Piper frowned, let the words settle in. “At all?”
“At all. I didn’t like how close it was the other day when we went in the river. This is the only way to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“I disagree. I’m just as much in danger anywhere at this point.” Piper didn’t like it, but it did seem like it was true. “I want to keep working it.”
“You don’t get a vote here.”
“In my own life?” Piper stood up, needing the space between them. Her face had tensed into a frown as soon as the last sentence he’d spoken had come out. Had they gone so quickly from optimistic and in love to this? Judah wasn’t the controlling sort; she’d been so sure of it. “Are you kidding me, Judah? That’s not how this works!”
“How what works?”
“Having a relationship with someone.” She spewed the words out, watched their impact as Judah’s face changed and fell.
“You’re right.” He was looking right at her, meeting her eyes, but there was no trace of the connection they’d had just half an hour earlier. Instead his expression was somber. “It’s not how that works. But my first priority is to keep you safe, Piper. Maybe I wasn’t wise to try to have a relationship with you while I was still working the case, but...”
“You can’t do that.”
“Keep you safe? Yes, I can.”
“You can’t, Judah. And you can keep trying, and I hope you succeed, but ultimately God is the one who decides how this all ends. He’s protecting me.” The words surprised her when they came out of her mouth, but she realized they were true. This experience was allowing her faith to grow back, replacing some of what had been damaged while she was dating Drew.
He shrugged.
Shrugged.
It was too familiar for Piper, having her opinions shrugged off, being told what to do, having decisions made for her about her own life. Judah was right. They shouldn’t be doing this. Couldn’t be doing this.
“You were right before. You don’t know how to have a relationship.” Piper took aim and released the words.
Judah said nothing.
It appeared that they had the impact she’d intended, but instead of making her feel less pain, she only felt more. Now she was hurting and so was he.
Piper ran to her borrowed room and shut the door.
Now all she could do was cry and hope he solved this case. Because she never wanted to work closely with Judah Wicks again. Not after coming so close to happily-ever-after with him. She’d never met another man like him, certainly never kissed another man like him.
And they’d both detonated a bomb before their romance had much of a chance to begin. They’d both made their choices, said things they should have thought through more. She had been so sure that Judah was different, that he wasn’t the kind of guy to make decisions about her life for her or act like she shouldn’t have her own thoughts. But wasn’t what he was doing the same thing Drew had done to her?
Even if he was doing it for her own good, Piper didn’t think she could handle that. He would always think he knew best, and that was too similar to what she’d been through before.
Wasn’t it? Even now, Piper’s emotions warred against each other. Was it hopeless between them? She didn’t know.
But it felt like it right now.
Somehow, Piper was going to have to figure out how to be content with her life the way it had been a mere week ago. Before Judah had walked back into her life and showed her what it could be like.
Before she’d started thinking about forever.
Love.
What did either of them know about love?
* * *
It didn’t feel like Piper should have any more tears left, but they kept falling, dancing down her cheeks in rivers, hours later. She was home now, in the security of her own room. Whether it had been a wise decision to leave the safety of Levi and Adriana’s house was debatable, but Piper hadn’t wanted to be there anymore, in a place with such a connection to Judah. She’d wanted to be home, so that’s where she’d gone, and where she was now, her thoughts still spinning in circles, her emotions still in turmoil.
Judah’s motivations and Drew’s were different; that was the thought she kept coming back to. Was she right? Probably? She didn’t know anymore. The last thing she wanted was to be one of those women who fell into a cycle and couldn’t get out, who lied to themselves about what they were experiencing, who excused a man’s behavior to their own harm.
But Judah wasn’t...wouldn’t...
He’d made choices for her, without her permission. He’d left her out of a case that he’d invited her into. And he’d justified himself by saying he knew what was best.
Piper couldn’t live like that again. She had come too far to go back to that woman she’d been years ago. In fact, she wouldn’t recognize herself if she became that again.
She swiped at her cheeks, angry at all of it. She was angry that she’d gotten her hopes up, that she had really thought...
Well, she had thought she loved him. And that he loved her.
And that maybe she was going to get a happily-ever-after. How ridiculous was that?
Drew’s voice echoed in her ears. You don’t deserve to be happy. You don’t deserve to be treated any better. Those and other familiar, cruel statements ran through her mind, and Piper did her best to block them out. But how did you unlearn lies you had been told and then clung to as truth?
She pulled the covers over her head, knowing that even though it was only just past five in the morning, it wasn’t likely that she would get any more sleep.
Eventually she’d give up on sleep and go downstairs, but she wasn’t very eager to now. Judah had sent over multiple cops since she’d insisted on going back to her own house. Adriana hadn’t been thrilled with her for leaving, but even though they were friends it still felt weird to stay with Judah’s brother when she and Judah were hardly even speaking anymore.
There was an officer outside her house, patrolling the perimeter, and one inside downstairs. Hence her lack of eagerness to leave her room. It would be strange enough on a normal day to have someone aware of all your activities, but on a day like today, when she just wanted to be alone and cry over what might have been and wasn’t, Piper couldn’t imagine facing other people just yet.
She’d just started to nod off again when her phone buzzed on the bedside table. She ignored it the first time, but when it went silent and then started going off again, she grew concerned, reached for it and answered.
“Hello?”
“Piper, it’s Jake. I know I promised we wouldn’t call unless we absolutely needed you.”
Piper was already throwing back the covers and grabbing a pair of hiking pants to pull on. “But?”
“We need you.”
“Fourteen-Mile River?”
She heard the hesitation in Jake’s voice. “No. Someone tried to walk out on the mudflats.”
Even worse. Everyone from Raven Pass, down at the farthest corner of Turnagain Arm up to Anchorage at its mouth, knew about the danger of the mudflats. Still, every summer people insisted on walking in them. The thick glacial silt acted like fast-setting concrete when it got wet and there were decades of horror stories of the horrible ways people had died when they’d become trapped.
It was a slow, painful way to go, one where the person dying was fully conscious as the tide rose and took away their hope one wave at a time.
And then they were gone.
“I’m on my way.”
“Piper.” Jake blew out a breath. “I hated to even call you. I don’t know, could it be a trap? Judah told me the basic gist of why someone is after you a couple days ago, and I told myself I wouldn’t call you in for any reason, because I don’t want to risk putting you in danger. But it’s at the mouth of Fourteen-Mile River. You and I are the only ones wh
o can operate the boat and I’d rather have both of us there in case anything goes wrong. But it’s a risk. I don’t know who is stuck out there and I don’t know how they got there.”
She was pulling her shoes on now. “But someone is for sure out there?”
“That’s what the caller reported.”
Unease ate at Piper’s gut. It could be a trap. But she couldn’t let fear for her own life keep her from doing her job. And she didn’t have time to deliberate.
“And how long until high tide?”
“A few hours,” Jake said.
It sounded like a lot of time, but Piper knew it wasn’t. This was a do-or-die kind of situation, one where Piper didn’t have any extra time to make decisions. Those decisions were heavy with the weight of someone else’s life.
“I’m on my way.”
“Piper?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
Piper hung up the phone and hurried down the stairs, then briefly explained to the officer assigned to her where she was going. As she’d expected, the woman wasn’t thrilled. And Piper understood. The last thing she wanted to do was to be foolish and take risks that weren’t necessary when the stakes were so high. But this was her job, something that meant a lot to her, and more important, it was someone’s life on the line.
What about your life? She could almost hear Judah’s voice in her head. But last night, Judah had lost all right to have a say in her decisions.
Checking outside carefully, Piper walked to her car and started it up. As she’d expected, one of the officers climbed into the squad car and prepared to follow her. That was fine with her. They wouldn’t be able to be with her all the way to the river, but she’d take any kind of backup she could have.
Jake sometimes carried a gun with him, more for bears than anything else, but that could help also.
She was lying to herself, Piper knew. She was sugarcoating the danger in an attempt to justify what she was doing. It was funny, she thought as she drove, how she could separate herself from the situation and see what she was doing, make value judgments about it. It was probably an indicator that she was doing something she shouldn’t be doing, or that at the least she was doing something that was worth more thought, but this had a time limit attached to it. The tide was already on its way in. She had no more time.
Piper parked at SAR headquarters to find Jake hitching up the trailer. She helped him finish up and then climbed into the back seat of the truck. Ellie was already in the front seat. Ellie was a strong team member.
“All right.” Jake climbed in and started driving. Piper looked back to see that the Raven Pass Police Department squad car was behind them. “We got the call half an hour ago. High tide is now two and a half hours away.”
“How far into the arm are they?”
Jake shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“You took the call?” Piper asked.
He nodded. “Remember? I told you someone called it in.”
Dread started to build inside her. “It wasn’t the person who was stuck who called?”
Memories of Randy, the intoxicated man in the canoe, made dread creep over Piper’s shoulders. It had been called in fast, fast enough that Piper had actually been able to save him. Someone had called this rescue in at three hours to high tide. Just enough time to think they had the chance to perform a rescue. It involved water, something Piper was good at. Her specialty.
Everything pointed to it being like the others. Someone else being killed, but this time Piper was being lured there intentionally to kill her, too.
Maybe. Was she overreacting? Letting fear control her? How much fear was healthy and how much wasn’t?
Her thoughts turned to the potential victim. Who was this victim, she wondered, and what connection did he or she have to the mine?
“I can’t do this,” she heard herself say, her rapidly pounding heart rate making her chest feel constricted. “I’m sorry, Jake. I think you were right to say it might be a trap.”
“You think?” He looked over at her.
“Piper, if you’re wrong...” Ellie didn’t have to finish the sentence. Piper got it. If she was wrong, her not being there would complicate the rescue and could cost someone their life.
But at some point, didn’t she need to acknowledge that her life was worth saving, too? That no matter how much she tried to prove her worth by saving other people...
She was already worth something. To God.
Her value wasn’t tied to Drew. Wasn’t tied to Judah.
God said she mattered.
God, don’t You want me to try to save someone, though? I want to do this for You. I want—
Piper didn’t see the oncoming car until right when it swerved into their lane, clipping them from the side. She heard her screams, Ellie’s, Jake’s, as the SUV tumbled off the road, the trailer throwing them even more off balance. The river wasn’t far in that direction, and if they went over the cliff, they’d land in the river—for sure.
The car landed hard and stopped. Piper’s mind swam. Her head throbbed. She could taste blood in her mouth.
Had someone hit them on purpose or had they truly been in an accident? Piper didn’t know what to think anymore.
Except that she wished Judah was here, she thought as she lost consciousness.
SIXTEEN
Judah had been needed on patrol, so he was having to take a forced break from Piper’s case. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, because his mind was already heavy with her and with regret. Thinking about her even more wasn’t going to help.
Not that he had been able to avoid thinking about her on patrol, either. He drove past the crag where they’d first climbed together and wished they could do it again. Then he drove through a few little Raven Pass neighborhoods and noticed a couple walking with a toddler.
His mind had done all kinds of things with that one. What would it have been like to marry Piper? To actually make it work and have a family together?
Judah wasn’t a quitter and he hadn’t wanted to give up on Piper, but when she’d told him to leave last night she’d seemed pretty certain, so he’d left. It wasn’t until he’d gotten home that he wondered if he should have fought harder, should have made sure she knew that walking away from her was the last thing he wanted. But he’d hurt her when he’d told her he was going to work the case alone.
Wasn’t that what love did? Didn’t it protect people? Or was he protecting Piper from possible hurt when that really wasn’t his job?
God, I don’t understand how this is supposed to work, but I know that I love her. Please don’t let me lose her.
He had really thought this was his second chance. And he had wanted it to work so badly.
The scanner crackled. An accident had just happened on Birch Street, above Fourteen-Mile River, and police presence was required.
Judah turned around and headed in that direction, doing his best to keep his mind on his job. “Unit Eight responding,” he said into the radio.
More chatter on the scanner. The vehicle was being described. Judah turned up the volume and listened.
It was the Raven Pass SAR team SUV, with the boat and trailer.
Piper wasn’t working, though. She should still be at home with the officers he’d sent over there.
So why did it feel like his heart had dropped into his stomach? Surely he was overreacting. Except it didn’t feel that way. He pressed down harder on the gas, wishing it was possible to get to the scene of the accident even faster. Thankfully, Raven Pass was a small town, so it wouldn’t be more than about three more minutes, but when minutes mattered, three felt like too many.
She had to be okay.
Judah pulled up to the scene. Other officers were on the scene, and they were already working on pulling people out of the vehicle.
Fir
st was Ellie Connors. Judah hurried over to help and was there when they got Jake Stone out of the driver’s side. His temple was bleeding and while he was conscious, he looked to be in the worst shape. It made sense, given the fact that the driver’s side had borne the brunt of the impact.
“That’s all,” an officer said; Judah didn’t see who. “Vehicle is clear.”
“No.” Jake moaned the word as an EMT who had just arrived loaded him onto a stretcher. “Piper was here.”
Piper was...
“Judah!” He heard the scream but didn’t see her. The area was becoming more crowded with people, as traffic had slowed down at the accident site. The movement was dizzying as Judah turned his head left, then right, searched the trees and brush for some sign of Piper.
His gaze went to the river. No sign of anyone in there, which was good. Piper had managed to get out safely the other day, but to defy the odds twice would be remarkable. Besides that, there was a possibility she was injured from the car wreck.
Judah didn’t want to think about how badly she could be hurt and definitely didn’t want to think about how she could have disappeared from the crash site.
Except it was obvious. She hadn’t walked away on her own. So someone had taken her. Most likely the person they had been searching for this whole time.
God, please let her be okay. Judah felt his shoulders tense and took a deep breath. Adrenaline did funny things to people. He couldn’t afford for it to mess him up right now.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed the police chief. “I’m at Fourteen-Mile River. Piper is missing and I think she’s been abducted.”
The chief asked him a few questions; Judah clarified things and slid the phone in his pocket. Then he thought better of it and texted Levi. Piper is missing. At Birch Street accident. Help. He’d so rarely asked his brother for aid, his little brother, that it still felt strange. But this wasn’t the time to let his pride make decisions for him. Judah wanted as good a chance as possible to find Piper safe.
He hurried into the brush near the river, walked closer toward the water. On this side, the land rose into a bluff. He could walk down to the river if he went south a little, but from where he was, there was a drop. He didn’t want to get too close to the edge.
Alaskan Mountain Attack Page 15
