"I do not know this word, chattel," Vanessa said.
Eric willed Vanessa to lower the gun completely. He feared how she would respond when the police arrived.
"Chattel means property," Kelsey said. "Humans should never be treated like property."
There was a long pause, like the lady was considering it. Then, the gun was raised, aimed properly again. "Da. But you will tell the police."
"I won't. I swear."
There was a long pause. The woman seemed to be thinking, considering.
Lower it. Just lower it.
"I can't risk it."
Eric was out of time.
Eric launched himself into the room, stepped in front of Kelsey, and aimed at Vanessa.
The woman gasped.
Behind him, Kelsey said, "Oh, my God. Eric!"
Vanessa aimed at him.
A standoff.
"Nobody has to get hurt." He held the gun in his right hand, lifted his left like a stop sign. "I don't want to shoot you. And I sure don't want you to shoot me."
The woman's eyes were wide, terrified.
"The door is open. The car is out there. If you know where the keys are, grab them and go."
"You will follow."
"I don't have a car, even if I wanted to follow you," Eric said. "But the police are on the way. If you want to escape, to protect your child, you need to go now."
Her gaze flicked to Otero.
"Does he have them?" Eric asked.
I think, yes."
"Kelsey," Eric said gently. "Can you search his pockets, see if you can find the keys?"
He felt her move, but he didn't take his eyes off Vanessa.
The keys jingled, and he held out his left hand. "Hand them to me."
Kelsey did, and he held them out toward Vanessa.
A few feet separated them. He took a step forward.
She took a step back.
"You're going to have to trust me, Vanessa. I don't want to hurt you. And I am sure as heck not sorry you killed Otero. But if you run into those woods, chances are good you'll freeze to death before you ever find a way out. The baby you're carrying deserves better than that."
"You will hurt me."
"I won't. I swear." He stepped forward again, the keys resting in the palm of his hand like an offering. "I'm not like him. I don't want to hurt you."
She moved toward him. He shifted toward her.
She didn't lower her gun. He didn't lower his.
Finally, she reached out snatched the keys.
She bolted out the door and up the stairs.
Eric grabbed Kelsey away from the window, pulled her behind him, and stood in the center of the room. His gaze jumped from the door to the window, waiting.
A moment later, a car started. Vanessa drove away.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Was it really over?
Kelsey stood behind Eric, waited for him to relax as the sound of the car disappeared in the distance.
He didn't move.
She touched his back. "Eric?"
He spun, pulled her into his embrace.
She collapsed against him and wept.
"It's okay." He held her tight, rubbed his hands against her cold skin. "You're safe now. You're safe."
"They told me you were dead."
"I know." He stroked her hair, kissed her head. "I know. I thought, when I saw you..."
His words trailed off.
But he didn't need to explain, because she knew. The fear, the worry, the despair. To lose the one you love was the worst torture in the world.
She wanted to apologize for all she'd put him through. But she could never make up for what she'd done to him. She'd taken his child, stolen his chance to know the most beautiful expression of their love.
Had he heard her confession? Did he know? She was afraid to ask, but she had no right to keep the information from him another minute.
She pulled away, looked up to meet his eyes. "About Daniel—"
"Is it true? Is he mine?"
Tears burned her throat until she couldn't speak. She nodded.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but tears escaped anyway. He lifted his face to the ceiling.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know how to keep you both safe. If I'd come home, he would have found me years ago. I was afraid to put you in danger. Afraid to put Daniel in danger. I didn't know what to do. Can you ever forgive me?"
He pulled her close again.
She pressed her face into his soft sweater, felt his warmth seep through to her skin.
Sirens echoed in the distance.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say. All she knew was that she loved him, and she loved her son, and she'd done all she knew to do to protect them both.
And ultimately, she'd put them both in danger.
Eric stepped away. He held her at arms' length and met her eyes. His were red-rimmed and filled with tears. "I'm not sure how to feel right now except just...just happy you're safe."
The sirens were screaming now.
"I stole him from you. I stole ten years from you."
"Not you, Kels." He pulled her a few feet away, turned her to face the corpse on the floor.
Eric pointed at Carlos's body. "He stole that time from us. None of this was your fault."
How could Eric be this forgiving? She turned again to face him. "I was trying to... I was trying to make it right. If I hadn't sprained my ankle, if I hadn't gotten caught at that house..."
"What?" His eyes narrowed. "What would have happened?"
"I was going to call the police, tell them the child was yours. I never planned on Daniel ending up in foster care. My plan... I thought... I was trying to make sure he'd end up with you."
"You were going to...?" His words trailed off as he processed what she'd said.
"I knew you could keep him safe, safer than I could. I thought, if you two were safe, then whatever happened to me..."
He crushed her to his chest, kissed her hair. "Thank God." His voice was thick with emotion. "Thank God for that sprained ankle."
Slamming doors. Voices outside the open door.
Eric called, "We're down here." Then he turned back to Kelsey. "It's over. Now, we can be a family."
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Vanessa barely knew how to drive. She did not know how to drive in the snow.
After she'd left the house, she'd turned away from town, away from the policemen who were on their way. What would they do to her if they caught her? She'd killed a man. Killed him in cold blood. And she wasn't sorry.
Kelsey was right. Carlos did not have the right to treat her as he had. She was not...what was the word? Chattel. She was not merchandise to be bought and sold. And she would never be again.
Assuming she could escape in this storm.
Ahead, a man staggered into the road. His hands were lifted, waving, like he needed help.
She'd already been going slowly. She took her foot off the gas and let the car drift to a stop.
The man...it was Mateo.
She grabbed the gun, rolled down the passenger window, pointed.
He lifted his hands. "Are you all right?"
"Carlos is dead. What happened to you?"
"Eric. It was a trap. He jumped me, knocked me out. When I got up, I was disoriented. And then I heard the sirens and ran."
They stared at each other.
He swallowed. "We need to go, or we'll both get caught."
"Why should I take you?"
He ducked his head like he always had with Carlos. "I will be happy to drive, and I have a phone with a map. I can get us out of here."
She flicked her gaze to the road in front of her. Snow, hills, forest. She'd never find her way out.
Mateo's hands were still lifted. "And I have access to all of his accounts. You and your little one will need money."
Your little one...? "How do you know about that?"
"I've seen how tired you are. I've s
een how hungry you've been lately. I know you went to the doctor last week. It was only a guess."
He'd observed a lot more than Carlos had. Carlos had hardly paid her any attention, but Mateo? He noticed everything.
"I don't want to hurt you, Vanessa." His hands dropped to his sides. "I never did. I only wanted to keep you as far from this... this ugliness as possible."
She didn't believe that, not really. But on the other hand, she had the gun. "You're driving."
He ducked his head again and lifted his phone. "You will navigate. We'll work together."
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Eric yawned, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the house in the woods. The house that had been the lair of an evil man and become a place of threats and murder. Snow was still falling, covering everything in a coating of beauty. How could that be, after all the horror of this house?
"You all right?" Brady asked.
"Heckuva day."
Brady smiled, but it faded fast. "I'm kind of ticked that you did all this without me. Most exciting thing to happen in town since..."
"Not that long ago," Eric said. "Just since Sam and Garrison—"
"Good point."
Eric turned his attention to the front door, where two officers carried a gurney with Carlos Otero's body down the porch steps. The men slid the body into the back of the coroner's van.
"Maybe we've had enough excitement in Nutfield for a while," Eric said.
Brady nodded. "You ready to tell me what happened?"
Eric turned to his friend, his chief, and nodded. He explained the unbelievable events of the last few hours, at least the ones he knew.
"So you escaped, but you came back?"
"What choice did I have, Brady? She was here."
"I understand. Go on."
"I was outside trying to figure out how to rescue Kelsey when Surfer Dude found me."
Brady's eyebrows lifted. "He found you? I just assumed you'd seen him. How'd you get away?"
He remembered the moment. The gun pointed at his back as he walked deeper into the woods, away from his wife and toward his own death. His own death—that, he could have handled, but knowing Kelsey was in Carlos's hands... No, he'd had no choice but to fight.
There'd been nothing special about the tree he'd chosen. He'd just gotten up his nerve, and when he walked by it, he ducked behind. Then he bolted behind another tree, then a bunch of shrubs. He'd kept low.
The man had been smart enough to keep his distance. Eric hadn't been able to reach him, to attack. But the distance worked against him now. He followed, shouted threats.
Eric ran.
The man chased him. And he was fast. And armed. Eric had figured he'd start firing, but Surfer Dude didn't waste his bullets or pause to aim.
Pure adrenaline pushed Eric forward. But the man never fell far enough behind, especially with Eric ducking behind trees, trying to stay out of his line of fire.
Eric dashed behind a tree, circled it, and attacked Surfer Dude head-on.
The man was shocked. He aimed and fired, but the bullet zoomed past Eric's head.
Eric tackled him, managed to get his hand on the weapon, and fought for control.
Surfer Dude hadn't been the quickest pup in the litter, but he was strong. And he fought dirty.
Eric could fight dirty, too. And he had more to fight for.
He got the man on his back, got his gun-arm extended, but the gun flew a few feet away. Eric came down on the man's arm hard. It snapped.
The man screamed.
Eric lunged for the gun, but the man grabbed his foot, flipped him. Tackled him and kneed him in the kidneys.
Eric yanked on his broken arm.
The man screamed again.
Eric flipped him off and grabbed the gun.
Turned.
The man lunged.
The memory was too close. Eric squeezed his eyes closed and relived every moment as he told Brady.
"So you fired," Brady said.
"I fired. He went down."
"Okay." Brady looked toward the forest where Eric had directed a few cops as soon as they'd arrived. "And the other man, the one you said was unconscious?"
"Mateo. I texted him from Surfer Dude's phone. He'd asked for an update on the search, and I told him I was dead. I asked Mateo to come help me dispose of the body. When Mateo got there, I jumped him, knocked him unconscious with the gun, and left him there."
"Good thinking," Brady said.
"Good training. Except I had nothing to tie him up with, and I was focused on getting to Kelsey." Eric looked at the closed ambulance door. His wife was inside being examined, though she'd insisted she was unhurt.
Alive and safe and free of all of this at last.
He still couldn't believe it.
"And the woman," Brady said.
He looked back at his boss. "A victim. One of Carlos's...girls."
"She could have killed you. According to your wife, she murdered Carlos."
Eric shrugged, stared into the forest. "Yeah. She could have killed Kelsey. But she didn't." What kind of life could that woman have now? A slave for half her life, a murderer. A child on the way.
He'd leave that in God's hands. He had his own family to worry about now.
"We found my truck, by the way."
Eric turned back to his friend. "Oh, good."
"It was fine."
"And Rae's okay?" Eric asked again. He'd been horrified to hear how Carlos had lured Kelsey out of the house, horrified that Rae had been in danger. Donny was a cop. He'd signed up for it. But Rae had just gone along to keep Kelsey company.
"She's fine," Brady said. "Safe and relieved you guys are, too. She's already talking about writing a series of stories on human trafficking."
"Rae, the crusading journalist."
Brady smiled the way he always did when he talked about his wife. "Yup. At least she's willing to lead her crusades from the safety of Nutfield, New Hampshire."
"Right." Eric took in the scene—the ambulance, the coroner's van, emergency vehicles, and all their lights reflecting off the fresh snow. "Because Nutfield has proved to be so safe."
Brady's laugh filled the snowy night.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
It was over.
It was really over.
Kelsey looked at the man beside her in the Jeep. Her husband.
He glanced at her but spoke into the phone pressed to his ear. "Okay, thanks for letting me know. How about the other two?"
He paused, nodded. "Keep me updated."
He ended the call, tossed his cell into the console, and grabbed her hand.
"You can put the calls on Bluetooth," she said. "It's not like I don't know what's going on."
"It's police business, ma'am."
She smiled. "But you're going to tell me."
He focused on the road as they crossed the rickety bridge. They'd gotten a ride into town and retrieved Eric's Jeep. Now they were headed back to his house. The snow was still falling, but the snowplows had been busy, and the roads were passable. From the little she could see in the glare of Eric's headlights, snow had accumulated on every telephone wire and tree branch they passed.
The sight was breathtaking.
She turned back to her husband, another breathtaking sight. "Well," she said.
"They found the other two guys, the chubby one and the one who got you from the lake house."
"Where were they?"
"Halfway to Dover, probably driving too fast trying to get away. Their truck ran off the road and got stuck in the snowbank. The cop drove by when they were taking the snowmobiles off the trailer."
"Good," she said. "So now it's just Mateo and the girl."
"Are you hoping they get caught?"
"Mateo, definitely. The girl?" She knew what that girl had gone through. "I think they'll go easy on her. She was a victim, after all. And then she'd truly be free."
"She killed him in cold blood."
"I know." She ble
w out a breath. "I would have, too, if I'd had the chance."
"Maybe," he said. "But I doubt it. I think, when the moment came, you wouldn't go through with it. To kill a man..."
Was Eric thinking of Carlos or of the man whose life he'd taken that night? She took his hand. "You had no choice. It was you or him."
"I know. It's still hard, though."
When he didn't say more, she turned to the window to watch the landscape go by.
"Nate and Marisa will head back first thing in the morning."
She snapped her gaze back to his. "Daniel?"
"He'll be..." He paused, swallowed. "He'll be home tomorrow."
The tears she'd kept at bay for hours burned her eyes. She didn't know what to say. She lifted her husband's hand and kissed his knuckles.
They were silent for the rest of the drive.
When Eric parked in his driveway, she reached for her door handle.
"Don't even think about it."
She sighed for his benefit, but she couldn't help the smile.
Eric jogged around the car and opened her door. They held hands as they walked to the house. He unlocked the door, and she stepped inside. The light was on, but it was quiet.
"Where's Magic?"
"She's at Rae and Brady's. We'll get her tomorrow." He closed the door and stopped beside her. "You hungry?"
She shook her head.
"Thirsty?"
"Just tired."
He took her hand again, and they walked upstairs. "I can give you a fresh toothbrush, since we don't have your stuff."
"Okay."
"And a T-shirt to sleep in, if you want."
"Okay."
They reached the upstairs hallway. She looked at the guest room door, then back at him. "I think we've spent enough time apart, don't you?"
He squeezed her hand and smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that."
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Eric had planned to let her sleep. They'd both been dog tired after the events of the day. He'd figured he'd endure the sweet torture one more night, just hold her and let her rest. But Kelsey had had other plans. She'd slipped into his bed...their bed...and reached for him.
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