Chapter Fifty-two
Angel’s chest felt like it would burst as she struggled to breathe and run. Eddie wasn’t far behind her. Amazingly enough, as she ran, zigzagging around the trees, her anxiety about being in the woods a few weeks ago was low on her priority list. She stumbled over a rock but jumped back up quickly. The bottoms of her jeans were muddy, as were her hands. She told herself, Just move. She’d watched enough horror movies to know to keep running.
She slowed for just a second to decide where to go next. “Angel.” She heard her name echoing through the trees. That motivated her to go right. If he hadn’t taken her keys, she could have run to the car, except she had no idea how to get to the car or how far she was from the road. She could only hope to find camouflage in the heavily wooded area. At some point she would need to stop and hide.
The sound of her feet pounding the ground was probably drawing attention to her location. She had a feeling Eddie had outdoor skills she didn’t possess.
Angel glimpsed a cabin ahead, but as she approached, there weren’t any lights visible from the outside. Angel ran up to the door, banged, and then yanked on the door handle. Nothing. She ran around to the side of the cabin, and there appeared to be a shed. Maybe she could at least go in there and catch her breath. She needed to think.
More importantly, she needed a miracle. God had already answered one prayer. Lord, please help me. She hoped Wes had been able to hear what was going on through the phone and had sent the cavalry after her. It could be her imagination, but she thought she heard the deep hum of a helicopter hovering above.
Angel pulled on the shed door. She cringed when it creaked open, and entered the darkness. It took her eyes a few minutes to adjust. Angel bumped into a sharp object and sucked in her breath to keep from crying out her pain. In the distance, she heard her name again. Angel gingerly stepped around what felt like a lawn mower or some type of cart. She went to the other side of the shed and squatted down. Her wet clothes clung to her.
She realized if she didn’t stop panting like a dog, she was going to give her location away. Angel gulped air and reached up to grab the object in front of her to steady herself. She snatched her hand away as the remnants of a cobweb wrapped around her fingers. Angel wiped her hands on her jeans. No need to get freaked out by the creepy crawlies now. It was either the little creatures or the crazy man outside. Angel looked up at the object that had been covered with cobwebs. It was a shovel. Her mind was moving fast. It’s a weapon.
No match for the gun, which Eddie had probably recovered from the ground, though. Maybe she should have stayed and gone for the gun. Now all she was doing was second-guessing herself. She’d never shot a gun in her life. All she knew was she could be dead by now.
“Angel.” Eddie’s voice ricocheted close by.
She reached for the handle of the shovel and inched her way around to behind the shed’s door, careful not to step on anything. Maybe he would come through the door; maybe he wouldn’t. She was going to be ready for him. Angel spread her legs and held the shovel in her hands.
“Angel, you can’t hide from me. Just come out. You wanted to find out about your mother. I told you I would take you to her.”
Angel gripped the shovel tighter. As she thought back to what Eddie had revealed earlier, she started to get the picture. Larry and Eddie had got rid of her mother’s body. She swallowed hard, but tears flooded her eyes. Her mother had been buried up here in these woods. No wonder no one could find her. She wiped her face with her sleeve, willing Eddie to walk through the door.
She would have her wish. Eddie had to be right outside as he shouted, “Angel, I loved your mother.”
Angel listened. What was Eddie talking about?
“It hurt my heart to see Nick in pain about Elisa. But in some ways it made up for my pain. I grew up without him in my life. He’d just left my mother, not that I blamed him. She was crazy.”
What? Angel almost lost her grip on the shovel. Eddie really was her uncle. Her granddad had never mentioned that Eddie was his son. That was not a secret her granddad would have kept. Her head started spinning. She couldn’t believe a word Eddie was saying. Maybe he was just trying to draw her out. She dug her heels in again and watched the door.
“Angel.” Eddie dragged out her name.
The door of the shed creaked open. Angel waited, looking for the gun.
Eddie didn’t disappoint. The gun came through the door first.
Angel slowly pulled the shovel back and hoped the darkness of the shed would conceal her. Eddie’s tall frame appeared fully inside the door, the gun out in front. He turned slightly to the left. Angel took that as her cue to smash the shovel across Eddie’s head.
“Ah!” Eddie screamed. The gun went off as he stumbled and fell.
Angel ducked, and then adrenaline surged through her body. She jumped up and slammed the shovel hard across Eddie’s back. The gun spun out of his hand and landed somewhere inside the shed. Something primal surged through her body, and she screamed and picked up the shovel again. This man. She slammed down the shovel. Killed my mother.
“Angel!” She stopped, holding the shovel and breathing hard. Several people behind her were calling her name. She slowly stepped back out of the shed with the shovel. Angel turned to see several men with guns pointed in her direction.
One of the officers stepped out from the group. “Angel. Angel Roberts?”
She nodded.
“It’s okay. We’re here. Eddie in there?”
She dropped the shovel and nodded again. One of the officers came over and pulled her away as the others swarmed the shed. The officer led her over to the steps of the cabin. After the officer left her side, she sat and cried. Angel shed tears over the loss of her mother and the split second when she wanted to take Eddie’s life.
Angel wiped her face, which she was sure was a dirty mess now. She looked at the scene before her, trying to make sense of it all.
“Help.”
Angel turned her head. There was so much commotion around the shed and the cabin now that maybe she was just hearing things.
“Please help me.”
She sprang up from the steps, her heart still pounding, and pressed her ear against the cabin door. Angel banged on the door. “Is someone in there?”
Angel could hear a female voice. She sounded young and weak. “Yes. Please help.”
Angel waved her arms and yelled at the officers around her. “Someone is in here. Please, she needs help.”
Angel moved out of the way as members of the SWAT team rammed the door open.
“Angel, are you okay?”
She turned around to see Wes running toward her. Knowing she looked a hot mess, she gladly accepted his arms around her and buried her face into his shoulder. She cried hot tears again, grateful that God had worked out a way for Wes to save her.
“Oh my!” Angel heard Wes say.
“What?” She turned and saw a young woman being carried out on a stretcher. “Who is she, Wes?”
“Angel, I believe you found Melanie Stowe.”
Angel tore herself away from Wes’s arms to move closer to the woman. It was her. Eddie had kidnapped Melanie. Seeing the caked blood on Melanie’s face, Angel guessed that Eddie had left her for dead. That explained where the scratches had come from on Eddie’s face.
She looked over at the man as officers escorted him out of the shed. Angel had left her mark on Eddie too. He appeared disoriented. Rage surged through Angel again. She tried to run toward Eddie, but Wes and Darnell snatched her back.
“Whoa, Angel! Let us get Eddie into custody, okay? He has quite a few charges coming his way,” Darnell said to calm her. “Don’t worry. He will get prison time.”
She turned to Darnell. “He buried my mother up here. You make him tell me where she is.”
Wes and Darnell both looked stunned.
Darnell nodded. “All right. We’ll have to get the medical examiner’s office up here to see what they can recover. In the meantime, you need to get back to your family. I know Candace is blowing up my phone, she’s so worried about you.”
Angel nodded.
After Darnell walked over to the other officers, Wes reached his arms around her. “It’s going to be okay.”
Angel held her head against Wes’s shoulder. She hoped so. It had turned out to be a day she would never forget. In her quest for the truth, she’d unlocked so many secrets, she wasn’t sure if she would ever be the same.