I rolled my shoulders and tilted my head side to side a few times before looking back down at the page.
Dear Grady,
Yeah, that was fine.
If you are reading this, I am probably dead.
I looked at the words. Definitely clichéd. A bit melodramatic. Wait, no, not melodramatic, because they were true. Besides how often does someone get to write those words and really mean it? If I was going to die, I might as well live a little.
I am really sorry things have turned out this way. Not just about my being murdered—although that really sucks—
I decided to throw in a little smiley face. I thought he’d want to know I kept my sense of humor to the very end.
—but about how things turned out between us. First, you probably know this, but it was never about you. It was about me. And you were right. I was afraid. Not about you. Or about the commitment.
Hmm, suddenly my throat felt tight.
It was about believing it could really happen, and being afraid of how good it could be. And I know that now. I know I could have counted on you. And me. I just needed to jump off the dock.
I drew a little heart there. Not that I was a heart-drawing type of girl, but docks had special meaning for us.
If I could go back, I would do it all so differently. And I’m not writing that to make you feel bad about dumping me—especially now that I’m dead. You were totally right to dump me. I would have dumped me too. I just wanted you to know that.
I pulled back.
Why was this so hard for me?
Just write it, Erica!
I meant the words today. I meant them that day back in the airport …
I could still see the smile on his face. The smell of his aftershave. The sound of his voice …
I love you, Erica.
Yup, he had said it. Those three little words everyone wants to hear. Four, if you count my name, which totally made it even better because, you know, there was no confusion about who he was talking about.
And he was so happy when he said it.
I was too!
And I was so ready to say the words back to him. They had been right there in my head, but they just wouldn’t come out. I had even opened my mouth, and—
It’s okay.
He said those two words without his smile faltering a bit.
I know it’s going to take you some time.
But it wasn’t okay. It really, really wasn’t.
Then he had turned, bag on his shoulder, smile on his face, and he had walked through the gate, throwing me a wave.
At the time, I had nearly convinced myself that everything was fine. Better than fine. I had always wanted to hear him say those words.
And for a little while, everything was still great.
But those were heavy words to sit between two people. Open-ended. Hanging like an unspoken question.
And there were so many times I was going to say it. I was ready to say it. I knew it was true. But every time I went to … well, it was either over the phone, or the moment didn’t seem quite right. And then the pressure grew, and the silence of not saying them was deafening. And then he kept asking for more details about when I was moving home … if I was moving home … if he should look into moving to Chicago … and I didn’t have any of the answers. And I didn’t want to say it then because it would have just seemed like I was saying it to hang onto him, and that wasn’t it at all.
And I didn’t want to ruin the moment.
Because those three words should be good, happy words. Like they had been for him in the airport.
I had missed my chance.
Well, I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
I stared at the sheet of paper lying on the table in front of me. This might truly be my last chance to tell Grady how I really felt.
Come on, Erica, I thought, gripping the pen. Do or die time. Or do because you’re going to die.
I love you.
I dropped the pen like it was hot and leaned back in my chair.
Wow, that really hadn’t been that hard. In fact, all of a sudden, I wasn’t quite sure what I had been so afraid of.
I quickly signed my name at the bottom of the page, then folded the paper up, wrote Grady on the front, and shoved it in my back pocket. Wasn’t very likely it would get bloody back there.
I stood up and gave my spine a stretch before I jolted when the movement opened up the scratch I had on my back from the nail in the shed door. Despite the searing pain, I was feeling much better about things. That had been a big step, and if we did in fact manage to survive this thing, which was looking more likely with every passing minute—
Suddenly my mother jumped to her feet, sending Caesar scurrying.
“Do you smell smoke?”
Chapter Forty-six
“I do.” I inhaled deeply. “That’s definitely smoke.”
We had purposely let the fire Chuck had started die out because we didn’t want to attract the killer’s notice, but suddenly I was more worried that the killer might be trying to attract ours.
“What do we do?” Kyle asked, eyes darting around the room. “Where’s it coming from?”
“Stay calm,” I said, darting from window to window then down the hall. Flames! Big flames! Rippling in the wind from the now open window in the back room! “We got to go!” I shouted running back down the hall.
“We’re trapped!” Kyle was at the front door, holding a doorknob up in the air. “I can’t get it open.”
I ran over to him, coughing. The smoke was thick already. I tried to pry the door open by squeezing my finger into the small gap between the door and its frame, but it was no good.
“Do something!” Kyle shouted. “We’re going to die in here!”
“No. We are not.” My eyes jumped around the room until they landed on my mother over by the fireplace yanking at something.
The old shotgun mounted on the wall!
Good call, Summer.
I snatched Brody’s gun off the table and passed it to Kyle before gripping the rungs of one of the kitchen chairs. I hoisted it up, and I hustled over to the window, shouting, “Watch yourselves!” I swung the chair sending its legs crashing into the glass.
It must have been a pretty good swing because the entire window shattered, driving big shards of glass to the floor.
“Let’s go!” I shouted, waving Kyle forward.
He shook his head no.
I coughed, waving my hand at the smoke. “Come on!”
“He’s out there!”
I looked back into the dark beyond the window. He had a point, but we didn’t have a choice. We at least had a shot out there. If we stayed inside, we’d die for sure. “Kyle, I know you’re scared, but—”
“He lit this fire to get us out there,” Kyle snapped. “As soon as we step out that window. He’ll pick us off. One by one!”
Suddenly the sound of a shotgun being loaded snapped our heads around. “Then he can start with me,” my mother said.
“Mom?”
“Erica, grab the cat and your gun. Kyle, hold the flashlight.” My mother marched toward the window, barrel of the gun leading the way. “Chuck, follow me.”
“Anywhere,” Chuck said, scurrying after her.
Kyle scooped up the flashlight from the table. “I still don’t like this.”
“Hey, at least you’re not carrying the cat.” I heaved Caesar up into my arms. I cradled him with my gun hand then waited from him to secure himself with his claws. Yup, there we go, I thought, hissing the pain out. The cat was secure.
“Ready?” my mom called out from the window.
Kyle and I nodded.
“We head for the old stone shed out back.”
“What if the killer’s in there?” Kyle asked.
My mom cocked the gun. “Then we end this thing.”
She stepped through the window first, followed by Chuck.
“What’s going on with her?” Kyle yelled over the wind, now
howling through the room. “Is she in shock or something?”
“No, she’s good,” I shouted back, blinking my eyes in the swirling smoke. If nothing else, Summer was a woman of extremes, especially when it came to my safety. “Sometimes you just don’t want to mess with her.”
He shot me a confused look then—
BOOM!
Chapter Forty-seven
My mother fired the shotgun into the air before waving us through the jagged frame, shouting, “Go! Go! Go!”
Kyle went first. I hobbled after him with Caesar.
The wind howled around us, pounding and rattling the tin roof of the porch.
“Let’s go!” my mom yelled, pushing us forward. “Kyle, hold that light up!”
Kyle fumbled with the flashlight. “But he’ll see us!”
A horrible metal screech ripped through the air as the wind tore the porch roof up and away. “We can’t stay here!” I shouted. “Let’s go!”
Kyle pointed the flashlight as we pushed against the wind toward the side of the cottage. I tilted my face down and away from the onslaught. With the light of the fire growing by the second, I could see what I hadn’t been able to before.
The boat.
Ted’s boat from the marina. The bodyguard had known about the twins’ place all along. He had done his research. I thought about trying to get the group to head there instead, but the shed was closer, and I didn’t like how exposed we were. Besides, judging by the way the boat was rocking, it was going to be on its side any second.
As soon as we stepped down from the porch away from the security of the cottage, the full wrath of the storm hit us. Rain and dirt whipped my cheeks. A bright flash of lightning cracked overhead. Lightning. Sure. Why not?
“There!” I shouted. The tiny stone shed appeared in front of us about a hundred yards away. “Kyle! Keep the light on it!”
We pushed step after impossible step forward.
Somewhere in my consciousness, I knew we should still be afraid of the murderer, but even with all the killer had in his unknown arsenal, it was nothing, nothing, compared to the power of this storm. We were all meaningless in this moment. Bugs washing away into the gutter.
“We’re almost there!” my mother shouted. “Hang on!”
She stopped just at the entrance, planted her left foot on the ground and kicked the wooden door. It flew open, door latch dropping to the ground.
Oh, thank you, I thought, staring into the little dirt room illuminated by the weak beam of Kyle’s flashlight. Empty.
Then the light was gone.
We were plunged into darkness again. The glow of the fire barely reaching us.
“Kyle?” I shouted. “Where’s the light?”
Nothing.
“Kyle! Stop messing around!”
I whipped around trying to see … something … anything …
My voice dropped. “Kyle?”
But he was gone.
Chapter Forty-eight
I dropped Caesar and took off blindly in the direction I had last seen Kyle. Frick! I was going to fall. I could barely see the ground. The glare of the fire was messing with my eyes.
Wait? There!
Was that a light?
I spotted a glimmer just around where I thought the trail back to the retreat should be.
I took another hurried step forward, but the ground rolled under my foot, dropping me on my back.
The flashlight! I had tripped on Kyle’s flashlight. I ran my hand over the mucky earth until I found the metal cylinder and flicked it on.
“Erica! What is going—”
My mother’s voice cut off sharply with a yelp.
“Mom?” I jumped to my feet and spun the beam of the torch around. She was collapsed on the ground, holding her ankle, Chuck kneeling beside her.
“Summer!”
“Are you okay?” I asked rushing to her side.
“I think I just wrenched it,” she shouted.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Chuck moaned. “I got scared, and I fell on her.”
I shone the light down on her ankle. Oh, sweet lady marmalade, that was not a sprain.
“Get me up. Let’s go after him,” my mom shouted in my ear.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said, wrapping my arm around her waist, lifting her to her good foot. “Let’s get you in the shed.”
“What? No. I’m fine,” she shouted. “Look, it’s just a flesh—” Just then she looked down as the bouncing beam of the flashlight hit her dangling foot. “Oh dear. That’s not good.”
“No. No, it isn’t.”
“It’s all my fault,” Chuck moaned.
“No, it’s not,” my mother yelled. “This never should have happened. Not with all the kale I have been eating.”
“But all calcium aside, I weigh a good two hundred and seven—”
“Not important!” I shouted. “Hurry! I need to go after Kyle.”
“But how do you even know where he is?” my mother asked, hopping toward the shed, Caesar was waiting for her at the mouth of the door, looking just fine.
“He’s at the retreat.” It was my only guess. I couldn’t help but think that whoever was doing this, Brody, I guess, was still trying to get away with it, and that meant he still had to stage a crime scene. I hoped … otherwise I was already too late.
No. No way.
A familiar heat suddenly swelled in my chest.
The kid was my responsibility.
I had promised that I would take care of him.
I had promised.
I felt my heart rate pick up.
I was so tired of this night. This storm. This killer.
But more than anything, I was tired of being afraid.
I needed to go. Now.
“Erica,” my mother said as I eased her to the dirt floor. “You are not going up there. I won’t have it.”
“Sorry, Mom,” I said straightening up. “But I’m going. He’s a kid.”
Her eyes rounded. “But you’re my kid.”
I gripped the flashlight, knuckles burning with the cold. “I have to try. He doesn’t have anybody.”
Chuck eased my mother’s back against the wall of the small stone structure, placing the twins’ shotgun on her lap. “I’ll take care of her. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Just as I was about to leave, my mother grabbed my wrist. “Stop. Just slow down a second. I know that look on your face.”
I didn’t have to ask her what look. She was probably seeing all the rage threatening to blind me.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, taking a step back, making her drop her grip. “I love you, but I have to do this.”
“And I’m so very proud of you for that.” She shook her head, all sorts of pleading on her face. “But I love you, too, honey. And Kyle, I’m sorry, but he could already be gone.”
“I have to try.”
“Erica, please listen. If this person after us really is a trained killer…” She shook her head again. “With your temper? I just don’t want you to…”
“What? You don’t want me to what?”
The struggle to find the right words warred across her face. “I don’t know. Poke the bear?”
“Poke the bear? Poke the bear? Me?” I patted my chest. After this night of poison, and guns, and concussions … and snow, and ice, and sleet … oh yeah, and vomit, I couldn’t forget about the vomit … after all of that, she was nervous about me poking the bear? “You don’t need to worry, Mom.”
“Why not?”
“Because, right now, I am the fricking bear.”
My mother dropped her face into her hands. “Goddess, help us all.”
Chapter Forty-nine
Oh, I was angry. So very, very angry.
In fact, I was so angry I wasn’t even registering the storm anymore, or if I was, it was just making me madder. Oh sure, this assassin most likely had a lot of advantages over me. But here’s the thing: He also most likely had a vision of ho
w this was all supposed to go down—kind of like a trail of dominoes around a room—to cover up who was behind all of this and make his getaway. But the problem with dominos is that it only takes one missing piece to stop the whole thing in its track—and I knew with every part of me, if I could just get close enough, I was about to toe punt the whole friggin’ lot of them!
Once I made it to the top of the trail that opened to the grounds of the retreat, I clicked the flashlight off and crouch-ran toward the back of the lodge the way I had seen professional military types do in the movies. It probably didn’t look at all like it was supposed to, given the fact that I was trudging through heavy, wet snow, but it felt right.
I had almost made it to the back steps when I heard something strange.
I froze.
There it was again.
It almost sounded like a distant—
“Help!”
A woman’s voice. And it sounded like it was coming from somewhere near the canoes.
I clicked on my flashlight, but kept it pointed at the ground.
“Help!”
Crap. I didn’t have time for this, but maybe it was Rhonda.
“Please!”
I trudged my way through the snow, about half the distance, then lifted my flashlight. I saw something move, but I couldn’t quite make it out. I took a few more steps forward then my beam hit someone’s knees? Under a canoe? I yanked the light up and—
“Ashley?”
Chapter Fifty
The beam from my light caught Ashley’s miserable face. Her mascara was smeared in black clouds under her eyes, and her lips were almost blue. The top part of her body was huddled under a canoe on two saw horses, but her lower part was sticking awkwardly out in front of her, and … wait, was that Ronnie sprawled across her lap?
“What are you two doing here?” I yelled, shooting a look back at the lodge. “Is your mother…?”
“Passed out. She came to find me.” Ashley shook her head, looking even more miserable. “Even after everything I said. She still came to find me.” She tightened her hold on her mother’s shoulder. “She probably saved me from freezing to death.”
Ronnie did look kind of like a blanket spread across her daughter’s lap. A heavy, snoring blanket.
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