“The others will testify. What kind of coward would I be not to do the same?”
“You’re not a coward,” he said fiercely.
Her lips curved sardonically. “You have no idea what I am, Daniel.”
He frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She looked away. “I have to go,” was all she replied as she turned to go.
“Susannah, wait.” She turned back, and he forced himself to ask the question he needed to know. “Why didn’t you tell me? Call me? I would have come to get you.”
Her eyes flickered. “Would you have?”
“You know I would have.”
Her chin lifted, reminding him of Alex. “If I’d known that, I would have called. You left, Daniel. You got away. The first year you were at college, you never came home, not once. Not even at Christmas.”
He remembered that first year of college, the overwhelming relief of getting away from Dutton. But he’d left Susannah to the wolves. “I was selfish. But if I’d known, I would have come back. I’m so sorry.” The last was a helpless plea, but her expression didn’t soften. There was no contempt in her eyes, but neither was there forgiveness.
He’d thought he’d needed atonement, to bring justice and closure to Simon’s victims. Now he just wanted forgiveness from the one person he could have saved, but didn’t.
“It is what it is,” she said evenly. “You can’t change the past.”
His throat thickened. “Then can I change the future?”
For several seconds she said nothing. Then she shrugged. “I don’t know, Daniel.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He wasn’t sure what he had the right to ask for. She’d given him honesty, and that was a start. “All right. Let’s go.”
“Are you all right?”
Alex glanced up at Luke as she found her migraine medicine in her purse. For a few hours, she’d had hope of finding Bailey. Now that hope was dashed. “No, I’m not. Turn around, Luke.”
His black brows bunched. “What?”
“I have to shoot this in my thigh and I don’t want you seeing my underwear. Turn around.” Coloring slightly, he complied, and Alex lowered her slacks enough to jab the pen in her bare thigh. She adjusted her clothes, then looked at Luke’s back. Even from behind him she could tell he was scanning the countryside, alert and watching.
Mansfield was still out there, and he’d killed one man. Maybe more. A shiver ran down her back as the hairs on her neck lifted. It was probably just the house scaring her, she thought. Mansfield was probably miles away. Still, as she’d told Daniel, she wasn’t stupid. She looked at Daniel’s keys in her hand and knew what she’d do.
“Can I turn around?” Luke asked.
“No.” Alex opened Daniel’s trunk, retrieved her gun, and awkwardly slipped it behind her waistband. She closed the trunk, feeling no safer. “Now you can turn around.”
Luke did so, giving her a pointed look. “Keep your eyes open if you need to use it. I’m sorry about your stepsister,” he added quietly. “So is Daniel. Really.”
“I know,” she said, and remembering the hurt in his eyes, she knew it was true. He’d done his job, but Bailey would be dead just the same. Nobody wins. She was spared further reply by the emergence of Daniel and Susannah from the house. She gave him his keys and he locked the front door.
“Let’s go back,” Daniel said, his expression flat, and Alex wondered what Daniel and Susannah had discussed-and what they had not.
Friday, February 2, 3:00 p.m.
Frozen in place, Bailey waited for Loomis to give her away. Her heart pounded like a wild thing. So close. She’d come so close… Beside her, the girl started to cry.
Then, to her shock, Loomis put his finger over his lips. “Follow the trees,” he whispered. “You’ll find the road.” He pointed to the girl. “How many more in there?”
Bailey clenched her eyes shut. All gone. “None. He killed them all. All except her.”
Loomis swallowed. “Then go. I’ll go get my car and meet you by the road.”
Bailey held the girl’s hand tight. “Come on,” she whispered. “Just a little bit longer.”
The girl still cried softly, but Bailey couldn’t let herself feel sympathy. She couldn’t let herself feel anything. She just needed to keep moving.
Now that was interesting, Mack thought, watching Loomis point Bailey and the other girl toward freedom. The man was actually doing his job. For once in his life Frank Loomis was actually serving and protecting. He waited until Loomis was a few feet away before stepping into his path. He held his gun steady and Loomis stopped dead.
Loomis’s eyes rose to his face, recognition instantly dawning. “Mack O’Brien.” His jaw tightened. “I guess it goes without saying that you’re not in prison anymore.”
“Nope,” Mack said cheerfully. “One-third served.”
“So it’s been you, all along.”
There was satisfaction in his smile. “All along. Give me your guns, Sheriff. Oh, wait, you’re not a sheriff anymore.”
Loomis’s lips thinned. “I’m being investigated, not tried.”
“Like there’s a difference in this town? Give me your guns,” he repeated deliberately. “Or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“You’re going to anyway.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you can help me.”
Loomis’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
“I want Daniel Vartanian here. I want him to see this operation firsthand and to catch them red-handed. If you give him all this and Bailey, that should be enough to influence your trial. I mean, investigation.”
“That’s all I have to do? Get Daniel here?”
“That’s all.”
“And if I refuse?”
He pointed at Bailey and the girl, picking their way through the woods on bare and bloody feet. “I raise the alarm and Bailey and the girl die.”
Loomis’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a sonofabitch.”
“Thank you.”
Dutton, Friday, February 2, 3:10 p.m.
“How’s your headache?” Daniel asked.
“I hit it in time. I’m fine,” Alex said, keeping her eyes on the window where Dutton’s Main Street wound by. She should apologize to him, she knew. She’d hurt him when he was just doing his job. But, dammit, she was angry. And helpless, which made her even angrier. Not trusting her voice or her words, she kept her mouth firmly closed.
After another few minutes of silence Daniel hissed a curse. “Could you just yell at me, please? I’m sorry about Bailey. I don’t know what else to say.”
The wall holding her fury broke. “I hate this town,” she gritted from behind clenched teeth. “I hate your sheriff and the mayor and everyone that should have done something. And I hate-” She broke it off, breathing hard.
“Me?” he asked quietly. “Do you hate me, too?”
Trembling, eyes burning, she rested her forehead against the car window. “No. Not you. You were doing your job. Bailey got caught in the cross fire. I’m sorry for what I said. This isn’t your fault.” She turned her face so that the window cooled her flushed cheek. “I hate myself,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “I should have said something back then. I should have done something. But I curled up into a little ball and hid it all away from the world.”
His fingertips brushed against her arm, then fell away. “Last night you said we couldn’t blame ourselves,” he said.
“That was last night. This is today, when I have to think of a way to tell Hope her mommy’s never coming home.” Her voice broke and she didn’t care. “I don’t blame you, Daniel. You played this exactly the way you had to. But now I have to go on and so does Hope. And that scares the hell out me.”