Paranoid(130)

She blinked, tried to see through the darkness. God damn, where the hell were Rachel and the light? Come on, where was the light? She broke the surface. “I can’t see a damned thing down here!” she yelled, then took a deep breath and dove deep. A light from above illuminated the water and she nearly screamed as she spied the body of a man, floating near the bottom, his foot tethered to some rocks, the flesh of his face in tatters.

Sick!

Her skin crawled and she swam backward, then saw a woman, caught in the current.

Not on my watch!

Kayleigh kicked hard, knifing through the water, moving to the shadowy depths where the light didn’t reach. She reached Rachel, whose face was milk white, her hair billowing around her in a cloud, air bubbles dancing up from her lips. Come on, Kayleigh thought, reaching around her and wrapping her arms under Rachel’s. Freezing, her lungs tight, the pull of the current dragging, Kayleigh kicked hard, dragging Rachel upward, spying the surface where she saw light.

Come on, Rachel. Fight, damn you. You’ve got so much to live for. Your daughter Your son. And Cade.

Rachel kicked, her efforts weak, and Kayleigh cursed her as she struggled, her lungs burning, her legs cramping.

Kick, kick, kick!

Up they swam, the light brighter, Kayleigh’s lungs on fire.

They broke the surface and Kayleigh gasped, holding Rachel’s head above the inky depths, treading water. They were downstream from the old cannery, where lights from police and emergency vehicles lit up the ghastly old complex in flashes of red and blue.

Rachel coughed and sputtered but stayed afloat, her teeth chattering as badly as Kayleigh’s, but to her relief Kayleigh spied a boat approaching, its searchlight sweeping the black surface of the water, turning the dark night into day.

The crew shouted and pulled up alongside, throwing life rings before pulling them aboard. Not the rescue boat but someone out at night, a cabin cruiser that, in Kayleigh’s estimation, was a yacht, with its dry towels and hot cups of coffee. Rachel looked like death warmed over, her lips blue, but, Kayleigh guessed, she would make it. They motored back to the cannery, where Rachel, like Lucas Ryder and Xander Vale before her, was driven away in an ambulance.

Shivering and half drowned, she’d refused care at first and begged Kayleigh to find her daughter and insisted on calling her son. “I will, but first I need to tell you about Cade,” Kayleigh had said. If possible, Rachel had blanched whiter still until she heard from Detective Voss, at the cannery, that Cade’s wounds weren’t life threatening. His nose was broken, two ribs were cracked, and the muscles in his shoulders were ripped to shreds, but he would live. Then Kayleigh had given her Cade’s phone and she’d connected with Dylan only to discover that Harper was home and safe, that, Rachel had reported to Kayleigh after hanging up, she’d escaped Lucas by attacking him with an umbrella.

“An umbrella and bolt cutters,” Kayleigh had said aloud, thinking about it. “Beating out a pistol. Who would’ve thought?”

At that point Rachel, finally realizing that her kids and ex were safe, had nearly collapsed in relief. She’d agreed to go to the hospital to be checked over and have her torn hand tended to, but she’d been insistent that she be released immediately.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Kayleigh had said as Rachel was helped into the ambulance. “These days a total knee replacement is day surgery.”

With that she had stepped away from the rescue vehicle and watched as it rolled down the cannery’s lane to the highway. Then, she’d decided to drive back to Seaside. When Cade was clearheaded enough, she wanted to fill him in.

And then, she swore, she’d forget she’d ever been in love with him.





CHAPTER 40


Cade opened a bleary eye. He was medicated, still groggy from the surgery. But hours had passed and it was late morning in the hospital, where he could hear soft voices and the pad of soft-soled shoes as people passed in the hallway.

A lot had happened since he’d been admitted.

Kayleigh, all business, had been by earlier and spied the splint on his nose and what was the beginning of what would be nasty black eyes from his broken nose. He didn’t feel too bad, compliments of the hospital’s pain medication, though his ribs would take a while to heal. Despite the pain, he remembered most of what she’d said, starting with, “Boy, you look like hell.”

He’d laughed, his ribs reminding him that that was a bad idea, and he’d thanked her, hearing from Voss that Kayleigh had dove into the river and saved his ex-wife from drowning. She’d told him about Lucas and he’d felt numb inside, having known the kid since the day he’d been born. Never had he once considered his kids’ cousin capable of such hatred and vengeance and violence.

He still had trouble believing it. But there had been more. Much more.

Sitting on the one chair in the room, looking like she could sleep for a week, Kayleigh had told him everything that had gone down: Bruce Hollander was still alive, in this very hospital in ICU under guard as he clung to life. In his few lucid moments he’d admitted to terrorizing Rachel for all the reasons they’d expected, but said that Lucas had been the killer who had taken the lives of Violet Sperry, Annessa Cooper, and, as it turned out, Nate Moretti. Xander Vale, whom Lucas had wounded, was in a hospital in Astoria and expected to make a full recovery, the bullet having barely missed his femoral artery, though shattering his left femur.