Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(114)

Dead wrong—that’s for damned sure.

Jerry Thompson is dead because he went to prison for crimes he didn’t commit, and now . . .

I know I’ve asked you for a lot lately, Rocky prays, remembering the two little blond girls, Allison’s daughters. But please watch over those children, the girls and the baby boy. Please keep them safe from harm, and if that isn’t your will, then I beg you to deliver them quickly. Please don’t let them suffer. Please . . .

Nothing is going to stop Mack from getting to his kids in the water.

Nothing—no one—is going to get in his way.

As the stranger races toward him, he raises the gun.

Seeing the weapon in the instant before Mack fires, his target suddenly spins around. He doesn’t run away; he’d have to know that would be futile. There’s no place for him to go.

Instead he goes still, like a child playing freeze tag, almost as if he’s waiting . . .

Bastard.

Mack pulls the trigger.

Taking the bullet in the back, his target falls to the ground without a sound.

Mack streaks past him, not caring, not seeing anything but the Jeep, still visible but already starting to tilt and submerge.

He runs straight to the end of the jetty and dives in, arching as far out as he can to avoid the cruel rocks beneath, thinking only of his children trapped inside the sinking Jeep.

He surfaces beside it, gasping for air as bracing waves wash over him. The door is still open and he reaches inside. His hands immediately become entangled on a clump of seaweed—

No, not seaweed.

Hair.

Hudson’s long, blond hair.

He pulls, and the next thing he knows, his daughter is above the surface. Holding her up somehow with one hand, he reaches quickly into the Jeep again and his fingers brush more streaming wet hair: Madison. As he pulls her up, his fingers bump against something hard and round, a pole of some sort—

J.J.’s stroller, he realizes, wedged into the backseat.

He’s got both girls above the water . . .

Thank God.

Thank God.

“Hudson!” he screams. “Madison!”

They need to wake up right away; need to keep themselves afloat so that he can dive down for their brother.

“Hudson! Madison!”

Mack is struggling in the water now and they’re limp in his arms, both of them. Why didn’t the blast of icy sea snap them back to consciousness?

Are they alive?

“Hudson! Madison!” He has to get to J.J., but he can’t let go of his daughters or they’ll sink.

“No!” he screams as the top of the Jeep disappears below the surface with his son still trapped inside.

Allison can see the rotating red and blue lights all over the waterfront: police cars, rescue trucks, ambulances. The jetty is teeming with uniformed personnel: cops and paramedics, and . . .

Divers.

She watches in mute horror as they approach the scene, trying not to let her mind go to the darkest place. She glimpses a pair of EMTs loading someone onto the back of an ambulance, but she can’t see the person on the stretcher. The EMTs hurriedly climb in after it and the rescue truck pulls away, sirens wailing, racing north, toward the road to the mainland and the nearest hospital.

Lieutenant Sparks pulls to a stop near the foot of the jetty.

“Stay here,” he tells her, gets out of the car, and strides toward the action.

“I can’t.” She shoves the door open.

She forces her legs to work beneath her, willing them to hold her up and carry her toward the wretched scene when all she really wants to do is turn and run away, far away, back home . . .

Home.

A sob clogs her throat. She wants so badly to be back there, back with her little girls and her baby boy, and yes, with Mack, too . . .

We’re going to go home. We are. We’re going to get past this, whatever it is, and we’re going back to our Happy House. We’re going to—

Suddenly, she sees him: Mack.

He’s bundled in a blanket, talking to a pair of wary-looking cops as a paramedic takes his blood pressure.

Something flutters in Allison’s heart. He’s her husband. He’s shivering, maybe injured, and . . .

And he’s alone.

“Where are they?” she yells.

Mack turns toward her, and the rest of them, too.

Up ahead of her, Lieutenant Sparks waves her back. “Mrs. MacKenna, I told—”

Ignoring him, she screams again at Mack, “Where are they?”

His eyes settle on her, and even from here she can see that they’re full of love, and relief, and she forgets.

“Allison!” he shouts, and starts toward her

The cops are on him instantly, holding him back.

“It’s okay,” she hears Mack say. “She’s my wife, I need to tell her . . .”

“Stay right where you are,” a stout man in a trench coat tells him firmly.

He strides in Allison’s direction, pulling a badge from her pocket, and she braces herself.

“Mrs. MacKenna, I’m Detective Looney with the Salt Breeze Pointe PD.”

“Yes. Where are my children?”

He clears his throat. “There was an accident.”

Her knees buckle. She starts to go down, but is steadied by both Detective Looney and Lieutenant Sparks.