Paranoid(131)

It seemed fair that Lucas, for all the pain and anguish he’d caused, would suffer at the hands of both Harper and Rachel, who had attacked him with an umbrella and bolt cutters, of all things. He’d smiled upon learning about it and then had heard later that Lucas hadn’t survived, that he’d been DOA at a hospital in Astoria.

Kayleigh had played down her part in rescuing his ex-wife but had explained that they’d located Nate Moretti’s vehicle behind one of the outbuildings at the cannery, and Nate himself, dead and rotting, had been pulled from the Columbia, a bullet lodged in his heart—or what was left of it. Cade had been spared that grisly detail.

Another shocker and hard to grasp was that early this morning Ned Gaston’s closest neighbor, a single woman by the name of Kathy Ortega, had heard a cat crying at his place. Upon inspection, she’d found his back door open and discovered his body, dead by an apparent gunshot wound to the head; possible suicide, though she’d reported seeing a Jeep pull up to Gaston’s house earlier that evening, a Jeep that looked a lot like the one registered to Xander Vale, right down to the Oregon Duck license plate frame holding the plate to the Jeep’s bumper.

Cade wasn’t completely buying the suicide angle. Ned Gaston, despite his involvement in concealing what had really happened twenty years ago, despite his guilt, had been a fighter. The way Cade saw it, Ned, too, could very well be a victim of Lucas’s wrath. Or had he realized that the truth was about to come out? That Cade had been digging into Luke’s death?

Luke Hollander.

It was all about him.

Who knew the kid would go so far off the rails?

He started to slip back into slumber when the door to his room swept open. Rachel, a little worse for wear, poked her head through the doorway, deep circles showing beneath her eyes, her skin a little paler than he remembered, her expression one of concern.

She’d never looked more beautiful.

His stupid heart soared.

“Hey,” she said. “You awake?”

“Does it look like it?”

She eyed his face. “What it looks like is bad.”

“And here I was thinking you looked gorgeous.”

“Sorry, can’t say the same about you.” She smiled then, some of her color returning. “But I’m glad you’re still with us.” She stepped into the room and his two kids joined her, Dylan in camo shorts and a T-shirt for some band he’d never heard of, and Harper, appearing sober, looking so much like her mother at that age it was scary.

The important thing was, they were safe. They were all safe.

“So . . . how are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck, and then they give me something and it’s tolerable. But I’m afraid my dreams of becoming an NFL quarterback are over.”

“Tom Brady will be so relieved,” she said and Dylan laughed while Harper rolled her eyes. Again, like Rachel.

She smiled, that little grin that always touched his heart, and showed off her bandaged hand. “Didn’t escape unscathed.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing.” But there was an unspoken message in her eyes and he knew she was thinking of those she’d lost.

“So.” He looked at his two kids. “You two—stop giving your mother any trouble, okay? You’re both going back to school tomorrow.”

“We know,” Harper said.

“And, Dylan, no more selling any spy stuff—yeah, I heard about that. Get a regular job if you want. And you, Harper, I expect you to do what Mom says, if you ever want to get a car.”

Harper glanced down at the floor before meeting her father’s eyes. “What about Xander?”

Rachel opened her mouth, but Cade said, “I heard about him, too. He gave a statement. He explained what happened, that Lucas, using Violet Sperry’s gun, forced him to give him the keys to his Jeep and his cell phone. After he did, Lucas shot him, point blank, to make sure he wouldn’t give him any trouble. I figure the only reason he kept Xander alive was as bait, for you, Harper, just as you were bait for your mother.”

“I hate him,” Dylan said, his face pulled into an expression of disgust. “I know it’s bad to say with him dead and all, but I hate him.”

“Me too,” Harper said. “He was awful.”

Rachel opened her mouth to protest, then shut it.

Cade, hating how the conversation had turned, said, “Hey, come on, you two, give your old man a hug.” They came close to the bed and he held them for a second before the pain was too much.

“You look weird,” Harper said.

“Super weird,” her brother agreed, “but kinda cool, too.”

“Nah.” Harper shook her head. “Not cool at all.”

“Speaking of ‘not cool,’” Rachel said. “I got a call from Mrs. Walsh at the school today.”

Dylan groaned and Harper’s eyes rounded.

Rachel continued, her gaze focused on their son. “There seems to be some suspicion that you might have hacked into the school’s grading system.”

Dylan turned as white as the sheet on Cade’s hospital bed.

“She’s being lenient, I think, because of everything that’s happened to us,” Rachel said, “but when you go back to school she wants to talk to you.”