Falsely Accused, page 17
She certainly didn’t want to be killed by Levi, her body hidden somewhere in the wilderness, everyone she loved and cared about wondering what had happened to her. If she went down, she would go fighting. Other than that, she had no solid plan for escape.
“You know who I’m talking about. Ryan. We were chums in high school. Did you know that?”
“I didn’t.”
“We got in a lot of trouble together. Only he always took the blame. I always slipped away before anyone realized I was part of it. It worked out well. When he joined the sheriff’s department, I thought, why not? And I did the same.”
“I’m assuming you two didn’t live on the up-and-up while you were working for the sheriff?”
“He did. I got good at taking confiscated narcotics and selling them in the next town over. I had a decent clientele there, was bringing in a good amount of extra money, and then the sheriff got wise to the fact that things were missing. I had to stop for a while. Then my wife got sick, and I decided I needed more than a small-time illegal drug business. Sunrise Acres was just being built. I watched half the older people in town sign up to buy there, and I decided that there had to be a way to get some of the wealthier ones to part with their money. It took a while, but I figured out the perfect solution to my problems. I registered a fake investment company, did everything I had to make it legal, printed up brochures and talked Lester into being my front man.”
“You’re saying Garner Investment Initiative doesn’t own Sunrise Acres?”
“It doesn’t own anything. If anyone had bothered to do a thorough investigation, they would have realized that.”
“You did a good job of making it look legit. You certainly had some of our agents fooled.”
“Like I said, I’m a member of Mensa. The average person can’t outwit me, and I almost never miss details. I know how to make the system work for me, and I did it well. What I didn’t anticipate was your brother’s guilty conscience. Ryan didn’t like the fact that old man Stan had become a liability and had to be removed. As a matter of fact, he threatened to go to the sheriff with what he knew. I threatened to kill Abigail. That little shove down the stairs? That was my warning shot. I thought Ryan and I had an understanding, that we had established I was the one in control, but I still planned to leave town. I figured Ryan would eventually crack, and I didn’t plan to be here when it happened.”
“You weren’t planning to kill him?” she asked.
“Why would I do that? We were old friends. He’d amused me for years. I figured I would leave town and let him take the fall when our clients realized what had happened. And then he betrayed me. I kept the cash from our investors in a safe in the clubhouse. Only I knew the combination. He figured it out and took the money before I could run.”
“So you killed him?”
“I was still willing to give him a chance. I asked him to return the cash, and he said it was collateral, that he wanted me to quit the force and admit that I had scammed money out of townspeople. He generously offered to not mention that I had helped Stan on his journey to meet his Maker. I told him I would do it, and then I hired a couple of buddies to make sure I didn’t have anything to worry about. The night he died, they were going to follow him after his shift. They had uniforms and a marked police car. I figured the flashing lights would be just enough to make him pull over, but it never came to that. I saw him hanging around the rehab center when we were both supposed to be on patrol. When I realized he was following you home, I knew I had to act. I called my buddies, and they joined me. We saw him pull you over, and I knew he wanted to give you something that might implicate me, so I shot him.”
“And you sent your friends to arrest me?”
“They were supposed to kill you and bury your body where no one would find it. Obviously, they did a poor job. They won’t repeat that mistake.”
“Are they dead?”
He shrugged, the car bouncing over rocky terrain and finally coming to a stop. “We’re here,” he said. “Let’s get this done. I have a new life to begin.”
He opened the back door and dragged her out.
The beach was exactly as she remembered it. Rock-speckled sand and seaweed drifting in on brackish waves. There were no people here. No houses. No one to hear her cry out for help. She had a choice—try to escape now or wait until they were in the cave. There were rocks there, big ones that she and Titus had carried up to make a firepit near the mouth of the cave. They had spent several winter evenings there, feeding the flames and watching the tide roll in.
She had told him that she had loved him once upon a time. She hadn’t told him that she still did. She regretted that the same way she regretted not spending more time with Ryan. She had limited her life to her work and to her friends. She had cut herself off from anyone who might hurt her. She had thought she was protecting her heart, but as she walked toward the granite cliff that rose above the beach, she couldn’t help wondering if all she had really done was close herself off to possibilities.
* * *
“I have a visual.” The sheriff’s voice carried through the earbud Titus wore, the words filling him with anticipation and relief.
“Both of them?” he whispered into the microphone Radley had pinned to his jacket before he’d rappelled down to the cave. The team that had assembled to save Wren had agreed that walking on the beach might leave visible footprints that would warn Levi away. They had also agreed to send both Titus and Radley down to the cave.
“Both. Looks like she’s injured. Plus she’s got that broken wrist. I don’t know how she’s going to make it up to the cave.”
“Can you get a clear shot?” Radley broke in. Like Titus, he was at the mouth of the cave, staring down at the beach. They had seen the car arrive, but heavy sleet prevented them from seeing who got out of it. The sheriff and Annalise lay on top of the cliff, using binoculars to track Levi and Wren’s progress.
“No. He’s behind her. Looks like he has a gun pointed at her back. I’m a good shot, but not a great one. With this sleet and—”
“You don’t have to justify the decision, Sheriff. We’re in agreement that it’s better to wait.” Radley motioned for Titus to move closer. “She’ll make it up here. We both know it. She’ll be coming up first, leading the way. We don’t want to make any noise that will scare him away. We’ll wait until they’re both here.”
“And then what?” he asked, finally spotting the dark figures moving through the sleet toward the cliff.
“You stay out of the way, and I’ll take him down.”
“That’s not a very specific plan.”
“It’s the best I’ve got. Levi has already shot and killed two people. It’s very possible he tried to murder Hannah and Stan. We have no idea what he is capable of and no way to predict what he might do. That’s why I wanted to confront him here. There’s less room for him to maneuver his way out of our trap.”
And, hopefully, less chance of him hurting Wren.
They had discussed the plan at length. Trying to intercept Levi on the beach had seemed too risky. He was a crack shot and could easily fire the gun before he was taken down.
This, though, suddenly felt just as risky—the dark cave opening out onto a twenty-foot drop, the wide cavern stretching fifteen feet to the back wall. Someone had once used it as a home. Titus and Wren had discovered it long after that person was gone, but there were niches carved into the walls and an old wooden trunk that had been filled with canned goods. Eventually, he and Wren had emptied it out and put their own treasures inside. Favorite photos and flowers from prom, and a bunch of other things he couldn’t remember.
“They’re heading up,” the sheriff said, his voice tense.
That was Titus’s cue to move back, but he wanted to stay where he was, waiting until Wren was within reach and then pulling her up like he had so many times before.
But, if Levi caught a glimpse of him, there was no telling what he would do, and Titus didn’t dare risk Wren’s life on the chance he wouldn’t be seen. They had climbed the cliff in every kind of weather. Sun and snow and wind and calm. They had known every foot-and handhold that had been carved deep into the granite. He thought he could still climb it with his eyes closed.
He hoped the same was true of Wren.
He prayed it was, because there was nothing he could to do help her now but slither to the back of the cave and wait silently for her to arrive.
THIRTEEN
It had been years since she had climbed the cliff, and she had never done it with a broken wrist. Wren stood at the bottom and looked up, sleet falling on her hair and face and melting on her frigid skin. She was cold to the bone, her head throbbing maddeningly. She felt dizzy and off balance standing on the ground. She had no idea how she would feel hanging from rock face.
“Please, God, help me do this,” she prayed aloud, knowing it would amuse Levi and not caring. She had to make it up far enough ahead to find a weapon she could use against him.
She could shove him from the cliff as he pulled himself into the cave. That was when he would be most vulnerable, but she wanted him in jail. Not dead.
“God isn’t going to help you, Wren,” he said with a chuckle that made her hair stand on end. “So you’re going to have to help yourself. Here’s how I’m going to do it. I’ll count to five. If you’re still within arm’s reach of me when I get to six, I’ll kill you here and find my own way up. One.”
As she reached for the first handhold, she thought she saw something moving along the ridge above the cliff, but visibility was terrible. It could have been nothing other than a shifting of shadows or a trick of her eyes.
She wanted it to be more. She wanted it to be Radley and Titus and Annalise searching for her. She wanted to believe help had arrived and that she wasn’t going to have to fight this battle alone.
“Two,” Levi intoned, and she hoisted herself up, stepping into a foothold four feet from the ground.
She needed her left hand for the next section, and she gritted her teeth as she reached for the handhold and pulled herself up. Searing pain ripped through her arm and white-hot light seemed to steal her vision. Breathless, dripping sweat despite the cold, she shifted her weight, moving from one foothold to the next.
“Three.”
She thought she was out of his reach, but his fingers tickled the back of her leg, and her stomach heaved.
Don’t vomit. Whatever you do, don’t do that.
Abigail’s voice was echoing through her head. Or maybe it was Titus cheering her on, coaching her up, the way he had done the very first time they had climbed.
“Four.”
She reached for the next handhold, another left-handed grip. She couldn’t feel her fingers. She had no idea how deep they were in the crevice. She could only move forward on faith, trusting in her hard-earned strength and in God’s grace. The pain was duller this time, her clammy reaction to the effort warning her she might be going into shock.
That was fine.
Her body could do whatever it wanted after she stopped Levi.
“Five.”
She had reached the mouth of the cave, the fingers of her right hand skimming over the lip and feeling the cool stone floor. She and Titus had spent hours speculating about the impressive cave that had been carved into rock.
They had wondered aloud who had done it, why and with what tools. Those had been good years. When she and Titus had been free to explore the world and to stake their claim on it. She had forgotten how much she loved exploring with him until he had sent her the photo of the old house and she had walked around the pond, palm to palm with him.
She wanted a chance to do that again.
“Six,” Levi said as she managed to pull herself over the lip and into the cave.
He chuckled, the maniacal sound echoing through the cave.
He had been behind her the entire time, and he was up and inside the cave before she lifted herself off the stone floor.
“So this is it,” he said, his voice too loud for the confined space. This was a place for whispered secrets and quiet conversations, for soft laughter and shared dreams.
It wasn’t a place someone like Levi should ever have entered.
“Yes. The trunk is in the back. I’ll bring it.”
“Trunk?”
“That’s where I think Ryan put your money.” It was also where she and Titus had stored books and mementos. There was a trophy from her first debate win there. Heavy with a marble base, it might be an efficient weapon.
“We’ll go together.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight. She heard something scuffling in the darkness at the back of the cave. Not a bird. They wouldn’t have gone so deep into the darkness.
Someone was there.
The thought filled her with hope and with worry. If Levi realized it, he would begin firing random shots into the dark.
“What was that?” he demanded, his gun swinging in the direction of the sound. Away from her but pointed toward someone.
She was certain of it.
“Bats,” she lied.
The gun shifted back in her direction, the light from the phone he held in his left hand shining straight into her eyes.
“There are bats up here?”
“It’s a cave. Bats are attracted to them.” She resisted the urge to add Mr. Mensa at the end. She wanted him distracted from the sound but not angry enough to knock her out again.
“Shut up,” he growled, grabbing her upper arm and shoving her toward the back of the cave. “Get the trunk. Bring it to me.”
“Okay,” she said, stepping away, her hand skimming the wall to her right. She found the first alcove quickly, grabbed one of the heavy stones she had put there for decoration.
“What are you doing?” he screamed, suddenly right beside her, the gun pressed to her cheek as he screamed into her ear.
“Getting the trunk. Just like you asked me to,” she said, and then she gripped the rock and swung her fist at his head with as much strength as she had left.
* * *
Levi’s roar filled the cave as he fell back, the phone dropping from his hand as he reached for his head. Titus didn’t wait for another chance. He lunged from the left side of the cave, tackling Levi as he lifted the gun and fired in Wren’s direction. She was on her belly, crawling to the trunk that was pushed up against the back wall.
“No!” Levi screamed, struggling against Titus, his strength seeming nearly superhuman.
“I was supposed to handle this part,” Radley muttered as he reached down and pulled Levi’s arm behind his back, ratcheting up the effort until the gun dropped from his hand.
“You weren’t moving fast enough,” Titus said, holding Levi’s other arm against the ground.
“Let me up,” he demanded, twisting and turning as he fought their hold. “There’s been some kind of mistake.”
“The only mistake we’ve made was in not realizing what you were from the very beginning,” Titus growled.
“You’re going to regret this,” Levi spit, his eyes wild as he continued to struggle.
“Oh...my,” Wren said, her voice shaking. She had the trunk open, and she reached in, the muted light from the face-down phone illuminating her as she pulled out a stack of money bound together with a rubber band.
“That’s mine,” Levi screamed, bucking away as Radley snapped a cuff on his wrist. It dangled there as he charged toward Wren. “You ruined everything. Just like your brother.”
Titus grabbed his shoulder, swinging him away, feeling the razor-sharp sting of a knife blade as Levi swung around, a knife in his hand.
“He’s still armed,” he shouted, dodging to the left and trying to knock the knife from Levi’s hand.
“Stop!” Radley shouted.
“Don’t you know you’re always supposed to frisk the suspect?” Levi crowed as he ran at Titus.
Titus dodged to the left as Levi darted toward the mouth of the cave.
“I said stop,” Radley demanded, and then he raised his service weapon and fired.
Levi fell backward, the knife flying from his hands and tumbling out of the cave. He landed hard, blood seeping from a wound in his shoulder, curses spilling out of his mouth as he tried to get to his feet.
“Do me a favor. This time, stay down,” Radley muttered, flipping him over so he was lying on his stomach, patting his pockets and pant legs, searching for another weapon.
Titus rushed to Wren’s side, placing an arm around her waist as she swayed toward him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concerned by the amount of blood on her face and shirt, the paleness of her face and the wild trembling of her muscles.
“I am now,” she claimed, swaying against him, her good arm sliding around his waist.
“You don’t look okay,” he commented, taking off his coat and wrapping it around her, running his hands up and down her back to try to warm her.
“Gee, thanks, Titus. That’s just what every woman wants to hear. You’re a pal,” she said, her forehead pressed to his chest, her voice muffled by his shirt.
“I’d like to be more than that,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ear.
“How much more?” she asked, leaning back and looking into his eyes. She had a deep slash on her cheekbone and a bump on the side of her forehead, and she still was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“As much more as two people can be.”
“That’s a lot more,” she murmured.
“Too much?”
“Just enough,” she replied, levering up and planting a gentle kiss on his lips. “When are we going to start?”
“Doing what?”
“Learning to be more than pals?” she asked.
“As soon as you’re ready.”
