by Sarah Abbot
The primal hoot of an owl rent the stillness of the night. Abby screamed as if the hand of evil had reached into her throat, clutched the heart of her terror, and torn it free.
Terrified, she dropped back down to her knees, and with the light thrown from the open trunk, she found her cell phone.
She clutched it, and with trembling hands, dialed 9-1-1.
“Deputy Flynn speaking.”
“Deputy! This is Abby Lancaster. I’m up at the cottage, and I need help!”
“Calm down, now, Miss Lancaster. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Another wave of fear washed over her, nearly smothering her with its weight. “Just get up here, please!”
“I’m on my way, I’m on my way—talk to me, Miss Lancaster…what’s going on up there?”
“Ronnie,” she cried, almost choking on her panic, “she’s not here, but her car is.”
“Ronnie’s a big girl. She can take care of herself, miss.”
“You don’t understand. I found blood, Flynn…did you hear me? Lots of blood!”
The shrill sound of his siren pierced the conversation. “All right, now, listen here, Miss Lancaster,” he said. “If that’s the case, I want you to drive yourself to a safe place till I get up there.”
“There is no safe place! It’s dark, I’ve lost my car keys— I’m stuck here!”
“Just stay on the line. I’m coming up Reynold’s Pass right now.”
“Okay, okay,” she said quietly, gasping for breath, sinking down the wall of the cottage. She landed in a squat at its base, penlight trained on the black expanse that yawned before her.
“You still there?” Flynn was all business, his voice edgy with the adrenaline of danger. “I’m turning up Crawford Lane right now, Abrielle. I oughta be there in about ten minutes.”
“Okay,” she said again. “You don’t suppose Ronnie’s been hurt, do you?”
“Hurt? Oh, I doubt that. Probably a reasonable explanation, is what I’m thinking.”
“You’re right,” she said. “There just has to be.” Then why is my gut telling me otherwise?
“Did you call anyone else, Abrielle? Ambulance, Ryan, anyone?”
“Just you,” she said, wishing Ryan could hear her thoughts, could feel her panic and come to her aid. “I left a note for Cora so she’d know where I was, but I didn’t call an ambulance.” The panic was rising again. “Should I have? Oh, what a stupid question—of course I should have!”
“Just calm down. I can do that from my console here in the car.”
Abby’s heart lurched. She had heard something…something like the snapping of branches from the area of the dock. “Ronnie?” she called timidly. “Is that you?”
Nothing.
“Ronnie!” she screamed, hating the frightened sound of her voice.
“I sure hope you’re someplace safe, Miss Lancaster!” The voice on the other end was panicked—but the tone paled compared to what Abby was feeling.
Abby ignored the pleading voice, focusing instead on the vicinity of the sound she had heard. She swept her light toward the side of the cottage.
Nothing.
“Miss Lan—”
“Shhh, Connor; be quiet! I heard something.”
“Then get out of there!”
“It might be Ronnie!”
Slowly, she rose from her crouched position, lifted the trembling penlight, and hooked her phone onto her belt loop.
Training her light toward the water, tire iron held aloft, she walked slowly into the night.
To her fear-quickened ears, every footfall against the weathered grain of the dock was a resonating thud in her ears. Every breath was as ragged as if drawn over glass.
Her grip on the tire iron was slick with sweat, and she grasped it more tightly.
“Ron? You’re scaring me.”
The right sweep of the inlet yielded nothing. She trained her light on the left-hand shore, sweeping it over stones, the ghostly white trunks of birch and…
Just between the spindly trunks, she saw a shifting column of white. The White Lady.
“No.” The word were scarcely more than a whisper. “Connor, I’m hanging up now. I’m going to call Ryan. Get here fast.”
“Don’t you do that, Abrielle! Don’t you hang up this phone—”
Abby hung up on Connor. She needed Ryan. She dialed his number.
“Hello?”
“Ryan!” she cried, tears of relief springing to her eyes. “I need you. I’m at the cottage, and something has happened to Ronnie!”
“Why did you leave the house?” he asked, panic evident in his voice.
“You sent me a text message…but you didn’t. I figured that out already. I need you, please hurry.”
“Are you okay? Have you called the police?”
“Connor’s on his way.”
“So am I. Don’t hang up, Abby.”
She walked slowly down the length of the dock, hearing the sounds of the night all around her. “I won’t,” she whispered into the phone.
The clouds shifted above her, sending a beam of moonlight to the earth. There, draped across the rocks, was the body of a woman.
Abby began to tremble; her breath began to snag on something immovable that suddenly burgeoned in her throat. “No!”
“Abby, what is it? Get to safety! Get in your car—drive!”
But she could hardly hear him over the beating of her heart.
Abby leapt onto the rocks that rimmed the shore; she stumbled into the water. “Ronnie!” she screamed, wading through the surf, climbing onto a jetty of stones that pierced the inlet.
She jumped from stone to stone, eyes intent on the whitish glow that had first caught her attention: a delicate foot, toes trailing in the water. She fell to her knees, unable to understand what she was seeing.
It was her mother, in the painting…but it wasn’t!
Abby’s blood was an ocean at storm, raging in her head as she dragged one breath, then another, past the tightening constraints of her esophagus. Her phone fell from her grasp into the lapping ocean.
When at last she could, she stumbled forward, hand outstretched to grasp the pale, lifeless one of her friend.
Ronnie sat on the stones, naked body arranged in a perfect likeness of the portrait that had first brought Abby here…except for the gash that streaked across her throat.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, screaming, or when she first understood that the sound of the siren had stopped, and a vehicle door had opened and shut.
The splash and swish of approach was upon her before she realized that she wasn’t alone with the body of her friend.
“Holy saints, preserve us!” Connor’s voice sounded as if it had been dragged over sandpaper. He collapsed beside Abby, genuflecting at the sight of Ronnie.
A voice, unrecognizable as her own, seemed to tear her heart from its moorings. Abby collapsed, waist deep in the water that was clouded with Ronnie’s blood. She reached up and began sobbing, certain she would never stop. “Hurry, Ryan,” she sobbed.
Connor grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “Get hold of yourself, Abrielle. Did you get through to Ryan?”
“I—yes. He’s on his way.”
Connor’s mouth hardened. “What I don’t need,” he said coldly, “is another civilian corrupting my crime scene.” He circled behind Abby, slipped his hands under her arms and began hoisting her up. “Sit here, Abrielle. Don’t, and I mean do not touch anything.”
He deposited her on a rock, drew his pistol with one hand, and pressed the radio at his shoulder. “Dispatch, this is Flynn. I need backup here at Abandon Bluff, and I need it fast. You get Sheriff and Wright out of bed and put a call out to Marriott County. We’re gonna need their expertise.”
His voice was a million miles away, swallowed by the quiet lap of the sea, drowned in crimson tendrils of blood.
Abby saw her hand rise, like a disembodied thing, and touch Ronnie’s arm. She had a desperate de
sire to cover her, to spare her the indignity of Connor’s eyes, of the worse, more glaring investigation that would follow.
She squeezed her eyes shut at the thought.
How…how on earth could this have happened? A tear slipped over the roundness of her cheekbone. Surely this is a bad dream.
Flynn’s weapon glinted wickedly in the moonlight despite the trembling of his grasp. He walked slowly, legs swishing through the water, weapon panning back and forth at the shore and light piercing the blackness of the forest.
Abby rocked back and forth on the rock, arms gripped around her body; every exhalation was a hum of disbelief, every breath in a gust of withering heat.
“Halt!” Connor suddenly croaked, pistol and wide-eyed gaze fixed upon the shifting bracken. “Bartholomew, you come on out with your hands raised. No one else has to get hurt!”
Abby leapt from the stones, was immersed to her waist in the water as her eyes darted frantically and at last caught the whitish glow of Bartholomew’s face.
The madness of the full, rising moon caught him amidst the blackness of shifting bracken, slid down the knife edge of his nose, and disappeared in the darkness of his mouth.
“Come out, now, Bartholomew…you don’t want to make things worse than they are.” Connor’s gun was trembling almost as much as his voice.
Abby felt her sensibilities awaken, felt a renewed fear for both their safeties emerge. She held her breath, watched in abject terror as Bartholomew’s gaze shifted from Flynn to her.
She watched the corners of his mouth lift. Then quickly, he was swallowed by the springing motion of branches.
“He’s getting away!” she cried, then shrieked at the piercing sound of a fired bullet.
Connor’s gun darted wildly, his eyes following suit. “I can’t see him! Bart, you come on out now!”
A moment passed—a moment strung so tightly that Abby felt the hairs on her body rise to meet its tension.
Connor’s gun lowered a little. “He’s gone,” he said, more to himself than to her.
Abby was silent.
“You need to come with me, Miss Lancaster.”
“No. I want to stay with her.”
He nudged her upward. “Come on, now, miss. I’m sure you don’t want to be here. There’s nothing you can do for her, now.”
He was right, of course. Abby let herself be lifted, then turned to touch her friend one last time. Her hand squeezed around Ronnie’s wrist. “I’m so sorry, Ronnie.”
Then, she felt something flutter beneath the touch of her fingertips. For the second time that night, her blood all but stopped in her veins. “No! Wait,” she said, shaking free of Connor’s grasp. “I felt something in Ronnie’s wrist. It was a pulse, Connor, I swear it!”
She fell to her knees before Ronnie, grasping her wrist with new urgency. “Come on, come on. Do it again for me, Ron!”
Connor stood in transfixed silence.
“There!” she shrieked. “She’s alive!”
Connor all but threw her into the ocean in the struggle to reach a hand to the macabre mess of Ronnie’s throat. He pressed, eyes closed in concentration.
Another set of lights pulled into the driveway. Abby’s heart soared with relief when she saw that it was Ryan.
Connor saw, too, and broke into a run toward his cruiser, presumably to fetch his first-aid kit.
Ryan tore out of his vehicle and bypassed Connor in his rush to get to Abby. He sloshed through the shallows, intent upon her. “Abby, what the—” Ryan grabbed her, then let her go as his arms fell slackly to his sides.
Abby looked up and saw his face—horror stricken, disbelieving—as he stared at Ronnie. His jaw moved soundlessly up and down. He looked down at Abby, touching her face as if to make sure she was alive, then reached out and touched Ronnie’s leg.
Abby clutched Ryan’s sweater, staring at Connor as he administered what first aid he could, pressing a hand to her heart.
“She’s alive?” asked Ryan.
Connor’s tone was grim. “Just barely.”
Ryan’s expression hardened, his eyes flashed. “Who did this?”
“Can’t say for sure without an investigation, but—”
“It was Bart!” Abby blurted, clutching Ryan. “He did this! I saw him disappear into the woods with my own eyes.” She looked frantically between the two men. “You’ve got to find him!”
“We’ll find him,” said Ryan, as he lifted his head at the sound of approaching sirens. “He’ll pay for this.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Abby had arrived at the hospital by way of the same ambulance that brought Ronnie.
In an act of sheer brute force, Ryan had grabbed the EMT by the sleeve, threatened him with bodily harm if he dared deny Abby a lift in the safety of his ambulance, and seated her in the back. The red-faced EMT opened his mouth as if to censure Ryan’s behavior, but seeing his face, apparently thought better of it. Abby didn’t blame him one bit.
It had been a harrowing ride, to say the least.
She slumped against the wall, closed her eyes, and— still wet from the lake, still reeking with the blood of her friend—prayed.
The prayer didn’t last long, just a simple, heartfelt “Please.” Every time she closed her eyes, horrific images burst upon the theater of her mind: images of the sticky deck, of Ronnie, of Ryan’s face looking between her and Ronnie as if trying to decide which of the two needed him more.
Abby’s heart thudded painfully in her chest, exuding rivers of anguish to the far reaches of her body and soul.
All this has come about because of me.
If she hadn’t been so desperate for answers to questions that didn’t even matter, then the evil that lurked on the island wouldn’t have been awakened. If she’d only gotten on with her life and accepted that her past couldn’t be changed, Ryan and Cora’s lives wouldn’t have been turned upside down. If she’d been wise and taken what lessons she could from her mother’s tragedy, she wouldn’t have come to Destiny Bay in the first place, and Ronnie wouldn’t have been attacked and very nearly killed.
If, if, if.
She thought of the life she had left behind—the life that seemed, in retrospect, perfectly livable, if lonely. Then she thought of the life she’d traded it for. A life of chaos and uncertainty, of fault and terror, of friends, fighting for their very lives because of her.
And then there was Ryan, who was probably combing the woods for a crazed would-be murderer at this very moment.
She slid down the wall, grasping her heaving stomach. She was going to be sick. She was going to cause even more of a stir in an already frantic emergency room! Her gaze darted around and rested upon a wastepaper basket. She grabbed it and vomited into it as discreetly as possible.
She wanted nothing more than to rewind time, to change her choices…and barring that, to simply disappear.
Yes, Ryan was right in saying she had to leave Destiny Bay—had been tactful not to say she shouldn’t have come in the first place.
He deserved so much more.
She had dared to love, and this was the pain that resulted. She’d known what to expect from love, and yet she’d jumped into Ryan’s arms, ruined a friendship and quite possibly ruined another person’s life.
She had no right to Ryan’s love after the pain she’d caused him, and no right to Ronnie’s friendship after what had befallen her.
With the thought of her friend, Abby’s gaze returned to the glassed-in trauma room that teemed with controlled chaos. Ronnie was in there, fighting for every breath.
Because of me.
Abby’s stomach threatened to revolt again. She expressly forbade it, pressing her hand there in an attempt to calm the internal storm.
She needed to make amends, but how? How to take this impossible situation and make it right?
Maybe she never could. But maybe she was on to something…maybe the best she could do for everyone involved would be to simply disappear.
Finall
y…an aspect of this madness she could control.
An hour—which seemed more like a lifetime—passed, and still no sign of Ryan.
Ronnie, though critical, had been stabilized.
“Please,” Abby prayed in whispered tones. “Please keep him safe. And please don’t take Ronnie.”
“Did you say something?” asked the nurse who led her down the hall.
“No. Nothing.”
“There’s a right ballyhoo kicking up out there,” said the nurse as she nodded toward the window.
Abby recognized her attempts to distract, but beyond glancing at the tossing trees outside the window, she could scarcely muster a response.
“They say there’s a hurricane a-comin’. Only a category one, mind, but still a good night to be inside, says I.”
Unless you’re in a hospital bed, rubbing shoulders with death.
The nurse showed her Ronnie’s door. “Just buzz if you need anything.”
Abby walked into the room. She knew—with a flimsy, secondhand sort of knowledge—that Ronnie was dangerously near death.
In that moment, her quality of knowledge changed.
To know with the mind is one thing. To know with the eyes and heart is an entirely different matter. Abby understood in an instant that it’s that sort of knowing that can change the very landscape of the soul.
She felt her own landscape shift. She walked toward the bed as if the floor were littered with mines, allowing herself to touch nothing, to hear only the low-pitched hum of hospital circuitry in her ears. She smelled her own fear—tasted the cottony dryness that filled her mouth.
When she could walk no farther, she stopped by Ronnie’s bed and looked down at her.
A woman, unrecognizable as Ronnie, lay unconscious.
Abby crumpled to the floor. This was her doing. If she’d only stayed a lifetime away from Destiny Bay!
She might not be able to change the past, but she could see to it that the future was safer for everyone. She would not hurt her friend anymore. The least she could do was bow out of the race for Ryan’s heart—surely Ronnie deserved him more than she did. Surely his life would be better with a woman like Ronnie.
Abby understood now, as she never had before, that to her, love would only ever mean pain—pain she could no longer endure. She would leave Destiny Bay, as Ryan had asked, but she would not be coming back as he thought.