Desperate Rescue

by Barbara Phinney

  But he did speak. “So it’s possible that there aren’t any men with them?”

  Her throat dried and tightened. She shook her head, feeling confused. “Noah is insane, but he’s not after me. Your investigator is mistaken. Those women would never go south alone.”

  “I know my brother. I know what he’s capable of. And what he’ll do. He’ll come after you, Kaylee. He warned you that he would.”

  “He warned me that he’d kill Trisha if I left. So that means I killed her by leaving.”

  “No, you didn’t! Noah did. Don’t let him poison your mind. I know he told you if anything happened to her, you’d be at fault, but you’re not.” He grabbed her shoulders. “And you’re not safe here, either. Remember, he threatened you!”

  She stepped back from him, closing in on her home. “Don’t say that!”

  “And you know Lois’s dog? He’s dead. He was the dog that was killed that night. The one that stopped barking right after a painful yelp. Did you ask Lois what was wrong with him?”

  “I’ve been too busy and Lois didn’t mention anything.” She searched his face. “What happened?”

  Eli’s face showed reluctance. “Suffice it to say that his barking was a problem to Noah. And it was Noah.”

  She leaned away, trying not to absorb all he was saying. That poor dog! “Crazy or not, Noah’s done with me. Haven’t I been through enough this past year? You should know that more than anyone. Noah’s gone, so if I were you, I’d be heading south while the trail’s still fresh.” She wrenched herself free and raced to her door.

  Her heart pounded against her ribs as she struggled to unlock the deadbolt.

  “Kaylee!”

  “Just leave me alone!” She threw her comment over her shoulder.

  Her fingers shook as she rushed inside. Once safely there, she found her breath heaving as she slid to the floor. She hated being so helpless, so useless, so stupidly fearful. She’d been like that for two years and she never wanted to be like that again. But here she was, weak, powerless, not even strong enough to want to fight back.

  Eli found her minutes later. Wordlessly, he lifted her up and took her into her living room. She slumped down on the couch, her head hitting the back cushion.

  He found her a pillow to hug, which she snatched and drew to her chest. Then he spoke. “Noah isn’t done yet. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “I don’t want to hear that. You’re sounding like a broken record. Noah’s gone. He fled south. He’s taken them all, including Phoebe, with him. Don’t waste time with me. You want Phoebe, so you shouldn’t be hanging around here.”

  “I know my brother. And I know he’s here.”

  “Don’t say that! It’s not—”

  “It is true! Let me tell you how I know. Hec Haines talked to him last Thursday night. When I saw Hec at church, he began to talk to me as if he’d already met me. He had met Noah, who was impersonating me. What better way to stick around town than to pretend to be someone else? We look enough alike to fool most strangers and he knows I’ve been all over town.” He pushed further. “And you already said that he warned he would kill you.”

  Her head shot up. “No, I didn’t!”

  “Yes, you did. When we first met, you said something about Noah threatening to kill you.”

  Feeling the blood drain from her face, she looked up at him. “I said that?”

  “Don’t you remember? Right outside here? You said he would kill you. Then at the compound, when you panicked?”

  She frowned, deep in thought. After she swallowed, started to speak, stopped and started again. “I did. Oh, no!”

  He reached out to help her, but she jumped up and away from him. “No! This isn’t fair! I don’t deserve it!”

  She stalked away, only to stop, spin and return. “Forget it! This is not happening to me!”

  He grabbed her. “It is! But I can help you.”

  She shrugged him off. “I’ve started over. I have friends here. They’ll help me.”

  “But they can’t protect you from Noah. They don’t know him like I know him.”

  She scrunched up her eyes before throwing up her hands to cover her face. When he held out his arms to draw her close, she didn’t resist.

  They clung to each other for a long time, until, stiff and sore, she peeled free of him and sank down on the couch.

  Peeking up at him, she watched him offer up a quiet prayer.

  Lord in Heaven, help us both, she added when he’d finished. Please. Because she had the feeling Eli needed His help more now than he ever did before.

  Five minutes later, she found Eli in the kitchen, making coffee.

  He looked across the small room at her. When she didn’t speak, he looked over at her questioningly.

  “I…I need to talk to you.” She dropped into the nearest chair, hoping the look on her face wasn’t as blank as it felt. She had no idea what was in her heart, let alone what she could say.

  Eli sat down beside her. After a short silence, he suggested softly, “Why don’t we pray first?”

  She stiffened. “It won’t do any good. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I’ve done all kinds of praying these past two years and nothing good ever happened. I prayed in the living room after you did and I don’t feel any different.” She struggled to find the best words. “I even prayed while I was in that compound and all that I got was more involved with them. I ended up believing the lies Noah told. The whole time I was praying for help, but I got nothing back, no peace, no hope, nothing!”

  Eli smiled. “So, what you’re saying is that you want me to pray instead of you?”

  Despite the turmoil within her, Kaylee snickered. It was more of a nervous laugh, but it was nice to see a different side to Eli. Had his decision to stay lifted a weight from him? “Go ahead. You’d do better than me, anyway.”

  They bowed their heads. Taking her hands, he said a soft prayer.

  It was lovely. Gentle, thankful words rich with a deep sense of commitment. Kaylee bit back the wash of longing she felt. To have that kind of faith; to know peace and trust was just a prayer away.

  “So,” he said after he’d finished, “you need to talk?”

  “I…” She didn’t know where to start. To her horror, she felt an unwelcome swell of tears and looked at Eli through watery eyes. “You say that Noah’s here. How? What are we…”

  She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. For a few minutes, she sobbed quietly. Honestly, would she ever be strong again?

  Eli found a box of tissues and, after setting it down in front of her, he held her hand. When she finally pulled herself together, she blinked up at him. He was sitting there, his eyes closed.

  Praying again?

  Oh, how good it would feel to rely on God, to totally believe He’d help, that He cared for people like her.

  Eli opened his eyes. Without speaking, he rose and walked into her living room. There, she watched as he scribbled something down on a sheet of cut-up scrap paper she always kept by the phone.

  Fascinated by his smooth, fluid movements, she felt a warmth grow in her heart as he wrote swiftly.

  With his left hand.

  She stiffened. His left hand? Eli was left-handed. She knew that.

  The warmth of a moment ago drained, replaced by a cold, icy clutch around her heart.

  When he returned to the kitchen and sat down again, he looked at her. He went instantly alert. “Something’s wrong. What’s going on?”

  Rubbing her arms, she chewed on her lip. “Noah has been here.”

  “I know. Hec Haines met him downtown.”

  “No, I mean, here, at this house. In the backyard. And I was ready to let him just walk in and be alone with me!”

  FOURTEEN

  Noah had been here? Right in Kaylee’s backyard? Toying with her, just as Eli knew his brother would. He pushed himself to his feet, anger fueling his movements. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes. I went out on the deck a couple
of nights ago and he was down on the lawn. It was nearly dark, and I—I thought he was you and he let me believe that.”

  “What were you doing out there?”

  “I saw the leash.”

  “Leash?”

  “Pepe’s leash. I saw it tangled around the deck railing and went out to see what it was. Then I saw someone standing underneath and…I said something. He stepped out from under the deck and started to talk to me. He let me think that he was you.”

  Eli dug his fingers through his short hair. Noah knew his younger brother was here, glancing over his shoulder at every opportunity, being everywhere as much as possible. Eli hadn’t slept much since he came, choosing instead to learn every trail, every teenage hangout, every inch of this small town.

  Only a matter of time before he found Noah. A short time if he knew that Noah was coming around here.

  In front of him, Kaylee was rubbing her arms. He wanted to warm her up, hold her tight and tell her that everything would be fine. But first he needed some information. “What else did he say? What did he do? Did you see which way he went?”

  She shook her head. “No. It was as if he went poof and was gone, like in those scary movies when you turn around and the person has disappeared. How did he learn I was here?”

  “Probably the same way I learned. I hired someone to find you.” Eli stilled. Noah and he not only looked alike, they could easily be mistaken for each other on the phone. A man as crafty as Noah might find out who Eli had hired—

  Or he could have done his own legwork, pretending to be Eli.

  No time to waste with speculation. “Did he look wet, as if he’d been standing outside for a while? Did he look in any way cold?”

  With a quick lick of her lips, she shook her head again. “It hadn’t begun to rain yet. Well, if anything, he looked a bit too smug.” She shivered. “I can’t believe I was fooled. This is insane. Noah’s insane!”

  Her words sobered him and he frowned, absorbing the full impact of what she meant. “I know it wasn’t me, but what made you realize it was him?”

  “I didn’t until just now. He used his right hand to untangle Pepe’s leash. I didn’t realize it at the time, but just now watching you write made me remember.” As if charged with strong insight, she stood. “And I’ve been finding candy wrappers on the floor at the rec center. I thought it was the kids, but lately, most have been stuck on some new cartoon’s candy—marshmallow stuff made into different faces. These wrappers belonged to the hard candies made in the store next to the gym.”

  He wasn’t following her thoughts. “But what’s these candies got to do with Noah?”

  “I smelled them on him, along with some other yucky smell.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Yucky?”

  “Bad is more like it. It smelled like rotten eggs. I only got a short whiff, but it was the sweet, minty scent that stood out. I remembered it because I smelled it at the center.”

  “Which is beside the candy store.”

  “Yes, which must…” As her voice died away, he stood, pivoting slowly as he straightened. All the while, he said nothing. His shoulders ached, his head was beginning to pound and he fought the urge to grab Kaylee and tell her to throw stuff into a suitcase. Despite his cool, calm actions, his thoughts were churning. Take her far away, at top speed, as if the world were on fire.

  But did God want him to go? He shut his eyes. What should I do, Lord? I want to do Your will.

  When he opened his eyes, he found Kaylee studying him. The urge to explain swelled. “I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

  “Were you praying?”

  “Saying a short one, yes. But often, when God wants me to do something, I get a strong urge to do that. It’s immediate and I often say yes without really thinking of what I’m saying.” He offered a half smile. “It’s hard to explain. I just get a good feeling that what I’m doing is the right thing to do.”

  “Are you getting that sense now? What do you think we should do? Call the police?”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Yes, I’ll call Reading. He’ll want to know this has happened. But as for what we should do, I don’t know.” He hated that he sounded so defeated. “I mean, not yet, anyway.”

  Her expression closed, turning critical. “Is it fair for us to have to wait at such a crucial time? Would God be so cruel to do that to us?”

  “No, He wouldn’t. But sometimes He lets us work on our own, even to the point of allowing us to make mistakes. I want to take you away from here, right now. But I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do.”

  “Lois has a Christian CD of a group that sings about whether it’s God or Satan talking.”

  “Exactly. I don’t know if I should take you somewhere safe or stay to find Noah.”

  “Take me somewhere? I’m not a child, Eli. Don’t treat me like one.”

  He flicked up his eyebrows. “You’re right, of course.”

  Her expression softened immediately. Her mouth parted as though she wanted to say something, but no words came. With her dark hair and that wide-eyed expression of half fear and half trust, she bore such heart-wrenching innocence. He shouldn’t be talking about the evil one, and not knowing what to do. These thoughts were his personal ones, part of his own journey. They were too intimate for sharing.

  Yet he wanted to share them with her. And with her so close, so needing the warm comfort of someone she trusted, he also wanted badly to take hold of her.

  To kiss her, help her forget their danger.

  She blinked and the beguiling expression vanished. “What I don’t understand is why Noah declined my invitation to come inside? I mean, I thought he was you and asked him in for coffee. He had the perfect opportunity to kill me, or at least destroy my faith in you.”

  She had faith in him? He felt the start of a smile at the comment. “What did he say? Just no?”

  She shook her head. “Not quite. He said that men couldn’t be trusted. That he was just like Noah. I mean, he was talking as though he were you, letting me think that, and said that he—you, I mean—were just like him.” She rubbed her forehead, obviously struggling with the situation. “I kept disagreeing with him.”

  Before he could answer, she groaned and threw back her head. “He said that all men were alike and that he couldn’t be trusted any more than anyone else. To be alone with a woman, that is. He sounded as though he really cared for my honor or something.”

  “He didn’t have your honor in mind.”

  She tilted her head forward again. “I don’t know what he was thinking. All those months in the compound and he never laid a hand on me. I always expected that. At first, I kept thinking of how I could overpower him if he tried to molest me. I knew I couldn’t because of my size, but the thoughts kept me going for a while.” She swallowed. “Then when I gave up, when I realized that Noah would really hurt Trisha if I tried to leave, and me if he ever caught me, I expected I would just let him…you know…get it over and done with.”

  Her chin wrinkled and she shut her eyes. And in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to kill his brother. For the torture, for the stress, for everything he’d done to Kaylee.

  Lord, what should I do?

  She blew out a sigh. “I guess I should be grateful he never touched me, but just standing out there under the deck, he made you sound like you were some evil monster, ready to do exactly as he might do.” She gasped, as if hearing her words for the first time. “He made it sound as if you were just like him and he agreed that he was evil!”

  “He is.”

  “But he could have easily killed me that night.” She looked queasy. “So why didn’t he? Why did he go on like he was you?”

  “Noah is an excellent strategist. He’s planning something, you can count on it. And part of it includes discrediting me.”

  Eli shouldn’t have spoken. Kaylee paled, looking definitely as if she might throw up. “What could he be planning? To come here pretending to be you? He didn’t know
I was going to go out on the deck! It was strictly by chance I went out there.”

  “You went to look at the leash.”

  “Yes, to see what it was. The wind must have blown it up there.”

  “Noah put it there to lure you out.”

  “But he didn’t do anything! Eli, I know he’s cunning and manipulative, but he could have killed me that night and no one would have known anything until the next day. He lured me out only to tell me that you are as bad as he is. That you’re cut from the same cloth.”

  Cold rippled over him. “He said that?”

  “Yes.” She frowned. “I think they were the words he used.”

  Eli pursed his lips. The same words his grandmother used to say when they were playing in her house. He and Noah would get into mischief, mostly of Noah’s invention, with him tagging along behind his older brother. But they were both found guilty when the trouble was discovered. Phoebe was just a baby back then and if she was there at the time, she’d have pulled herself up on the playpen slats and watched everything with keen, pale eyes. All Eli’s protests of innocence, all Noah’s smugness, Phoebe would see them all. Then she’d let out a cry and Noah would go to her, pick her up and tell her it was all Eli’s fault.

  The words still hurt, he decided after a few moments of thought. His grandmother’s complaints were sharp, disapproving and meant to warn his mother to watch both of them. Grandma knew boys. She’d had seven of them, buried three before they could enter school thanks to a fire set by one of them in the old barn, some fifty-odd years ago. She knew boys, all right, and she knew troublesome boys best of all.

  Now Noah wasn’t just tormenting Kaylee, he was deliberately seeding suspicion in Kaylee. Suspicions that were true.

  “Eli?”

  He looked at her.

  “You’re frowning and muttering. What are you thinking?”

  “Our grandma used to tell my mother that we were cut from the same cloth. She was very critical of our antics. Of course, Noah was the instigator. It never bothered me when we were young, except when I got into trouble.”