Cliff's Edge

by Meg Tilly

  She whirled around. “What?”

  He jerked his head toward the noise, touched his fingers to his lips, then stepped back, pressed against the wall, blending in with the shadows.

  Footsteps approaching. Is another man involved? He could hear his pulse thundering loudly in his ears.

  When Irene Dawson’s frumpy, floral-clad body stepped into the room, some of Rhys’s tension drained away. Between Eve and him, they would be able to handle whatever this matron could throw at them.

  “How dare you hurt my Timmy,” Irene roared. Why was Eve looking so terrified? She could take Irene down with her little pinkie. She must be in shock.

  He pushed away from the wall, took a step toward Irene, and that’s when he saw the deranged smile on her face and the gun in her hand leveled on Eve. “Time to die, bitch!” Irene shrieked, the noise and her rage amplified as the sounds in the chamber bounced off all the hard surfaces. He heard the snick and knew exactly what had made that sound. He saw her finger tightening, starting to compress the trigger.

  No time to think. No time for negotiations. A bellow erupted from his lips as he charged, trying to pull Irene’s focus from her intended target.

  Irene whirled. “You,” she spit out, her mouth twisted into a sneer.

  He heard a loud pop a split second before he crashed into Irene. His right shoulder jerked back as if someone had slugged him hard, his forward momentum knocking both of them down, him pinning her to the ground. Burning pain sliced through his shoulder as he yanked the gun from Irene’s hand and sent it skidding across the room.

  “The sheets,” he shouted, his voice sounding far away, odd to his ears.

  Eve ran over. Strips of sheets fluttering behind her. Once she had secured Irene’s hands and feet, Rhys pushed himself off the bound woman and to a sitting position.

  “Goddamn you—” Irene was shrieking, writhing around. “You ruined everything! You fucking—cocksucking—”

  Eve made the executive decision to apply a gag, effectively stopping the onslaught of swear words and spit.

  “Good job,” he murmured. He felt odd, light-headed.

  Eve turned and smiled, her face radiant. “You saved my—”

  He was trying to stay upright, but gravity won the battle, and the cool concrete floor rose up to greet him.

  Then Eve was beside him, pressing wadded-up fabric into his shoulder, the pain making the room spin. Her other hand patted his pockets, yanked out his phone. Punching in a number. “Oh please, God, no. Honey, Rhys, sweetheart, there’s no frikkin’ cell service down here,” she said, tears streaming down her face. She lifted his hand to his shoulder. “I need you to press here. Press hard. I have to go aboveground to call nine-one-one. I’ll be right back.”

  He heard her run down the hall and scramble up the ladder. “Help! Please. There’s been a shooting . . . The address? I . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t know. It’s on Manzanita Heights. Left-hand side of the road, just past Cranberry Road. Long driveway. Super-modern, twisted stainless-steel gateposts. Yes! That’s the one! The Dawson residence. Hurry! Please.”

  And then she was back, applying pressure to his shoulder, cradling his head. If this is death, he thought, it’s not half-bad. Eve crooned loving words he couldn’t quite make out, her blessed face like an angel gazing down on him with such love in her eyes.

  The darkness at the outer edges of his vision was seeping inward. Only a pinprick of her was left. I love you, he mouthed before she slipped away completely. I love you so much . . .

  Sixty-four

  EVE WAS PRESSING down on his shoulder as hard as she could, but still his blood, sticky and warm, seeped out from under the wadded-up fabric beneath her palm. Trickles of blood ran along the seams of her fingers, the curve of his biceps, staining his jacket and the concrete floor beneath him.

  She heard a vehicle tear up the driveway, doors slamming, voices calling her name. “We’re here!” she yelled. “Over here. Underground!” The sound of pounding feet headed their way. There was the faint wail of sirens approaching in the distance. Thank God Irene left the trapdoor open. The light spilling out is creating a beacon for rescuers.

  “Hold on,” she told Rhys. “Help’s on the way.” His face was pale beneath his tan, the color drained out, his lips turning a bluish tinge.

  She could hear footsteps descending, running down the narrow hall.

  “Eve!” Maggie burst into the room, Luke on her heels. “Thank God.” Her sister flung her arms around Eve. She could feel Maggie’s warm tears falling on the nape of her neck. “I was so damned scared.”

  Luke dropped to his knees beside her, ripped a strip of fabric off the sheets and applied a tourniquet just above the bullet wound. “Let me,” he said, his voice calm, strong, as he removed her hand and took over the compression on Rhys’s shoulder.

  The sirens were loud piercing howls now, the emergency vehicles screeching to a halt outside.

  “Be right back.” Maggie pressed a kiss on her head, then disappeared down the hall and up the ladder, hollering instructions to the emergency personnel.

  Sixty-five

  SITTING IN THE hospital waiting room, her back against the wall and her stomach in knots, Eve watched the minute hand jerk forward. “Why is it taking so long?” she murmured. “Why?” She had a death grip on Maggie’s hand. “Do you think he’s okay?”

  “I don’t know, honey,” Maggie said, her eyes dark with worry. “I hope so.”

  “Why did he throw himself into the bullet’s path? Who does that?”

  “I’d take a bullet for Maggie,” Luke said, “any day of the week.” Luke had been a godsend in the aftermath of the abduction and rescue. By the time the paramedics had Rhys in a cervical collar and strapped to a backboard, Eve could hear the blades of the medevac helicopter Luke had arranged for overhead. When the helicopter landed, the paramedics and Luke had Rhys waiting on the circular driveway, attached to a heart monitor, two large IVs in place. The police were still drilling questions at her about all sorts of weird, unrelated topics. For a moment, it looked like they weren’t going to let her travel to the hospital with Rhys, but Luke worked his magic. Promised to personally escort her to the police station for further questioning once Rhys was in the clear. On the flight to Seattle, Luke had roused his friend, who happened to be an eminent orthopedic surgeon, from her bed. By the time the helicopter landed, Dr. Shawna Soon was already at the hospital, scrubbed and ready to operate.

  When Eve had thanked Luke, he’d nodded like he hadn’t just moved heaven and earth. “In situations like these,” he’d said, “every second counts.”

  Eve watched the minute hand jerk forward again. Another sixty seconds gone. Another sixty seconds slipped past. Were they the crucial sixty seconds that meant the difference between life and death?

  The doors at the far end of the room swung open, and Dr. Soon stepped through, her eyes scanning the occupants in the waiting room. Eve was suddenly frozen in her chair, wanting to know yet scared to know.

  Luke stood. “Doctor’s here,” he said, stepping forward.

  The tug of Maggie’s hand, her upward momentum, broke through Eve’s momentary paralysis. She shot to her feet. “How is he?” she said, stepping forward, searching Dr. Soon’s face for clues. The surgeon looked fatigued. Was that a bad sign?

  “Rhys Thomas is a very lucky man,” Dr. Soon said, a faint smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “The bullet didn’t hit bone. Missed the brachial nerve plexus by a millimeter. The axillary artery was untouched. It could have been so much worse. That being said, he’s not out of the woods yet. There is always the possibility of a reactionary hemorrhage, acute myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, a secondary infection, fever . . .”

  “But the surgery was a success?” Eve asked. “He’s okay?”

  Dr. Soon nodded. “Yes.”

  “Can we see
him?”

  “He’s in the post-anesthesia care unit for recovery. It will be a couple of hours before you can see him. If you want to visit the cafeteria, maybe grab some breakfast. Or”—Dr. Soon glanced at Eve’s and Luke’s blood-caked hands and splattered clothes—“you could check into a hotel, have a shower, take a quick nap.”

  “Are you saying we stink?” Luke deadpanned.

  “Just giving you some options, Luke,” Dr. Soon said with a laugh. “Just giving you some options.”

  Sixty-six

  RHYS DRIFTED IN and out of a pain-fueled fog. Whenever his eyes flickered open, Eve was there, sometimes sitting in a chair beside his hospital bed, sometimes reading, sometimes not. Sometimes she would be standing, stretching her back as she gazed out the window at the bustling city beyond as the night bled into day and back into night again.

  Nurses and doctors would come and go, prodding and poking, the thrum of machines by his bed beeping and spitting out data.

  Sometimes her sister would be in the room and the two women would talk in quiet undertones. Other times he’d hear Luke’s voice, too, gruff and steady. But it was Eve’s voice that kept him tethered to the earth, as if it were an indestructible golden thread connecting his heart to hers.

  “I love you,” she’d whisper. “I love you so much . . .”

  Sixty-seven

  EVE SNAPPED A rubber band around the stack of twenty-dollar bills and wrote down the amount. Their monthly intake had been more than thirty percent higher. The café had been hopping. Nothing like a couple of murders and a kidnapping to bring the customers flooding in, she thought wryly. She paused momentarily, shut her eyes, and sent a prayer for safe travels for Levi’s soul. Whenever he popped into her mind, she would do this, hoping that in some way it helped. Poor Levi. It didn’t seem fair, cut down in his prime by a madman just as he was getting himself sorted out.

  Once her prayer was finished, she slipped the various rubber-banded stacks of cash and the deposit slip into the interior compartment of her purse. She zipped her purse and shut the cash register door.

  Eve closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, letting her residual sadness flow through the floorboard and into the earth below her. Be in the now, she reminded herself. Be in the present. Each day is a gift to be savored.

  When she felt centered, she reopened her eyes and glanced around the room. She liked the satisfied stillness of the café, when all the customers had gone. She could feel the weight of their earnings in her purse. It was a good feeling to have the week’s take tallied up, her purse stuffed full of money, both from the till and the safe in the office. The clouds had blown out and the afternoon sun had already started its descent and was partially tucked behind the roofs of the shops across the street.

  She pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. “Be back in fifteen,” she told Maggie, who was elbow-deep in pie dough. “Going to the bank.” She grabbed a delicate sugar cookie to nosh on her walk. “Oh, and good news on the art front. I queried an art gallery in Seattle and they’ve asked to see my portfolio.”

  “Eve, that’s wonderful,” Maggie said, smiling over at her. “Hey, Luke said Art Expressions Gallery near the boardwalk is really well respected.”

  “Tell me about it. Any artist would be over the moon to have their art hung there. But there is no way in hell they’ll take me on.”

  “Luke said the owner, Zelia Thompson, is really nice.”

  Eve laughed. “You’re so cute, Maggie. I love you to bits. But the fact of the matter is, Zelia Thompson represents established artists from around the world. Some of her artists even have pieces in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. There is absolutely no way she is going to waste her gallery space on a newbie like me. Don’t look so crestfallen. It’s the way things are in the art world.”

  Eve removed her black vintage coat from the coatrack and slipped it on. “Maybe someday,” she added, to cheer Maggie up. “In ten years or so, once I’m established, I can approach her, head held high. Gives me something to aim for.”

  A feeble ray of sun darted through the upper window, landed on her precious brooches, and created the familiar dancing rainbow flecks. “Hello, Grandmother,” she whispered, running her fingers lightly over them, then pushed the door open and stepped outside.

  “Beautiful day, huh?” she said, stepping around the large pile of autumn leaves that Larry was sweeping off the sidewalk in front of the café. What she really wanted to do was leap into the middle of them. Crunch them underfoot, throw huge armfuls of them into the air, and let their colored crisp beauty rain down on her.

  If it had been Rhys doing the sweeping, she totally would have. It would make Rhys laugh, and then he’d join in the fun, one-armed, of course, as the other was still in a sling.

  However, Larry was always so serious about doing things right. She might hurt his feelings by diving into the leaves. He’d think she was making fun of him.

  “Wow. That’s a huge pile of leaves,” she said, taking a generous bite of her cookie. The buttery goodness crumbled in her mouth, the crunch of the sugar adding sweetness and texture. Maggie is a cooking genius, she thought, wishing she had grabbed another. “Good work, Larry.”

  He just grunted, but she could tell that he was pleased. “Gonna be an early winter,” he said.

  Larry was probably right about that. There was a definite chill in the air. By the time she arrived at the bank she could feel that her cheeks, nose, and ears were a bright red.

  * * *

  • • •

  “WELL, I WAS able to make the deposits in the Intrepid Inc. account . . .” Jennie Schmitt tapped a few more keys on her keyboard and peered over her bifocals at the screen. “However, I’m having trouble with your mortgage. Appears to be shut down or something. It won’t accept payment.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.” A low-grade anxiety was starting to build in the pit of her stomach. “I know I owe hundreds of thousands of dollars. There’s some sort of mistake, and it needs to be sorted out, because otherwise I’m pretty sure I’m going to be stuck with late-payment interest-rate hikes, and I can’t afford any extra expenses.”

  Jennie held up a finger. “Can you hold on a minute? I’ll talk to my supervisor,” she said, pushing away from the counter.

  Eve waited. She forced herself not to glance over her shoulder. She didn’t want to see the disgruntled faces of the customers waiting in the teller line. The line that was considerably longer than it had been ten minutes ago. The palms of her hands were starting to feel clammy.

  She glanced down. There were a few sugar cookie crumbs clinging to the breast of her coat. Great. You’re a class act, Harris, she thought, discreetly brushing the crumbs off.

  When Jennie returned a few minutes later, a middle-aged balding man in a suit accompanied her. “This is our consumer loan manager, Wayne Dabney. He’s going to figure out what’s going on.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Harris,” he said, shaking her hand with his smooth, squishy one. “If you would come this way?” He had a radio announcer’s voice, which totally didn’t match his appearance.

  He led the way to a corner office in the back. “Now, let’s see what’s going on, shall we?” he said, settling in behind his desk. “Could I have your client card, please?”

  She handed it over. He glanced at her name, his eyebrows rising. “You the Evelyn Harris that was splashed all over the news? The one involved in that sordid mess with the Dawsons?”

  “I was stalked and abducted by them, if that’s what you mean,” she said firmly. There were some people in town who had been friends with the Dawsons for years and refused to believe the facts.

  “I was on the hospital board with Irene. Played the occasional round of golf with Timothy.” He shook his head. “Guess you never really know what darkness lurks inside people.”

  “No,” Eve said, keeping her face a
polite mask. “You don’t.”

  When it was clear no salacious details were going to be forthcoming, the loan manager reluctantly swiveled his chair to face his computer and punched in her data. “Well, they are both in prison now. Hard to imagine.”

  Eve didn’t respond. She was not interested in prolonging the conversation. The less she thought about the Dawsons the better. She just sat there with her spine ruler straight and her chin set.

  Mr. Dabney read through her file. “Hmm.” He leaned toward the computer screen, eyes intent, brow furrowed. “This is odd. Let me just . . .” He typed a little more.

  She watched as if her focusing on him would help sort things out, the knot in her stomach intensifying with every keystroke.

  “Huh.” He leaned back, the chair creaking slightly, and regarded her through steepled hands. “It appears, Ms. Harris, that you paid your mortgage off.”

  For a split second she was tempted to say, Thank you very much. So I did. Silly me. Bye-bye! and scamper out of the bank, cackling like a madwoman.

  Eve sighed. “No,” she said, shaking the impulse from her head. “I wish I had, but I didn’t. There must be some mistake. A wrong number inputted. Someone has paid off their mortgage, but it wasn’t me.”

  Mr. Dabney rolled his chair closer to his desk and typed a bit more. “Nope,” he said, angling his computer screen so it faced her. “See right here?” He jabbed his stubby finger at the screen. “Three weeks ago. October sixteenth. Paid in full.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Eve said firmly.

  “You sure?” He looked at her, mouth pursed to the side, like he was trying to figure out if she were pulling a fast one on him.

  It took a great deal of self-restraint not to roll her eyes. Hellooo? What kind of idiot pays for her mortgage in full and then forgets about it? She nodded politely. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Okay, then. Thanks for your honesty, Ms. Harris.” He quickly rotated the screen away from her, as if worried she might have a photographic memory and was memorizing secret bank stuff. “I’ll . . . ahem . . . dig a little further and get back to you.”