Paranoid(128)

And the blood was visible: dark splotches on the ground.

You can do this.

She inched her way through the opening and immediately the smell of the moldering cannery hit her, that brackish scent that hinted at dead sea life, and took her back to a time when pellet guns popped, kids laughed and screamed, and death was just around the next corner.

A million memories flooded through her brain. Lila, Violet, Nate, Reva, and Luke, the ringleader, her half brother, the heartthrob to all her friends other than Mercy. It was a lifetime ago. But it felt like yesterday.

And now Harper was here.

Somewhere.

Forced to this menacing edifice by Lucas.

She hurried across the ancient floorboards, hoping that her eyes would adjust to the darkness, that she wouldn’t be forced to use the light from her phone and become a visible target. She reached the midsection of the building, where some of the windows were unbroken, thin light filtering through the grimy glass. She stopped, straining to listen, squinting into the darkness.

Her throat was tight, and her hands were clammy over the handles of the bolt cutters.

Deep in the shadows, something moved, scratched across the planks, little claws scraping as a rat scurried past. She clamped her jaw tight so as not to scream. Of course there were rats and God only knew what else hiding in the corners or lurking on the crossbeams.

She swallowed back her fear.

Far in the distance—too far—she heard the faint, but shrill sound of sirens.

Hurry. Please hurry.

She took one step forward, then froze when a deep, raspy voice rumbled through the vast, nearly empty building.

“Well, look who’s here,” Lucas said, his voice almost a croak. “Mommy did come after all.”

How could this demon, this murderer be her nephew? Luke’s son? The boy she had watched grow from a baby in diapers to a tall, strapping man. Now, a monster.

“Where’s Harper?”

“You tell me.”

Oh, God, it was a game? “Look. I just came for my kid.”

“Right on cue.”

She heard a movement behind her and the hairs on the back of her arms raised. She spun, staring into the stygian umbra.

Nothing.

“This isn’t funny.”

“No one’s laughing, Auntie.”

He sounded almost disembodied, without any human emotion. Her stomach curdled. “Where’s Harper?” she said again. “And Xander?” As she asked, she moved, inching sideways, coming to the ladder to the upper level, the one she’d cowered behind years ago.

No response.

She thought she heard footsteps, light and fast, and she had to swallow back her fear.

“Lucas? What’s going on?” She had to keep him talking so that she could find out where he was hiding, where he was keeping Harper.

“Oh, come on, Auntie, you’re smarter than this. You know what you did. You killed my father, your own brother, right here, in this very building. Right? This is the spot, Auntie, where you literally got away with murder.”

“You’re right. I did. But Harper had nothing to do with it.”

The blood. Whose blood had she seen by the gate and leading into the cannery?

“Collateral damage.”

Her heart squeezed painfully.

“Like those other two bitches who thought they would get you off. Your friends.”

Oh. God. He was crowing about killing Violet and Annessa.

Where was he? Above, up the ladder, or farther back, past the chute where the fish guts had been flushed so many years ago? She closed her eyes, listening hard, her fingers clenched over the bolt cutters.

“And what about his best friend?” Lucas demanded.

She was sweating, trying to think, remembering the layout of this building all those years ago. Was he in deeper at the far end of the cannery where boats had tied up to unload their catches, where the water was the deepest?

Listen hard, Rachel. Try to pinpoint his voice.

“You know who I mean. Nate Moretti. What about that dick? Why didn’t he step up and save him if they were so tight? What kind of a friend doesn’t step in to save him?”

That didn’t make any sense. How could Nate, could anyone, have saved Luke?

But Lucas wasn’t done. “And your father. What about him, the cop who let his darling daughter get away with murder?”

Her father? Had Lucas done something to Ned? Rachel’s insides turned to water but she believed it of Lucas now.

“Bunch of pansy-assed losers!” he shouted.

Her throat closed and she had to force the words out. “But not,” she said, whispering before she took in a deep breath. “But not Harper. She had nothing to do with this. She wasn’t even born.”

“Neither was I!” he yelled, his calm veneer cracking, and she turned her head, knew where he was hiding, there by the chute.

The sirens outside were getting louder and red and blue lights strobed through the windows. “You called the cops? Jesus, are you fuckin’ dumb? We’ll all be killed!”

“Not if you let her go.”

“Fuck!” She saw him then, in a shooter’s stance, facing her. She flattened, hitting the floor just as he fired, the blast of the gun thunderous, the muzzle visible as voices shouted from outside.

“Police! Lucas Ryder, drop your weapon!”