"Then they'll call off their plan. They'll run away and we'll never be able to find them," Prudence said. She made a good point. As soon as that brute realized they were gone, he would think the police were onto them. He would look for another target in another town.
"We'll find them," he said.
"How?" she asked.
"We'll find a way," he said. He didn't know how, but he would think of something. There had to be a way of finding them. As he lay on the floor considering this question, the headlights swept over them again.
Prudence waited for the car to pull into the driveway and Samantha to get out with her boyfriend. She felt around her for something to use as a weapon, coming up with only a pink slipper. We're doomed, she thought.
The headlights continued to slide past them, disappearing down the road. "They're gone," she said. A horrible thought struck her then. "What about Mr. Pryde and Mrs. Schulman?"
"We'll go check on them," Wendell said. He took Prudence's hand and led her up the hill towards Mr. Pryde's house. When she started to puff and sweat from the effort, he squeezed her hand for encouragement instead of mocking her as he would have done before. "You can make it. Only a little farther."
They made it up the hill and went up the porch steps. Prudence expected Samantha to be waiting at the top of the stairs inside as in their nightmare, but the house was silent. They climbed up the stairs, hurrying to Mr. Pryde's bedroom. Prudence let Wendell open the door and go in first, not wanting to see whatever horror awaited them inside.
"It's fine," he said. "They're still sleeping."
"Do you think he did the same to his father as he did to us?" she asked. She wondered what kind of nightmares would torment a man like Mr. Pryde.
"I'm not sure," Wendell said. They sat down on the bed, sitting on opposite sides of Mr. Pryde's legs. Wendell tried to think of what to do next. First they had to find Samantha and Joseph, and then they had to stop them. Where would they go? There had to be some way of finding out.
"We could look on a map," Prudence said. He didn't realize he'd been thinking aloud. "Something might jump out at us."
"It's worth a try," he said. They went downstairs to rummage around the living room and parlor until Wendell found a map of Maine in a desk drawer. He spread it open on the floor, searching along the coast to find Seabrooke. "Anything?"