| |
PERCI WAS TRYING HER best not to panic. His arm kept tightening and loosening on her neck.
He’d jammed his pistol into her ribs and dragged her closer to the guardrail.
The sun cast the shadows over those wooden crosses again.
The shadow from her mother’s memorial crossed the toes of her shoes as the clouds overhead shifted to allow more of the setting sun through.
Perci swallowed.
Her mother.
The injuries that had led to her mother’s death had happened not even six feet from where he was dragging her.
If it hadn’t been for his son, her mother and Phoenix wouldn’t have driven in to pick her up that night after she’d worked a double shift.
Her father hadn’t let her or her sisters drive anywhere alone at night after Jay had attacked Pip. After Clive had threatened them that next day. Her mother had promised to come and get her. Phoenix had gone along so he could protect them all.
Instead, Clive Gunderson had almost destroyed her brother, too.
She had never told her father that Clive had found her so many nights and reiterated those threats. Never told. Never asked for help.
Never did anything to stop him.
If she had...
“Let me go, Clive. Now! Just stop this! It’s time to stop this!” Perci squirmed as much as she could in his hold.
The chopper with help in it was now visible in the distance.