on top of it.”

“You mean the potato cellar is underground?”

“That’s right.”

“What are they used for today?”

“I don’t imagine I know.”

“Can we take a closer look?” asked Austin.

Lucas clucked his tongue. “Unfortunately not. It’s getting on lunchtime, and I need to get you back.”

“But we haven’t seen the whole property, have we?” asked Cassidy.

“The rest is just more fields, Sister Cassidy. Acres and acres of fields.”

They headed back toward the main ranch. If Lucas was being truthful, there were only a handful of places that Julianne could be. The pole barn that held the equipment and the potato cellars.

Her shoulders shimmied just thinking about what Lucas described. A room built under the ground with a cement floor and no light. It would be damp and cold — perfect for potatoes, but not so perfect for people.

By the time they pulled in beside the dining hall, Cassidy knew she had to go back there and see for herself if her friend was inside one of those underground prisons.