A Stranger on the Beach(69)

His face went deep red. “It wasn’t sexual at all. I was only there to help her.”

“Oh, please. You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth.”

“If it’s true, prove it. This is my daughter’s welfare we’re talking about. You can’t expect me to take your word for it. I’m calling her.”

I picked up my cell phone from the bedside table. I knew there was no service, but he didn’t.

He looked at me with suspicion. “What are you doing? Put that down.”

“I’m going to call Hannah right now. If you didn’t lay a finger on her, she’ll tell me that, and then I’ll believe you. I’ll admit I was wrong. But if you won’t let me do that, it says something, doesn’t it? It tells me you’re lying.”

I moved slowly, sitting up, putting my feet on the floor, pulling up Hannah’s number on my phone.

“Give me that!” Aidan said, and lunged for my phone.

I threw myself sideways and tried to run around him. He body-checked me, and I tried to grab the gun. He saw that coming, and grabbed me by the hair, yanking me down onto the bed and straddling me. He leveled the gun at my forehead and gave me that same chilling, empty smile he wore when I woke up to find myself his prisoner.

“Stupid move, Caroline,” he said. “Now I’m mad.”

We paused there, staring at each other, breathing heavily, and I flashed back to the last time we were together in this bed. In pursuit of one night of mindless fun, I’d found my own destruction.

“You need to apologize and make it up to me,” he said.

I stared down the barrel of the silver gun, and my courage deserted me.

“Please,” I said, my voice shaking. “Don’t hurt me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. If you treat me with the respect and love I showed you, I won’t need to.”

“No. Please. I can’t. I’m married. What we did was wrong.”

“Then we can go another way. I can pull this trigger. You won’t even feel it. Either way, I win. You’ll belong to me, and you won’t hurt me anymore.”

“If I hurt you, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“You’re a liar, Caroline. You can’t help yourself.”

He thrust the barrel of the gun hard against my forehead. Tears of desperation flooded my eyes.

“Please. Please, don’t shoot,” I whispered.

Suddenly, downstairs, a crash rang out. Aidan’s head whipped around. He stared at the closed bedroom door. Then, to my amazement and gratitude, he got off me, and stood up, listening.

“It must be the wind,” he said.

The wind rumbled like a freight train outside the bedroom windows, but it was a steady sound. That had been a crash. If it had come from outside the house, I might’ve taken it for a tree limb falling. But it came from inside.

“That’s not the wind,” I said. “Somebody’s downstairs. They knocked over furniture, or kicked the door in. Looters come out in a hurricane, Aidan. They could make off with the TV. You claim to be the big man. If that’s true, go stop them.”

He grabbed my arm and yanked me up.

“You’re coming with me,” he said, poking the gun into my ribs. “Stay quiet and do what I tell you.”

Aidan’s grip was like a vise as we moved to the door. He opened it slowly, careful not to make a sound. We stopped on the landing and listened. It was hard to hear anything over the roar of the wind and the thumping of my heart. Aidan dropped my arm and put a finger to his lips. Then I caught it—the sound of footsteps. It was unmistakable. The tread of shoes against the wood of the floor. Someone was downstairs. Aidan knew it, too. I saw the alarm in his eyes.

“Caroline? Are you here?” the voice called out.

It was Jason. My husband had come to rescue me. I was so overwhelmed with relief that I wanted to burst into tears. But I held my breath, too anxious to make a sound. Because I realized: Now his life was in danger as well, and it was all my fault.





44


“Caroline? Where are you?”

“Answer him,” Aidan whispered. “Say you’re up here, tell him to come.”

Aidan pointed the gun at the stairs. The second-floor landing where we stood was shrouded in darkness. But the lights blazed downstairs. If I called out to Jason like Aidan said, my husband would walk to the foot of the stairs and head up into the dark, the perfect target. Like a fish in a barrel. He wouldn’t stand a chance. And Jason would have been lured to his death by me, his wife of twenty years. Because he trusted me. It didn’t matter what was wrong between us. It didn’t matter that we’d grown apart. Or that he’d commandeered our money, or even that he’d cheated. In that moment, I remembered the love we shared, the daughter we raised, the life we built together. And I had to save him, even if it killed me.

“Call him now,” Aidan said between gritted teeth.

I racked my brain for what to do next, but I had no brilliant plan. The only option was to call out, to do my best to warn my husband, even if it meant Aidan shooting me. It was now or never.

“There’s a man up here and he’s got a gun! Run!” I screamed.

That gun turned on me. Aidan took a step back in order to get the space to fire, and in that moment, I saw what to do. I kicked him with all my strength, and the momentum sent him flying toward the staircase. A boom rang out. The bullet whizzed by my ear like a deadly insect, and plaster rained down from the ceiling. Aidan fell backward and skidded halfway down the stairs before arresting his descent. He hauled himself to standing and started up the stairs for me with murder in his eyes. I ran to the bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it, panting in fear. Then I sank down behind the dresser and waited for him to start shooting.