So it was over. Stephen’s murder had been avenged, and we were safe. It made me feel sick.
James brushed Cara’s cheek with the back of his hand and then patted my arm before he drew away.
And then he was gone.
“Cara,” I said, reaching for her.
“I’m here.”
“If you’d just listened to Nathan and stayed with the boat—” I started.
“Save it, Mom.” Her voice was faint and wispy. She cleared her throat, choked a little, and I wondered exactly how much water she’d swallowed. “You could simply say thank-you, you know,” she added.
She had saved my life.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Chapter 32
As disgusting as that mud was, I would gratefully have lain in it and slept for the next several hours, but that was not going to happen. I pushed myself into a seated position about the time that Nathan appeared.
“What was with that flare?” I demanded. “You could have gotten me killed.”
“The lights on the roof of the building weren’t working and I had to locate you. We’ll talk later. Right now we need to move it,” he commanded. He was wearing a wet suit and held a rifle with a strap. “The authorities will be here any minute. Half the coast must have heard the explosions and seen the fires. We’ll be lucky to make it out of here before they show.”
“I thought you said this place was scheduled for demolition.”
“It is. But people don’t like explosions in the middle of the night. They’ll report it.”
I forced myself onto my feet. “Cara. She can’t—”
“It’s all right,” Will said. “I’ve got her.”
He lifted her amid her protests and hefted her over his shoulder. Whatever her injuries, her mouth worked perfectly well. The four of us headed toward the water as quickly as we could manage, considering the darkness and the vegetation.
“I kept waiting for you to blow up the cafeteria with me in it,” I whispered to Nathan. Vines pulled at our feet.
“I considered it. I saw you go in, but I never saw you come out, not until you rolled through that broken window. I gave you a few seconds to clear before I set off the charge.”
“You were pretty adamant about the four-minute rule when we made our plans.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to live with Lexy. I knew that if through some miracle I survived all this, she’d kill me if I blew up her sister.”
I stumbled and he steadied me.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“By that time, on the roof of the dormitory.”
“James is helping us,” I told Nathan, realizing he might not know that, smarting again at how wrong I’d been.
“He was the one who pulled Cara out of the pool? Sort of figured whoever did that was on our side.”
“How do we get out of here?” Will asked, shifting Cara against his back. She was mumbling something, but none of us could hear her, which was just as well.
I heard a loud smack, followed by Will’s “Ow!” and realized Cara had somehow found enough energy to slap his rear, about the only part of his body she could whack considering how he was carrying her.
“One more pop and I’ll drop you headfirst,” he warned. “Or retaliate in kind.”
I could barely force myself forward, yet the “kids” were playing.
“Why do we need anyone else to beat up on us when we’ve got each other?” I asked.
Cara reared up and then collapsed. “You try being treated like a sack of flour. It’s hard to breathe hanging upside down.”
We passed through the gates of the compound and were almost to the edge of the cove. Nathan shushed them, and I immediately realized why. There was motion ahead. Moonlight shone on someone standing near the water’s edge.
Nathan pulled up his rifle. I no longer had a weapon. James had retrieved his before he left, and mine lay at the bottom of the pool. Cara was also unarmed. Will set her down and I put my arm around her to keep her upright as Will and Nathan went forward together.
The figure straightened. As he stood, I caught my breath. He didn’t raise any weapon, only his voice. “They’re all accounted for—my man and the three that came with Ian—all dead.” It was James.
Just as I’d figured: James had checked and then come to the water to wait for us.
I helped Cara forward. She was more in control now, putting on a better show than she needed to, and really glad to be off of Will’s shoulder.
“Will you be all right?” I asked.
“Perfect,” she said.
I shook my head at her, and I joined the men at the water. A splash split the water as Nathan dove in. Within minutes he was back with the boat, its outboard motor humming loudly.
“Move it,” he commanded. “We’re pushing our luck as it is.”
We had to wade out chest deep as the dock was in ruins. The water was so cold that my teeth chattered too hard to speak. James pulled himself into the boat, followed by Will. The two of them helped Cara and me aboard, and Nathan spun the boat around and out toward open water.
“We can’t just leave the bodies here,” I insisted, thinking of Ian. He’d brought Stephen home to me, just as he’d said. It didn’t seem right to leave him—or the others—on that abandoned island.
“We can’t very well take them with us,” James said. “Even if they are identified, they’ll never be linked to any of us.”
“Yes, but—”
“Let it go, Mom.” Cara heaved a sigh. “Even you don’t have to micromanage a shoot-out.”
Cara was right.
James was right, too. I had more worries than the authorities finding corpses on a small, abandoned island that had been ravaged by fire. I sank back against the side of the boat, shivering, and not just from the cold.
The five of us—Nathan, Will, Cara, James and I—took our soaked bodies back to Nathan’s place, taking turns in his shower. He clothed Cara and me in Josie’s too-big jeans and sweaters. They helped, but we were both still chilled to the bone. He offered Will and James some of his own clothes, but James had a bag in the back of his SUV down near the dock. Nathan’s clothes wouldn’t have fit him anyway.
Nathan gathered our old things into a large plastic trash bag, tied it and stuffed it behind some boxes in the back of his garage. He’d have to dispose of them later. We had something else we had to do first, and I wasn’t about to put it off another moment.
“You’re not going with us?” Cara asked James as he gathered his gear at the front door.
His gaze met mine. James had risked his life to save Cara, but I didn’t want him to know where Josie was, and I’m sure he knew it.
“It’s better if I don’t,” he said. “I’m headed back to Washington to report to Peter Hirsch. He needs to know that Ian is dead. I’ll be back here in two days to help in any way I can until Ackerman’s trial is over.” He hefted his bag onto his shoulder and withdrew his gun from his jacket pocket.
“You keep this,” he said, pressing it into my hand. “Promise me you’ll carry it with you at all times, in case Ackerman somehow gets wind of where you’ve gone. Promise me.”
I nodded and accepted the gun.
“Good. Two days. Here,” he repeated.
Cara hugged him. Will and Nathan shook his hand. I was grateful to him, but distrust dies hard.
He left and, ten minutes later, we took off, as well.
As we drove some hundred miles up the coast, I watched through the windshield of Nathan’s Hummer as the sun sparkled across the water and then began its rise into the sky. The ocean was starkly serene and somehow hauntingly lonely. Victory, knowing that people had died—especially Ian—offered an isolation and a coldness that I hadn’t expected. If I’d only trusted James from the beginning, perhaps things would have been different.
I’d cared for Ian, even if I’d never allowed myself to trust him completely. I found myself irrationally mourning him, mourning the quiet s
trength and the ready philosophy of the dedicated teacher, not the cold-blooded traitor who had crept up behind Stephen and snapped his neck. Intellectually I knew it must be true, but I still couldn’t accept that I’d been so thoroughly duped.
Ian had offered me answers, and maybe that was why I’d been so taken in by him. No, it was more than that. He’d made me feel an equal partner, so unlike Stephen who had kept even Josie’s existence a secret from me.
Cara stirred in the backseat, made a noise and snuggled down next to Will with her head on his shoulder.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Nathan said, glancing over at me and then back into the rearview mirror. We weren’t being followed. There’d been no cars on the roads in any direction for the past hour.
“I’m fine,” I assured him, not at all certain how my voice was going to sound when I spoke. I didn’t want him worrying about me. And I didn’t want him guessing what I’d been thinking about. “How much longer before we get there?”
“Forty-five minutes. Maybe less.”
“It’s not over,” I said.
“Not yet,” Nathan agreed. “Not until Ackerman is in prison for good.”
I settled back and allowed my eyes to drift shut. I’d think about Ackerman later. And Ian. I had someone else to concentrate on for the moment.
Josie was alive. And she was about to get one hell of a surprise.
Chapter 33
The house was a small, white, two-room cottage with a porch facing the inlet and a slanted tin roof. As we entered, we were met by the scent of something tealike and lemony, like what my mother used to make for my sister and me when we were sick. It was coming from a pot on the gas stove under the gingham-curtained window.
The front door had been left open, allowing air to sweep straight through and out the back door. That was where I walked and, through the screen, caught my first glimpse of Josie in half a lifetime. Her back was to me as she hung bed linens on a line, but I caught her profile and then her face as she moved easily in the early morning, unaware of my presence, clothespins in her mouth, positioning a sheet. The blueness of the water was full behind her, against the greenness of the grass that rolled almost to the water’s edge. The breeze picked up stray strands that escaped from the clasp that held her hair up off the back of her neck.
She took my breath away. I’d foolishly expected Josie to be given back to me as she’d been taken from me, a slim and vivacious young woman with rich brown hair cascading in ringlets down her back. Instead, the years had etched fine lines around her eyes, filled out her cheeks and added the slightest droop to her jaw. Her hair was blond now, no doubt fighting some gray, and she’d added some weight at her waist and in her thighs.
My eyes stung. She was beautiful. She looked a little like our mother. God. Our mother. She’d be frantic with worry, wondering why she couldn’t get in touch with me or Cara. But before long, she, too, would finally have our Josie back.
I pushed against the screen, and she looked up as the springs creaked. The end of the sheet she’d been holding dipped to the ground, the one corner pinned to the line keeping it high enough to flap in the salty breeze.
She stared at me, standing there in her doorway, and then her face crumpled. I, too, must have looked much as our mother had the last time she’d seen her.
“Don’t you go crying on me,” I insisted as I went toward her. I could feel tears welling in my own eyes. “You’ve got a hell of a lot of explaining to do.”
She grabbed me and buried her head against my shoulder, her tears soaking into my sweater, her arms so tight around me I could barely breathe. I held on to her, too, with all my strength, fearing that if I let go, for even a moment, she might evaporate out of my arms.
Josie passed the sugar bowl as we sat together at the small table. She was beaming, just like I was. I studied every little nuance to her movements. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She radiated life.
Nathan, Will and Cara had all gone outside onto the porch to give us time alone.
I passed the sugar back to her. The tea was naturally sweet.
“Since when did you stop putting sugar in everything you drink?” she asked.
“Since I hit forty. And you can stop with Mom’s diversionary tactics. I asked you a question—why did you run? You were never one to back away from a fight.”
Her eyes held mine. “It wasn’t me I was worried about.”
I could feel my brow crease. “Who, then?”
She looked at me as though I was dense. How many times had I seen that expression growing up? I never thought I’d see it again.
“You’ve been to my house, haven’t you?” She pushed the tray of biscuits and jam in my direction.
I searched my memory, and suddenly I knew what she was saying. The photos of her sons sitting on the mantel. They’d reminded me of Cara, but they’d also reminded me of someone else I couldn’t quite place. I should have guessed. Of course. The answer had been right in front of me.
“John and Stephen—they’re Nick Ackerman’s sons.”
She nodded. “I was three months pregnant when I left.
“How long had the abuse been going on?” I asked, feeling the muscles in my jaw tighten. How blind could I have been?
“It began a month or two after we were married.”
I felt my throat tighten. My sister had been in trouble, and I hadn’t helped, despite any suspicions I’d had. “You never let on.”
“Foolishly, I thought I could make him stop.” She forced her mouth into a smile. “I wasn’t so smart back then. When I discovered I was pregnant—”
“You knew you had to get out.”
“Don’t think less of me, Elizabeth.” Her eyes pleaded with me to understand, and I did. I shook my head, unable to speak. I could fault her for staying with Nick, but never for protecting her children. I would do anything for Cara. I’d expect her to do no less for my nephews.
“It wasn’t just me anymore,” she continued. “Nick threatened to take the children away—assuming I didn’t miscarry from his abuse—as soon as they were born, if I left him. With his family’s money, I had no doubt he would do just that. I couldn’t let an abuser raise my children.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, stifling the betrayal I felt. “I would have helped you, Josie.”
“I tried to the night Nick knocked me down the stairs. You weren’t home. I called Stephen’s apartment frantically looking for you.”
“You spoke with Stephen?”
“Yes, but Peter answered the phone. They were still rooming together back then. You’d gone over to Mom and Dad’s. Stephen was making spaghetti sauce.”
I’d forgotten how Stephen liked to cook. It’d been years since he’d made it for me.
“Peter could tell I was shaken up. Stephen got on the extension and they made me repeat exactly what Nick had said and done. Peter kept me on the phone while Stephen came to get me. I spent that night at their apartment.”
“You should have been in a hospital.” And Nick should have been in jail, the bastard.
“I was only bruised,” she insisted.
I reached across the table and covered her hand with my own.
“Stephen wanted to go after him,” Josie continued, “but Peter said no, that harming Nick would only ruin all of our lives and threats would do no good. He made me an offer. He said he had the money and the know-how to make me disappear. They’d both been trained in intelligence in the service. He said he knew people. They could provide me with a new identity and a place where I’d be safe. Peter warned me not to wait. But the condition, at least to begin with, would be that no one would know where I was.”
“And you agreed? Just like that?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I couldn’t imagine giving you up, giving up Mom and Dad, my friends, my degree, my future.”
“But they knew Nick.”
“You have to understand that I had no choice. Either Stephen w
ould go after Nick or I’d have to flee, because I knew Nick would hurt me or my children. I couldn’t ruin Stephen’s life, your life together—Elizabeth, you loved him so much—because I’d been so stupid as to get involved with Nick.”
I shook my head again. In her mind she’d been protecting both Stephen and me. What she didn’t realize was she’d created the first wedge of deceit that would ultimately drive Stephen and me apart.
No, Stephen, you and I did that on our own. You should have known never to lie to me.
“If Nick had been your husband, would you have risked Cara?” Josie asked.
Nick would never have been my husband, but she knew I’d never risk my daughter.
“Stephen and Peter could have done it together,” I insisted. “They knew how to dispose of Nick’s—”
“Listen to yourself,” Josie interrupted. “You’ve lost your reason. That’s what I was feeling. Stephen wasn’t a killer. You knew him better than anyone. He was a trained soldier, but this was different. He would have done it, but I couldn’t let him, not when there was any other way out. Peter kept talking to us, telling us that taking another person’s life would change Stephen.”
Hiding Josie had changed him. Letting Nick live had ultimately killed him.
“Surely you could have gone to the authorities,” I suggested.
“With what? There were no marks on my body that couldn’t be explained away, no documented history of physical abuse. Nothing but a threat I couldn’t substantiate, and Peter’s utter conviction I had less than twenty-four hours to act.”
A chill swept over me, and, despite the warmth of the cottage and the tea, I shook with cold. Nick had always scared me. He had charmed Josie, but looking into those eyes that never seemed to smile, I had seen the lack. His subsequent acts had borne out all our fears.
Josie closed her eyes and I could see the guilt etched in her face. “Stephen and Peter had warned me several times to stay away from Nick before I married him.” She opened her eyes and squeezed my hand. “But, Elizabeth, he seemed like the perfect man. He was well educated, handsome, so charming and so rich. I never saw his dark side. Not until after we married.
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