by Jaycee Clark
Jesslyn wiggled through the opening. She gripped and jerked on Tammy’s wrist. The girl was heavy. Currents pulled at her, tried to clutch her in a watery trap. No. No. Please.
The car groaned and water sucked her down. Tammy’s hand pulled in hers. The girl was still in the car. Jesslyn held tight, but the car groaned again and the hand jerked in hers. The water pulled until Tammy’s hand slipped away. Jesslyn only held a bracelet. No!
For a single moment she wondered what to do. She reached out, frantically. Nothing. Nothing but water.
She had to breathe. She swam upwards. Upwards . . .
Lightning flashed in a muted rippled world above her. Harder, she had to swim faster.
Her lungs burned. With one final kick, her head broke the surface. The gasp of precious air, the sputtering cough that followed was lost in the rage of thunder.
She pulled air into her bursting lungs. The world started to gray around the edges. She couldn’t discern the roar of blood in her head from the pouring rain. Where was she?
A flash lit the shore, the heavens deluged. She was tired, so tired.
Tammy. Oh, God. She couldn’t just leave her there. But it was too far down. And the girl’s eyes. She was dead. Some part of her knew that, but . . .
The pain in her head beat in a pulsating stab. Jesslyn tread the cold water and tried to get her bearings, but the world kept tipping, tried to slip away from her. Nausea swirled hot and fast in her stomach.
The chattering clink of her teeth kept her centered on what she was doing. She had to get out of the water. Get help. It was freezing. Her fingers were numb and her legs felt clunky.
Gritting her teeth she started to swim, hoping to get to the shore before the pain in her head beat her consciousness. Before the water claimed her in death.
Death . . .
Tammy . . .
Something else . . .
What was she doing here? She thought she was at Emerald, but couldn’t remember . . . remember . . .
Minutes passed. Another flash of lightning showed her she was almost at the shore. Jesslyn thought she was swimming to it, when she’d been swimming along it. It seemed an eternity passed as she clumsily tried to fight her way through the churning water. Her feet finally touched the silted bottom, tried to sink before she tiredly pulled them from the weighted ooze.
On her hands and knees, she gasped her way out of the cold lake. The icy wind chilled her even more. She was tired, so tired.
Then something stirred in her mind, and fear crept in her soul. Danger. Away. She had to get away. From?
Evil.
Jesslyn staggered to her feet, weaved in the heavy rain. Without thought to where she was going, she stumbled on.
Away . . . Had to get away . . .
Up. She crawled up. The rocks nicking the flesh on her fingers didn’t register.
Icy cold pervaded her bones to the point she thought she’d shatter. Finally, she made it to level ground.
Wind howled around her, a taunting lullaby. But the rain had lessened. Hadn’t it? God, her head hurt. The sudden burst of blinding light had her swaying as the world dipped dizzily around her.
Exhaustion beckoned.
The huge log offered shelter from the merciless wind. Jesslyn fell to her knees, moaned at the stab of pain through her head, and scooted up against the underside of the mammoth fallen tree.
What was she doing here?
The question swirled in her graying mind.
Something screamed in the distance.
So . . . cold . . .
Her trembling jaw sliced white hot pain through her skull.
Need . . . to . . . get . . . warm.
She huddled in on herself. Pulling the jacket up around her head, she curled into the wet depths of the nylon.
Splinters of ice pricked her whole body, her skin, her bones, her very blood. Blood . . . The coppery sweet fragrance tickled her senses.
Warm. To be warm . . .
Rain pattered on the jacket covering her. Her breath raged in jagged pants.
The screaming grew louder. She huddled tighter into herself.
Aiden . . .
The gray storm pulling at her mind strengthened, grew to a smothering black void, pulled her into the abyss of unconsciousness.
Chapter 16
Aiden sat at the kitchen table talking to his father. Rain poured off the eaves of the house, thunder boomed down the mountainsides. They’d called the hotel for some take-out, and since dinner, he couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
It was almost eight thirty. Why hadn’t Jessie called yet?
“Are you serious about this girl?” his father asked him.
Was he serious about Jesslyn? He hadn’t really thought about it until this evening, or rather he had, but not as much as he had since she left. Was he serious? Damn straight. She loved him, and the thought pulled a faint smile from him. Aiden shook his head, and looked into Jock’s eyes, the same blue as his own. “Yes, Dad. I am. If she doesn’t completely bolt, if she gives us a chance, I plan to marry her.”
His father sighed and ran a hand through his gray hair. “You just met her. What? A week ago?”
Aiden shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Your mother kept telling me I needed to let go of the idea of Brice and just support your decision.” His finger thumped the tabletop. “She was right.”
This was new. Aiden found himself asking, what he couldn’t before. “Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you support my decision, Dad? Wasn’t it enough I didn’t want to marry Brice?”
Jock looked at him, and Aiden suddenly realized how much his father had aged. When had it happened? Since the heart attack last year? Lines ran deeper in his father’s face, and he noticed the large-than-life man didn’t move with the ease he once had.
His father cleared his throat. “I don’t know. I should have. But Eddie and I had always hoped our kids would get together.” Edward Carlisle was Brice’s father and a good friend of Jock’s. “Will you tell me what happened?”
Aiden sighed. He’d never wanted to burden his father with the truth, knowing the value the man held with family.
“We were simply too different. Brice was only interested in the Kinncaid name following hers on a check.”
His father scoffed and leveled a look at him that Aiden knew all to well. “It was last year, right before your heart attack. I was in Dublin, just came up from visiting Grammy. Brice surprised me at the hotel, she’d just come off a photo shoot in France.” The thought of that night sent his blood boiling.
“We were both not in the best of moods, I’d had a long week, and had a bad meeting that afternoon. We got in this fight.” Aiden leaned up on his elbows. “Hell, I don’t even remember what started it.” But he damn sure remembered how it ended. “She yelled that if I had my way, I’d have been holding my son a couple of months after the wedding.”
He expelled a breath.
“What?” asked his father.
Aiden looked back into the eyes of the man that had raised him to hold the same morals and principles high that Jock did. “I asked her that same question. She had an abortion, Dad.” The moment froze between them. Finally, Aiden said, “I called off the wedding because I could not, would not marry a woman who put her career above the life of our child. Am I antiquated? Yes. Do I put family, children above all else? Yes, but that’s who I am. Brice was not of the same mind and I realized it too late.”
His father simply stared at him. Seconds stretched. “You never knew?”
“No. Quinlan and I were doing a lot of business around that time, she was off on shoots and we didn’t talk as much as we should have. I don’t think she ever meant to tell me.” In fact, he knew she didn’t, because she’d denied it after he’d flown into a rage. But he had contacts, contacts that found the information he needed.
“I called off the wedding, flew over to London, and spent the worst few days of my life.”
His f
ather had gone pale. “My grandchild?”
Aiden didn’t think that needed answering. Granted, the thought that Brice’s child might not have been his did cross his mind. But it hardly mattered at this point. The final outcome would have been the same. Children weren’t the only things he was antiquated about. He had this idea about fidelity too. Clearing his throat, he said, “Jessie loves kids. Her own died in a car accident with her husband. She has so much heart, so much emotion, she just shuts it off. I love her, Dad.”
There he’d said it and nothing fell from above.
Taking another breath, he repeated. “I love Jessie. She’s the woman I want to be my wife, the woman I want to have my kids.”
A muscle bunched in his father’s jaw. “Does your mother know?” Then he snorted and muttered, “What doesn’t your mother know?”
Hell. “About Brice? Yeah, I told her sometime while you were in the hospital. She thought I was taking your attack too hard, and she pulled it all out of me.”
“That’s your mother.” Blue eyes met his.
Aiden glanced once more at the clock as silence settled between them.
His father cleared his throat. “Why don’t you call the girl?” he offered, standing. “I heard you tell her to call, and she was pretty upset.” Jock patted his shoulder on the way out the door. Aiden watched as the man slowly made his way up the steps, his shoulders stooped, the muscles in his face pulled taut.
Aiden wished he’d never told him, but the man would have found out sooner or later.
Walking to the phone, Aiden dialed The Dime. Tim answered.
A few minutes later, Aiden hung up, his worry growing. The prickling on the back of his neck so strong he rubbed it. Where the hell was she? He looked out the large picture window in the kitchen. Rain still fell, the wind howled and lightning flickered across the dark sky.
Tim said he’d just gotten to The Dime about half an hour ago. Something about the dogs he bred out in the storm and he had to chase them down. Aiden hadn’t listened or cared about that part.
He tried her digital again. It rang. Once. Twice. Three times. “We’re sorry, the customer you have dialed has turned the unit off or is no longer in service,” said a recorded voice.
Damn. Aiden slammed the phone down. Where would she have gone?
He paced, and then paced some more. At nine he called Tim back. Neither had heard from Jesslyn. Tim said he’d try T.J.
Feet sounded on the stairs and he looked up to see his parents descending.
“Aiden, dear, you’ll wear a hole in the floor. What’s wrong?” his mother asked, as she walked into the living room and sat on the couch.
Aiden held a cordless in his hand. Fifteen minutes since he’d called Tim, why hadn’t the man called him back?
“Did Jesslyn make it to Tim’s place all right?” his father asked.
Aiden only shook his head. “We can’t find her.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Something’s wrong, I know it.” Again he rubbed the back of his tingling neck.
Someone knocked on the door. Please let it be her. Aiden strode to the door, and jerked it open. On the porch stood T.J. and another uniformed officer. Barney. No Merrick.
His stomach knotted, and fear speared through him.
“Aiden?” T.J. asked.
He stepped back and motioned them in. “What is it? What’s happened? Have you seen Jesslyn?”
Please, let her be all right.
T.J. licked her lips, and wiped at a tear running down her cheek.
Oh, God. Everything in him froze and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.
“What is it? What? Just tell me.” He shut the door and stood facing them.
T.J. took a deep breath. “We’re looking for Jesslyn, Aiden.”
Relief slid through him and he nodded. “Good. Great. I was about to call you. I can’t find her and she was supposed to have called around . . .”
“Aiden.”
His name stopped him.
T.J. looked at Merrick, who said, “Mr. Kinncaid, dispatch received a call from Ms. Black just after seven up at Emerald Lake. T.J. here thought you should know.”
Seven? It was going on ten now.
He turned to her. “Why the hell didn’t you call me? Or Tim?”
She shrugged. “Chief didn’t want anyone else up there. But SAR, search and rescue, needs more volunteers. With the rains, the temperature dropped and . . .” She took a deep breath. “We need volunteers.”
Her face crumpled, but she shook her head. “I wanted to call you both. And I have to ask you this. Chief doesn’t know you all that well, and he doesn’t think you have anything to do with this, but where were you around seven, Aiden?”
He couldn’t believe this. He didn’t have time for this.
“My son,” Jock said, coming up behind him, “was with us, picking up take-out at our hotel. You can check with the management of Highland Hotel, if that will satisfy you.”
Aiden looked hard at T.J. “Then we came back here and ate. She was supposed to have called me. Jesslyn left here about six forty-five.”
T.J. looked at the man with her. “Go on, Merrick. I’ll wait for Tim.”
The other man nodded, darted a quick glance to Aiden and left.
Why were they just standing here?
“Come on. Let’s go,” he said. He had no idea what was going on, but he was damn well going to find out. “Jesslyn left her pickup and . . .”
T.J. shook her head. “No, her truck will never make it up there in this weather. Tim’s on his way. We can ride in his SUV.”
At that moment, the door opened and Tim stood on the threshold, rain running off his hair.
Aiden turned to his parents.
“We’re going with you,” Jock said.
Aiden shook his head. “You’re blood pressure and—”
“Don’t talk back to your father,” his mother said, grabbing coats. “Come on.”
Aiden hurried to the SUV and climbed in the front. He turned in the seat to T.J. “Talk.”
Her sigh was trembling and watery. She sat in the back with his parents. “Dispatch received a call from Jesslyn. Someone was dead, a ‘she.’” She took a deep breath. “Jess was panicky and saying he was there. We heard a voice in the background when she was looking for her keys. We think she fled, and . . .”
Her silence stretched.
“And?” Aiden asked. By God, if anything happened to her . . . If anyone had dared to harm his Jessie.
“It was awful,” she whispered brokenly.
Kaitlyn Kinncaid did what Aiden knew she did best, she comforted. “It’s all right, dear, just get through it.”
Again T.J. took a deep breath. “He chased her and they fought.” She stopped, but added, “That’s all I know.”
Aiden knew she was leaving something out, but he didn’t know how to press her into telling him everything. He had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to have told him what she did. It didn’t matter, he’d find out everything he wanted to know.
Aiden sat back, his heart pounding fear and rage through him. “Can’t we go a little faster?”
He knew it. He’d known something was wrong. Dammit! Why did he let her go?
Please, please, let her be okay.
He couldn’t stand to think of anything happening to her. The thought of losing her . . . NO!
Her words earlier haunted him. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like to lose everything.” He hoped to God he’d never find out. Jesslyn was his everything, he couldn’t lose her. He just couldn’t.
Aiden felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t . . .” he muttered. She had to be all right. She had to. Aiden couldn’t think about anything else. Didn’t dare contemplate the meaning behind T.J.’s tears or what she might have heard on the dispatch tape. She’d fought with the man. Oh, God.
Tim glanced at him. “It’ll be okay.”
“I love her, Tim,” he said quietly. “I can’t lose her.” Aiden lo
oked away from his friend’s knowing face and stared out the window, the world a chaotic blur beyond.
• • •
They crested the hill and took the access road down to the lake. He couldn’t believe the sight before him.
Red and blue lights flashed through the misty weather. A uniformed officer stopped them and Tim apparently recognized the guy. T.J., being in the backseat, told the man to let them through.
Aiden could see two spotlights on boats out on the water. Fog floated above the lake, a low wispy cloud like the steam from a witch’s cauldron.
“They’re dragging the lake,” T.J. said from the backseat.
Aiden felt like he’d been sucker-punched. This was not happening. Vehicles were parked haphazardly on the far shore. Flashlights bobbed in the darkness through the little valley he and Jesslyn had walked through.
The SUV hit potholes and bounced, but never slowed down. Tim had barely pulled to a stop before Aiden tossed the door open and all but tore out of the car.
“Aiden! Wait!” T.J. hollered behind him.
Several people stood near the water’s edge. A part in the crowd allowed him to see divers in wetsuits kneeling by a black bag.
A body bag.
His world fell out from under him. Aiden didn’t remember running. He shoved his way through the people, their voices and hands lost in a blur of terror.
God! Rage roared through him. “No!”
Someone grabbed him hard.
“It’s not her, Mr. Kinncaid. It’s not Jesslyn.” The arms that held him were like manacles, and still he fought against them.
“Mr. Kinncaid!”
All Aiden saw was the black bag, a grotesque slap into reality.
He finally stilled when he realized he wasn’t getting out of the stranglehold someone had on him.
“Mr. Kinncaid, if you don’t calm down, I will remove you from these premises. Calm down and listen,” the voice said.
Aiden could only nod.
The arms around him loosened and he jerked away. His eyes still zeroed in on the bag.
“It’s not Jesslyn.”
It’s not Jesslyn. Not Jesslyn. Oh, God. He closed his eyes.
Finally, he looked up and into the whisky-colored eyes of Derrick Garrison, the Chief of Police.