Shadowed

by Dani Pettrey

  “Right,” Ben said, draping his arm over his bent knee. “This world has tossed some pretty ugly things and giant waves at me, and yet God has given me the sea to soothe my soul. It’s where He brings me peace. I glide over it, keeping my eyes on Him, and everything that matters comes into focus. How about you?”

  “How about me, what?”

  “Why do you love the water so? How’d you get started swimming?”

  “My dad’s a tennis pro, so we moved around a lot when I was a kid. From resort to resort, in the Caribbean, mostly.”

  “Sounds exciting and hard.”

  “Yes, it was both. When I was seven we moved from Jamaica to a small—and I mean small—Caribbean island off St. Kitts called Nevis.”

  “Nevis. I haven’t heard of it.”

  “Most people haven’t. I’m an only child; my dad was busy with work, my mom living the resort lifestyle, as they housed us on resort property. She spent her days at the pool and helping keep all the visitors happy.”

  “Sounds like it could get pretty lonely for a kid.”

  “It did, but the resort swim instructor took pity on me and gave me a lesson one day. After that, I was hooked. She started training me. I was in the water more than I was out, shifting from the pool to the ocean quickly. I began competing in island competitions when I was ten and internationally at twelve. Been going strong ever since.”

  “That’s been the majority of your life. How will you feel when it’s time to stop competing?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about that since Kat announced her retirement. We are the same age. Were. Competing at this level takes its toll, and competing against sixteen-year-olds is becoming tougher and tougher. I think next season will be my last.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.” She smiled, suddenly not so afraid. “Maybe I’ll just have to keep coming back here so we can continue our verbal jousts.”

  He looked her in the eye, the depth of his heart wading in them. “I’d like that very much.”

  So would she. “Maybe it’s time I pick one sea to settle in.” Take that leap of faith.

  Hope he hadn’t felt in years flickered in Ben’s heart. “What would it take for that to happen? For a mermaid with wings to settle in one sea?”

  “God’s leading.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “Could you ever see yourself in a place like Yancey?” With a man like me?

  “Yancey seems like a great place to live, with great people.” She looked around. “I could see this being a great home.”

  He told himself she was probably talking in generalities, that she may have no leading from God yet. He knew she might never return to Yancey, but the hope her words inspired welled inside.

  She blinked as he stared at her, realizing how badly he wanted her to stay. The thought of never seeing her again stole his breath away.

  He cupped her face, caressing her cheek, and pressed his lips to hers, letting his kiss say it all.

  All thought vaporized as she kissed him back just as passionately, near desperation binding them together, molding them into this single moment where their futures teetered on what choices would be made next.

  The rain that had been threatening for the last half hour let loose. With massive restraint Ben pulled back, his breath heavy. “I better get you in the Jeep.”

  She yanked him back, her full, soft lips a breath from his. “I live in the water. A little rain isn’t going to bother me.”

  Man, I love this woman.

  Time passed, but eventually he managed to draw back. “Please let me get you someplace dry. I don’t want you catching a chill.”

  “Okay.” She clutched the metal box in one hand and his hand in the other as they raced for the Jeep, pools of water littering their path.

  He situated her in the Jeep and walked around, climbing in his side, drenched.

  He grabbed the blanket he always kept in the Jeep, wrapping it snugly around her, and cranked up the heat. “Buckle up tight. We have to go back a different route. The riverbeds are no doubt flooded by now.”

  He waited in the pouring rain, impatiently searching for headlights, his plan fixed and ready to execute. He’d had Alexi run him the necessary supplies.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours of waiting, headlights appeared in the blurry distance. He watched the Jeep curving down the winding road, wrapping around the trees rather than through them. They’d taken the road back. All the better.

  He rolled down the window, set up his shot, and waited for the perfect moment, firing twice.

  The Jeep swerved, flipped across the road in front of him, and careened over the edge of the ravine.

  Making sure the coast was clear, he stepped out and peered over the edge to be certain there was no movement.

  Now time to ensure it looked like an accident. He grabbed his knife, gas container, and lighter. There was about to be an unfortunate explosion. If they had the code it would burn with them.

  SEVENTEEN

  Ben and Libby had just crossed back into Yancey proper when a search and rescue call came in over Ben’s portable shortwave radio.

  “It’s Jim. We’ve got a bad one off Gentry Road.”

  “Be there in ten.” Ben pulled a U-turn, heading back toward the city’s outer limits.

  “Gentry Road.” Libby frowned. “Isn’t that where we headed off road to your property?”

  He swallowed. “Yeah.”

  “I guess it’s good we came back another way. That could have been us.”

  His thoughts exactly.

  Jim was already on site when they arrived, smoke funneling up the ravine in the now misting rain.

  “It’s a bad one,” Jim said as Ben and Libby approached. He tilted his head at the older gentleman standing beside his patrol car—the man who’d be Ben’s closest neighbor once he moved. “Wilkinson heard the explosion, and he and Ellen came out to check. He sent her back to the house to call it in.”

  “Speaking of . . .” Ben tilted his head at the approaching car with Miss Ellen inside.

  “Darling,” Fred Wilkinson said, moving toward his wife as she approached. “I told you I’d get a ride back. I don’t want you to see this.”

  “I want to help if I can.”

  “Thanks, ma’am, but we’ve got it,” Jim said.

  “The rest of SAR are on their way,” Ben said, having called the two men he’d trained—Tony and Jason.

  “Fire truck and ambulance are en route,” Jim added.

  “Come on, Ellen.” Fred wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Let’s get out of their way so they can do their job.”

  “You call if you need anything, Jimmy, you hear?” Ellen said as Fred opened the car door for her.

  “Thanks, Miss Ellen. Will do.”

  “What do we got?” Ben asked, looking over the ravine at the Jeep on its topside, a fire still ablaze despite the rain.

  “We need to get the fire out. Then we’ll send you down.”

  “The fire hasn’t reached the passenger compartment yet. You know it’ll be too late if we wait.”

  “It’s skirting it.”

  Ben moved for his Jeep and his harness.

  “What are you doing?” Libby asked.

  “Going down.”

  “But Jim just said—”

  “If anyone managed to survive that wreck, I’m not going to let them burn to death when I can intervene.”

  “Take this,” Jim said, helping him latch a fire extinguisher to his pack.

  Ben’s SAR crew arrived, and they and Deputy Tom Miller lowered him down.

  The fire-truck sirens whirred in the distance.

  The flames danced closer to the front cabin.

  “Faster,” he hollered up.

  His feet touched the outcrop the Jeep had landed on.

  Unsnapping the harness he moved to the driver’s side and blinked in horror at the gunshot wound to the driver’s head.

  “I can’t believe someon
e shot them,” Libby said.

  “We’d never have known if the fire had spread faster. We need to thank God for the rain,” Ben said.

  “Why would someone shoot the—?” Libby’s question died as the realization hit. A Jeep similar in color to Ben’s, two people up front, coming around the road right by where they’d entered the woods. Her limbs trembled. “That was meant for us.”

  Ben pulled her in his arms, holding her tight—as close to his heart as possible. She could feel it thudding through his still-soaked T-shirt.

  EIGHTEEN

  Libby couldn’t stop shivering—not from the rain, as Ben kept scolding himself for not getting her out of the elements sooner, but rather from the stark realization they were the intended targets.

  If they hadn’t taken a different way back . . .

  And it broke her heart to think of the poor tourists who’d been in the wrong rental Jeep, on the wrong road, at the wrong time.

  Her heart squeezed, choking the breath from her lungs. Everything was so far out of control she struggled for purchase, for an anchor despite the raging waves crashing over them. And thanks to Ben’s earlier words, she knew exactly Whom to go to.

  Ben reached over, clasping her hand as they drove back to town and to the hospital.

  She closed her eyes seeking, desperately needing, her Savior.

  Father, I can only look to you. I don’t understand why all this happened, but I thank you for sparing us from death today. I pray for the souls of the couple who died, pray they knew you.

  She gripped Ben’s hand tightly.

  And I thank you for this man you have blessed me with to help carry me through deeper waters than I could have ever imagined battling.

  Reaching the hospital, they learned Elliot was improving but still hadn’t woken for more than a few seconds of fluttering eyes and jerky movements at a time. Doc Graham said it was a good sign, but Ben would only breathe a sigh of relief when his friend fully awakened.

  He and Libby were set for the night in a room down the hall. Two beds and a privacy curtain between them. His gun handy and Deputy Tom stationed outside the door.

  Libby thought it overkill and had expressed as much, but when it came to her safety Ben wasn’t taking any chances. He’d keep her safe or die trying.

  She paced the tile floor, back and forth past the beds, desk, and small faux leather green sofa. At least the hospital administration had given them the biggest room available upon Doc Graham’s request.

  “How soon did Agnes say she’d have the reader?”

  “Tomorrow evening at the latest. She’ll call as soon as she does. In the meantime we sit tight.”

  “I hate sitting tight.”

  He hopped back on the bed, kicking off his shoes and stretching his arms behind his head. “It’s the safest thing, so you might as well get comfortable.”

  “Fine.” She took her shoes off. “But I’m not missing the race tomorrow morning.”

  Ben sat stock straight. “You can’t seriously be considering going out there. Someone is trying to kill us.”

  “I didn’t come all this way to quit. Besides I highly doubt they’ll do anything in front of dozens of swimmers, all the coaching staff and support vessels.”

  “You can’t take that risk.”

  “I’m not letting them cage me up when they are the monsters.” She shook out her hands. “I need to get in the water. It’s my home.”

  He exhaled. It was her grounding. Boy, how he got that, but her safety was too important.

  “‘When a McKenna sets his mind to something,’” she said. “You’re not the only one people say that about.”

  NINETEEN

  Libby sliced through the frigid water, her limbs burning and weak . . . so weak after a dozen miles. Two to go.

  One, two, three. Rolling her head to the side, she inhaled and then back into the deep, dark blue water, bubbles fizzing around her on the exhale.

  Her wet suit clung to her like a second skin, but the forty-two-degree water seeped through, burrowing into her bones.

  Just swim.

  They can’t catch you if you keep moving.

  Her lungs burned—ice shards stabbing her chest, each breath torturous, but she had to keep going.

  She was surrounded by swimmers, but had one of them been sent to kill her?

  From her training boat, Ben watched every stroke Libby took, his heart in his throat. He understood her desire to race, to be back in the water, but if anything happened to her . . .

  He gripped the boat rail, watching as she rhythmically turned her head every three strokes to inhale, and then back in the water. She was a thing of beauty to watch. He’d fallen in love with a mermaid.

  Deputy Tom had joined him on the boat to watch everyone else while he focused on Libby, Sheriff Jim remaining with the crowd on shore.

  The killer was here. He felt it as sure as the breath in his lungs. Anticipation riddled through him. When would he strike and from where? The water, one of the boats, or from land?

  Breathing through the regulator he moved under the water, his target fixed twenty feet above and slightly ahead.

  He’d maintain his distance until the shoals, where the training boats had to maneuver around rather than through. Another ten feet and he’d have her.

  Libby wove her way through the shallow depths of the shoals gliding over shadows of rocks beneath.

  It was the most direct path for the swimmers and a beautiful section before they reached the last two-mile stretch of the race.

  The shoals being too shallow for the support vessels, they maneuvered around the outskirts, passing through the deeper waters a hundred or so feet to her starboard.

  She knew Ben had to be panicking at the distance but with binoculars he could still see her clearly, and the sequestered section of the shallow waters and narrow swimming field made her feel safer than she had in the wide open.

  One, two, three. She rolled her head as something clamped hard around her ankle, tugging her down, the motion too swift for her to utter a scream before plunging beneath the surface.

  Down into the blue.

  She flailed, fighting whatever or whomever was dragging her down.

  Water swooshed around her, the person’s hands grabbing higher up along her waist.

  He pulled her down, her back to him, his strong arms engulfing her in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her side.

  Panic set in.

  Please, Father, don’t let me die.

  She kicked, fighting the urge to take in air, but he held her down, his arms clamped tightly around her.

  Where is she? Panic seared through Ben as he lost visual on Libby.

  One moment she was gliding through the water, the next she was gone.

  “There are so many swimmers, how can you tell?” Tom asked as Ben yanked his shirt over his head and kicked off his shoes. “What are you doing?”

  Ben handed him his .44. At least he still had his knife. “Hold this for me. I’m going in.” Before Tom could argue, Ben grabbed a spare pair of goggles from the deck, climbed over the rail, and dropped in. The water was cold, his limbs searing with adrenaline. He fitted the goggles in place, clearing out the water, and swam with all his might toward where he’d last seen Libby.

  Please, God, I know something is wrong. Protect her.

  Libby squirmed. Fought. Kicked. But she couldn’t break free. She was suffocating.

  She needed air, needed to breathe, needed to surface, but he held her fast as darkness closed in around her.

  Her limbs grew heavy, her movements slowing. All she could think was she’d never see Ben again.

  She slipped away.

  TWENTY

  Ben frantically searched the shoals, fear and despair choke-holding him. Finally he spotted her, limp beneath the surface, a scuba diver’s arms locked around her.

  He approached from behind, knife in hand, and sliced the diver’s regulator hose, then jammed his knife into the back of the man’s thig
h. Air bubbles and blood pooled in the water, and the man released Libby. Ben grabbed hold of her; wrapping his arm around her waist, cradling her back against his chest as he swam toward the light.

  Breaching the surface, he hollered, waving frantically for help.

  Getting Tom’s attention, he lay back, focusing on Libby. Moving the hair from her face, he cleared her airway. Her cheeks were cold, her lips blue. He started mouth-to-mouth as rescue rafts lowered from the support vessels, moving quickly for them.

  “Come on, baby,” Ben said.

  Hauling her into the raft, he began full CPR, sending Tom and one of the trainers into the water after the man.

  Please, God, don’t take her from me.

  “Come on, Lib.” He pumped her chest. “Come on.”

  She coughed, spurting up water, and he rolled her onto her side, helping clear the water from her lungs.

  Thank you, Jesus.

  He pulled her into his arms.

  Tom and the trainer surfaced, the man wrestling in their hold.

  Ben aimed the .44 Tom had brought in the raft with him at the man. “Get in the boat or I shoot you now.”

  They pulled him on board, his thigh bleeding.

  The trainer moved to bind it as Tom bound the man’s hands, then removed his mask.

  Libby’s eyes widened. “Rick?”

  Shock raked through Ben. “You know him?”

  She squinted, shaking her head in dismay. “He was Kat’s college boyfriend.”

  Refusing to answer any questions, he was taken back to shore, where he would no doubt meet his death.

  He’d screwed up one too many times—losing Ben and Libby in the woods, shooting the wrong Jeep, and now failing to kill Libby and exposing his identity, or at least one of his aliases.

  He was a dead man. It was only a matter of time.

  “I don’t understand,” Libby kept saying. “Why are you here? Did you kill Kat? Were you her lurker?”

  She didn’t get it. Being Kat’s boyfriend was his cover, or it had been until Kat screwed up and got pulled out of Berkeley and the States.