by Lisa Harris
Vince struggled beneath him, still strong despite the bleeding wounds.
One bullet had hit just below Vince’s collarbone on the right side.
Another had grazed the outside of his shoulder. Blood seeped there, but not nearly as much.
James pressed his weight onto his friend’s biceps and turned toward the mouth of the cave, where Cassidy stood, gun still trembling in her hands.
“Come closer. Aim at his head.” James turned to Vince. “You’d better stop struggling, or she’ll have no choice but to shoot you again.”
Vince glared past James at the woman standing behind him, but he let his muscles relax. Blood poured from his injury. Didn’t look life threatening, assuming they could stop the bleeding. “You wouldn’t let your girlfriend murder your old friend in cold blood, would you?”
James pressed his hand onto Vince’s wound, eliciting a scream of pain, and punched him in the jaw with the opposite fist. “You killed my sister.”
“I didn’t kill her.” He almost looked amused when his gaze shifted to Cassidy. “Hallie was still alive when they escaped. Cassidy killed her.”
To silence him, to keep the doubt from creeping in, James punched him again.
Vince’s head bounced off the hard floor. Tension leached from his body. Was he unconscious, or was he faking?
James flicked his gaze to Cassidy’s. Her skin was pasty white. The hands holding the gun still aimed at Vince’s head trembled. From having nearly been shot? Or from the truth Vince had just revealed?
If it was true.
James didn’t know what to think. “We need to bind him,” he said. The rest would have to wait. “Dig in my backpack. I have some rope.”
She did, and James rolled Vince over—no exit wound—and tied his hands behind his back. Then he grabbed the satellite phone holstered to his hip and handed it to Cassidy. “Call 911.”
She stepped out of the cave to make the call while James tied Vince’s feet together. He dragged the anvil—had to weigh a hundred pounds—nearer Vince and tied the rope to the hook. Just in case.
And for the sake of justice.
When he pressed the thin blanket Vince had left for Ella against the bullet wound, Vince screamed in pain. That bullet probably hurt like a hot poker on tender skin.
“Shut up,” James said. “I’m trying to save your life.”
“Why?” Vince’s voice rasped.
“Because you’re a human being, and vengeance is God’s, not mine.”
James needed to show mercy. No easy feat when fury coursed through his veins. Fury and fear.
Where was Cassidy? Where was Ella?
James dug in his backpack for his first-aid kit. Found antiseptic and poured some on the wound, eliciting another scream. This one made his stomach clench with sympathy. He unwrapped a handful of gauze and pressed it against the spot. Taped it in place. Blood was already seeping through, but that couldn’t be helped.
He threw the filthy blanket over his former friend to help with the shivers and shock.
James was standing to search for Cassidy when she stepped inside. “They’re on their way.”
He tried not to let his relief show—that she’d called 911. That she was still there. That Vince’s revelation hadn’t sent her running again.
With the light behind her, he couldn’t see her expression, didn’t know what she read in his.
“Where’s Ella?” he asked.
“She won’t come back in here.”
Made sense. “She okay?”
“Scared, mostly. I’m going to stay with her until they get here.” She disappeared outside again.
James tested the weight of the anvil, the knots in the ropes. Vince wasn’t going anywhere. Even if he could drag the anvil behind him—which James would surely hear—he wouldn’t fit through the passageway at the back of the cavern. And James and Cassidy would be at the mouth.
He snatched both guns from the floor and looked down at Vince’s weakened body—shivering, pale, bleeding. He tried to feel something besides anger.
His friend. But why? Why had Vince befriended him?
He resisted the urge to kick the wound, hated himself for considering it, and stalked outside.
Leaning against the stone wall, the little girl in her arms, Cassidy looked up at him.
And then Ella did, too. “Uncle James!” She launched herself at him.
He took her in his arms and hugged her tight, hid his tears in her messy hair. “Sweet girl, I’m so glad we found you.”
“I want my daddy.”
“I know. I know.” Over Ella’s head, he asked, “You have that phone?”
Cassidy held it up, and he rattled off a number. She dialed, then handed it to him.
“Hello?” In the single word, James heard defeat in Reid’s voice.
“It’s James,” he said. “I have Ella.”
“What? Where? Is she okay?”
He handed the phone to Ella, who said, “Daddy?” The word cracked, and she buried her face in James’s T-shirt, keeping the phone to her other ear.
With the girl so close, James could hear Reid’s calming voice, his promises to see her soon. Not asking all the questions that had to be filling his mind. Just being the gentle father he’d always been to his little girl.
James turned to watch the man in the cave, but Vince hadn’t moved.
They’d done it. He and Cassidy had saved Ella, together.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Cassidy couldn’t stop shaking.
She couldn’t stop hearing the gunshots.
She couldn’t stop seeing James on the ground. Those first few moments, she’d been sure he’d been shot.
Couldn’t stop seeing the killer’s gun pointed at his head.
Then pointed at her.
James had gotten off a shot before her.
Her bullet had grazed his shoulder. Not deadly, not where she’d aimed, but she should be thankful she hadn’t hit him in the chest. She might not want to live with having killed a man, even that man.
The killer had attempted a shot, but it had gone wild. Thank God. Thank God.
She and James and Ella had survived. Somehow, they’d all three survived.
James transferred Ella into Cassidy’s arms and returned to the cave to check on the man. His friend.
Ella wrapped her arms around Cassidy’s neck, her legs around her waist, and hung on as if she’d never let go. The feeling was so familiar, terrifyingly familiar, she had the urge to push the child away for fear of failing her as she had Hallie. But she didn’t. Ella needed her.
Finally, the faint whir of helicopter blades interrupted the forest’s eerie silence, growing louder. It landed in a distant clearing and, a few minutes later, armed men climbed the path.
A blanket was thrown over Cassidy’s shoulders. With James’s help and gentle assurances, Ella allowed a paramedic to pry her from Cassidy’s arms to examine her.
Vince was carried away on a stretcher, and one helicopter took off, allowing another to land.
Ella was taken to the second helicopter, and, after a quick kiss on Cassidy’s cheek and a tossed “See you soon,” James accompanied the little girl to the hospital.
Not until they were gone did a heavyset man with a gruff voice approach Cassidy.
“Detective Cote,” he said.
Her fake name hovered on the end of her tongue. When had she last said her own name, her real name, to another soul?
Ten years past. Ten long years.
“Cassidy Leblanc,” she said.
“Wanna tell me what happened?”
She watched as James and Ella were loaded on the helicopter. Ella was safe. James was safe. The killer was in custody.
She’d done what she’d come to do. Now she had to face the rest of it.
“Yes, I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The hospital was cold and sterile. As James followed nurses onto the elevator from the helicopter pad to the ER, Ella i
n his arms, he spotted hospital personnel, patients, and visitors, all acting as if life were business as usual. As if James hadn’t just shot a cop, shot his friend. As if he weren’t holding a little girl who’d been missing for eight days.
She’d cried the entire flight, terrified.
The moment the helicopter had touched down, she’d screamed for James to hold her. The paramedic had released her from the bed, and she’d scrambled into James’s arms and held on tight.
James followed nurses down a corridor and around a corner and down another corridor to a double door.
The nurse in front of them pressed a button on the wall, and the doors opened.
And there was Reid.
“Daddy!” The single word was broken by a sob as Ella nearly leapt from James’s arms into her father’s.
Reid snuggled his daughter, tears streaming down his face.
James had to wipe his own away. Not that anybody noticed. As Ella’s grandparents crowded around, James backed up, gave the family space for their reunion.
So few words were spoken. Just gentle touches, praises to God.
James was stepping out the door when he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.
Reid pulled him into a hug. “I can never… I’m sorry about—”
“We’re good.”
Reid backed up. “Where’s Cassidy?”
“Cote told me he was going to take her back to the station.”
“She in trouble? She didn’t do it, right? Not Ella, not Hallie. Was it Vince all along?”
“Yeah. Not sure if Cassy’s in trouble. I’m going to go find her now.”
Reid squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you. Thank you for”—he glanced at Ella, who was in her grandmother’s arms.
“I’m glad we found her. But the person you should be thanking is Cassidy. She made it happen.”
“I will. I can never…” But his voice faded as if there were no words. Maybe there weren’t.
After a quick kiss on Ella’s cheek and a promise to stop by the following day, James stepped into the ER waiting room, trying to figure out who to call for a ride home.
He realized he needn’t have worried when a uniformed Coventry police officer approached. “Mr. Sullivan?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, sir. Just have orders to bring you in.”
They stepped into the warm summer evening and walked to the waiting cruiser. “Am I in trouble?”
The man shot him a grin. “For saving a kid’s life? Hardly.”
It took nearly forty-five minutes to make the drive from Plymouth to Coventry, thanks to Friday night tourist traffic. Forty-five minutes during which James checked and rechecked his phone for a message, a phone call—something—from Cassidy.
Nothing.
Finally, they passed the front of the police station, where news vans and reporters had already congregated, and made their way around the building to the lot where official vehicles parked. The officer led him in through the rear door.
Inside, the room hummed with activity. Phones ringing, people moving about. When he’d come a few days ago, the mood had been solemn. The faces worried. Now, people seemed angry.
The killer was one of their own, and the good men and women on the police force were furious. James knew how they felt. Not only had he trusted Vince as a friend, he’d trusted him as a law enforcement officer. Vince had betrayed them all.
But Ella was with her father.
If only there’d been a happy reunion with Hallie and James and Mom and Dad. There’d been no reunion for them, not this side of heaven.
He let that thought settle. His parents and Hallie had celebrated their reunion, and it had been as beautiful, if not more so, than Reid and Ella’s. Mom and Dad and Hallie were waiting for James now.
They’d already gone home.
James was the one who tarried on this side of the veil.
Where hard truths needed to be heard and dealt with. Where pain and mourning still existed.
A uniformed police officer got his attention from across the room and waved him over.
James weaved through the space and into the small interview room where he’d been a few days earlier.
Inside, Cote sat at the far side of the table, and James took the seat facing him. He didn’t ask after Cassidy, though he wanted to. Cote would get to that.
“Tell me what happened.” Cote pressed the button on a recorder on the table. “Starting from when you were released yesterday.”
James recounted all the events, including Cassidy’s part. Ella was safe, and the killer was in custody. There was no reason to hold back now.
Detective Cote made notes as James spoke but mostly kept his gaze on him. When he was finished, Cote set down his pen. “That tracks with what Miss Leblanc told us. Anything you want to add?”
“Cassidy didn’t do anything wrong.”
Cote’s smile seemed indulgent. “That does seem to be the case. I’ve already spoken with her employer, who confirmed that she was in Seattle when both Addison and Ella were kidnapped, that she hadn’t missed a day of work until last week when she flew out here. As to Hallie—”
“Vince admitted it was him. He told me Hallie and Cassidy escaped…”
“I know,” Cote said. “I know what happened.”
Judging by the look on his face, it seemed Cote knew more than James did at this point.
“Sit tight.” The detective stepped out of the room.
James checked his phone yet again. Still no word from Cassidy. Was she in custody? Was she safe?
The door opened, and Cote held it open and backed up to allow another to enter.
Cassidy stepped inside. “Hey.”
James stood and pulled her into a hug.
She fit so perfectly, right there in his arms, her head on his shoulder, her face nuzzled in his neck. He could hold this woman forever. Much as he hated to do it, he leaned away. “You all right?”
She nodded, but her wary expression concerned him. Especially the way it was aimed at him, not the detective.
She turned to Cote and said, “We’ll let you know if we need you.”
Cote glanced between them, then closed the door, leaving them alone.
“What’s going on?” James asked.
“I need to tell you what happened.”
James’s heart thumped as he pulled the detective’s chair around so Cassidy could sit beside him.
He took her hands. “I know you didn’t kidnap my sister.”
“I didn’t. Everything happened just like I said. We ran into that… Vince person. Your friend?”
“I think he must have befriended me in hopes I’d lead him to you.” James had been thinking about it for days, ever since the thought first occurred to him that Vince could be the kidnapper. “That’s my best guess, anyway. Those first few years, he used to ask about you a lot. Ask if I’d heard from you—always prefaced with, ’I’m asking as a friend, not as a cop.’ Maybe he thought I’d give him a clue as to where you were.”
“That makes sense,” she said. “And then…?”
James shrugged. “At first, he was more of a mentor, since he’s so much older, but by the time I graduated college, we were just… friends.”
She nodded slowly. “I never saw his face back then. Today, I’d crept closer when I saw where you were. I was going to ask if you thought she was there. When he joined you, I hid. And then I heard his voice.”
James couldn’t imagine how that must have frightened her.
“He hadn’t had all the supplies up there like now.” Cassy’s eyes looked beyond James, her voice lowered to a whisper. “The first time he left, he came back with blankets, but nothing like what we saw today.
“When he got back the second day in the cave, he untied us so we could use the bathroom. Like he had the day before, he let us move around in the cave when he was there.” She faced James again, took a quick breath as if for courage. “I’d found the passageway the day bef
ore, but not in time to get us out. This time, the second he stepped out of the cave, I grabbed Hallie, and we crawled away.”
Just like Vince had claimed. They were alive when they escaped.
“I was so scared he would see us. I was so scared.” Tears dripped from Cassidy’s eyes, but he couldn’t comfort her, not until he knew the rest. He waited while she pulled a tissue from her jeans’ pocket and wiped her eyes. The tissue looked as if it had already seen its share of tears.
“I thought he would see us if I went to the path. Today, when I looked at it… He might not have. We might’ve gotten away. But I didn’t know. I just… I went down the first way I saw. The fastest way I could find.”
His stomach dropped as he considered what she was saying. He leaned closer to her, tried to infuse her with courage, with confidence. “You were trying to save her.”
“I was.” Her voice cracked, and she wiped her eyes again. “I told her to hang on, and I started down the cliff. We were almost there, not more than ten feet from the bottom, when… She slipped off. She just… she fell. I rushed down behind her, but…”
Her voice broke, and Cassidy’s sobs filled the room. “A million times, I’ve seen her there, her lifeless body on the rocks. She was gone. I knew it. But I just… I grabbed her and carried her. When we were safely away, I tried to revive her. But her head …” She blinked, as if trying to rid herself of the sight. “And there was so much blood…”
When Cassidy’s voice trailed, James tugged her close, and she rested her head on his shoulder. He couldn’t speak for the emotion clogging his throat. His sweet sister, gone so tragically.
So suddenly.
“I’m sorry,” Cassidy said. “I’m so sorry. I tried to save her. I did everything I could. It was my fault. I should have gone down a different way. I should have—”
“No.” He leaned back in his chair so he could look into her eyes. “You did your best. You could have escaped with your own life and left her with Vince. You stayed to save her.”
“I failed.” She glanced at the door. “This was the part that bothered Cote the most. He said the coroner said she’d only been dead two hours when they found her body. She’d been dead longer than that, but…” She sniffed, blinked a few times. “I wrapped her in my jacket, and I held her close. I think my body heat messed up the coroner’s… calculations or whatever. I don’t know how it works. I just… I couldn’t leave her. I thought… It was irrational. I thought if I could just keep her warm… I’m sorry, James. I’m so sorry. To you, your parents…”
