Paranoid

by Lisa Jackson

  And now Harper was here.

  Somewhere.

  Forced to this menacing edifice by Lucas.

  She hurried across the ancient floorboards, hoping that her eyes would adjust to the darkness, that she wouldn’t be forced to use the light from her phone and become a visible target. She reached the midsection of the building, where some of the windows were unbroken, thin light filtering through the grimy glass. She stopped, straining to listen, squinting into the darkness.

  Her throat was tight, and her hands were clammy over the handles of the bolt cutters.

  Deep in the shadows, something moved, scratched across the planks, little claws scraping as a rat scurried past. She clamped her jaw tight so as not to scream. Of course there were rats and God only knew what else hiding in the corners or lurking on the crossbeams.

  She swallowed back her fear.

  Far in the distance—too far—she heard the faint, but shrill sound of sirens.

  Hurry. Please hurry.

  She took one step forward, then froze when a deep, raspy voice rumbled through the vast, nearly empty building.

  “Well, look who’s here,” Lucas said, his voice almost a croak. “Mommy did come after all.”

  How could this demon, this murderer be her nephew? Luke’s son? The boy she had watched grow from a baby in diapers to a tall, strapping man. Now, a monster.

  “Where’s Harper?”

  “You tell me.”

  Oh, God, it was a game? “Look. I just came for my kid.”

  “Right on cue.”

  She heard a movement behind her and the hairs on the back of her arms raised. She spun, staring into the stygian umbra.

  Nothing.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “No one’s laughing, Auntie.”

  He sounded almost disembodied, without any human emotion. Her stomach curdled. “Where’s Harper?” she said again. “And Xander?” As she asked, she moved, inching sideways, coming to the ladder to the upper level, the one she’d cowered behind years ago.

  No response.

  She thought she heard footsteps, light and fast, and she had to swallow back her fear.

  “Lucas? What’s going on?” She had to keep him talking so that she could find out where he was hiding, where he was keeping Harper.

  “Oh, come on, Auntie, you’re smarter than this. You know what you did. You killed my father, your own brother, right here, in this very building. Right? This is the spot, Auntie, where you literally got away with murder.”

  “You’re right. I did. But Harper had nothing to do with it.”

  The blood. Whose blood had she seen by the gate and leading into the cannery?

  “Collateral damage.”

  Her heart squeezed painfully.

  “Like those other two bitches who thought they would get you off. Your friends.”

  Oh. God. He was crowing about killing Violet and Annessa.

  Where was he? Above, up the ladder, or farther back, past the chute where the fish guts had been flushed so many years ago? She closed her eyes, listening hard, her fingers clenched over the bolt cutters.

  “And what about his best friend?” Lucas demanded.

  She was sweating, trying to think, remembering the layout of this building all those years ago. Was he in deeper at the far end of the cannery where boats had tied up to unload their catches, where the water was the deepest?

  Listen hard, Rachel. Try to pinpoint his voice.

  “You know who I mean. Nate Moretti. What about that dick? Why didn’t he step up and save him if they were so tight? What kind of a friend doesn’t step in to save him?”

  That didn’t make any sense. How could Nate, could anyone, have saved Luke?

  But Lucas wasn’t done. “And your father. What about him, the cop who let his darling daughter get away with murder?”

  Her father? Had Lucas done something to Ned? Rachel’s insides turned to water but she believed it of Lucas now.

  “Bunch of pansy-assed losers!” he shouted.

  Her throat closed and she had to force the words out. “But not,” she said, whispering before she took in a deep breath. “But not Harper. She had nothing to do with this. She wasn’t even born.”

  “Neither was I!” he yelled, his calm veneer cracking, and she turned her head, knew where he was hiding, there by the chute.

  The sirens outside were getting louder and red and blue lights strobed through the windows. “You called the cops? Jesus, are you fuckin’ dumb? We’ll all be killed!”

  “Not if you let her go.”

  “Fuck!” She saw him then, in a shooter’s stance, facing her. She flattened, hitting the floor just as he fired, the blast of the gun thunderous, the muzzle visible as voices shouted from outside.

  “Police! Lucas Ryder, drop your weapon!”

  For a second she didn’t move, and then she heard a strangled cry, a tortured sound, and she couldn’t wait. Nephew or not, she wouldn’t let him hurt her daughter. Slithering forward like a snake, she eased toward him.

  “Auntie,” he called as the sound of boots echoed through the building. The old barn door creaked open.

  Rachel kept moving, easing forward, dragging the bolt cutters, feeling the grit of dirt and oil and grime of dozens of years against her skin and clothing, the smell of grease and mildew and rot heavy in her nostrils.

  Again the soft, agonized groan and she thought of the blood, imagined her daughter bleeding out somewhere in this malevolent structure. She heard the sound of the river flowing below her, through the opening; smelled the wet, brackish odor as she inched by the chute.

  She was close now.

  “Lucas Ryder!” a woman’s voice yelled. Kayleigh. “Police! Drop your weapon! Come out with your hands over your head!”

  “Fuck you!” Lucas yelled, turning his back to Rachel. In the darkness he seemed to drag a body in front of him, using it as a human shield. An anguished groan came from the body.

  Harper! Oh, God, no!

  She could be killed in any gunfire.

  Rachel had to stop this. Do anything. She reached into her back pocket, withdrew her phone, and out of desperation hurled it at him. It hit with a soft thud against his shoulder and he jumped back, startled, and for a second stared at the phone glowing in front of him.

  “What the—”

  Rachel launched herself, sprang from all fours, aiming the blade of the bolt cutters at his back, to that spot between his shoulder blades. She hit hard, driving deep. With a roar he dropped the body in front of him and tried to turn. She used her weight to jam the handles together, praying that she could snap enough muscle, tissue, and bone to incapacitate him, to make him lose his grip on the gun, to take him down! The short jaw-like blades snapped together, crunching bone, tearing through muscle as he screamed in agony.

  This is Lucas. He’s your nephew!

  Still she squeezed, hanging on to the handles as he tried to shake her off. His screams ripped through the building and he staggered, firing wildly. Her hands, oily with sweat and slick with blood, slid on the grips.

  “Don’t shoot!” Rachel cried, bracing herself against an onslaught of bullets from the police. “Don’t shoot!”

  With a final thrust of his body, he wrenched the cutters from her grip and she fell backward, tripping and falling, slipping on the blood that seemed to be everywhere. She went down hard and found the floor uneven and sloped. Feet first she slithered down the hole and into the chute leading to the river below.

  No, no, no! Scrambling, she caught one hand on the metal edge where the chute had been attached to the floor, but her weight dragged her down, the skin on her palm and fingers ripping as she slid down the chute and dropped into the icy river below. She nearly gasped but managed to hold her breath, dark waters of the river enveloping her. She tried to touch bottom, but the Columbia was too deep.

  Swim.

  Fighting the current, she pushed herself upward, her hand throbbing as it brushed against something soft and
slimy. She recoiled just as a light from above, a bright beam from a high-powered flashlight, was shined through the hole in the cannery floor to illuminate the murky water of the river. She kicked again and her foot hit that same soft object. Turning, able to see through the air bubbles escaping from her lungs, she found herself staring into the bloated, tattered face of a man. His eyes were gone, gaping holes left, his mouth open, but even with the distortion and disfigurement she recognized Nate Moretti.

  Oh, God. Her stomach started to wretch and she had to fight to keep her mouth closed. The corpse, tangled in vegetation and old fishing line, bobbed in the water, one hand slapping against her.

  She swam away, wanting to scream, the world spinning. All the horror in her life converged in her brain as she felt the air leave her lungs.

  Harper, she thought wildly, trying to concentrate. She’d left her daughter with that monster. Her heart cracked as she let out her final breath and thought, Oh, baby, I’ve failed you.

  * * *

  Using her flashlight, Kayleigh took one look at Lucas Ryder, Cade’s nephew, a damned bolt cutter lodged in his back, his throat showing a gaping hole where blood still ran from being attacked by God knew what. He was still alive, but just barely.

  She recognized the second man as Xander Vale, the person he’d used as a human shield. Vale, too, was in rough shape, suffering from a wound in his leg, possibly a gunshot. How the hell had that happened?

  “Where’s Rachel Ryder?” she asked just as a deputy yelled, “She went through the floor! Holy crap, did you see that?”

  Kayleigh strode to the opening in the floorboards and spied a metal slide of sorts.

  “Down there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Crap.”

  She pointed to the two injured men. “Take care of them. Get ambulances out here and keep each suspect under guard. Call for River Rescue. I want a boat out here ASAP. Then, for God’s sake, back me up and keep that light shining down there!” Then, cursing the fates, she lowered herself into the rusting slide, let go, and slid down the damned chute after Cade Ryder’s wife.

  If she was lucky, she could save Rachel.

  If not, they both could drown.

  She dropped into the Columbia, felt its frigid pull as the current drew her westward, toward the Pacific.

  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.

  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 s
urvived, 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.