Cassidy waited at the end of the narrow dirt road. Finally, James’s Jeep bounced up and turned into the woods, where he’d parked the last time they’d been here. She drove down to meet him, and, after he laid a rifle across the backseat and tossed a small backpack in behind it, he opened her door.
“You planning an assassination?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “If I find the guy who killed my sister…”
She squeezed her eyes closed, let the words roll over her. One thing at a time.
James took her hand and tugged. “Can you get out, just for a second?”
When she did, he swept her into his arms and held her tight. “Thank God you’re here. Thank God you’re all right.”
Oh. She savored the feel of him. He’d supported her the day before, gotten her safely off the mountain, tended her wounds. But not like this. Not like… like he cared. Like he felt something for her. Even if it was just friendship.
She couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat.
He leaned back enough to study her face, then turned her head to look at the wound. “How does it feel?”
“Tylenol helps.”
He probed it with his finger, and she winced at the pain.
“Sorry. Just… It’s an ugly wound. You probably need to keep it covered.”
“Band-Aids don’t exactly adhere to my hair. I suppose I could shave my head.”
She’d expected a smile, but his expression was solemn. “It doesn’t look infected. I brought some antiseptic wipes.” He dug into his backpack and came out with a little square package, which he ripped open.
The sting had her yanking away.
“Hold still.”
Easy for him to say. But he finished quickly and dug into the backpack again. “I found this at the pharmacy.” He held out a red-and-white bandana. “I thought you could wrap it around your head to keep dirt out of the wound.”
She took the square cloth, tamping down the vanity that had her wanting to refuse. She wasn’t exactly the bandana type. She was touched he’d bought it for her, touched he’d thought of her. She folded the cloth, wrapped it around her head, and tied it in the back. “How do I look?” Ridiculous, she was sure.
The quirk of his lips, the tenderness in his eyes, told her he wasn’t thinking she looked ridiculous.
After a moment, he cleared his throat and looked away. “Let’s clean it often. Anything else hurt? Between the tumble down the mountain Wednesday and being grazed by a bullet yesterday, you must be in pain.”
“Nothing serious. I bumped my head after the bullet… maybe got a concussion, which explains how out of it I felt coming down the mountain.”
“Show me.”
She touched the spot, and he looked. “Pretty big bump.” Gently, he kissed it, then pulled her close again. “When I heard that gunshot…”
Tucked against his chest, she felt his quickening heartbeat beneath her ear.
“And then I worried you’d disappear again.” He backed away and laid his hands on her face. His gaze, filled with sincerity, with affection, met hers. “You didn’t murder my sister. I knew it. Deep down, I always knew it. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
Those were the words she’d longed to hear for a decade. That James understood. That he believed in her, despite everything.
The truth churned in her stomach. She had to tell him. For them to have any real future, she had to tell him everything. If that ended whatever was brewing between them…?
Then she’d deal with it. She wouldn’t have a lie between them. She couldn’t. James deserved to know.
He brushed her hair back from her face, tenderly avoiding her wound, and bent his head. He kissed her forehead. The corner of her eye. Her cheek.
Finally, his lips met hers.
She opened up to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him closer. This, this is what she’d wanted. This is what she’d spent a decade longing for.
Everything else faded until all she felt, all she experienced, was James. The boy she’d known ten years earlier faded. The man he was now, with the whiskers, the past she knew little about, even the haunted eyes… All of it. She loved all of it.
All of him.
How could those feelings not have faded, disappeared, after so much time? They hadn’t. Now, the years slipped away. Her current life in Seattle slipped away. All that mattered was James. This man who cared for her. And, if that changed after she told him the truth, all the more reason to savor the moment.
Too soon, he angled away, then hugged her. His heartbeat was racing. So was hers.
It was absurd, this moment. A child’s life was on the line, and they’d paused for a kiss. Except… except love was never absurd.
“I’ve been fighting that since the moment you stumbled into my backyard Monday.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“God knows I tried.” He rubbed her back. “But I never let go of the hope that everybody was wrong.”
She pushed away from his chest. “We need to—”
“I know. I know.” He stepped away. “Ella is still out there.”
She leaned against the car, worked to shift mental gears. “But where? The kidnapper knows we found his hideout. Surely he’s long gone by now.” She tapped the back window where he’d stowed his stuff. “You seem to have a plan.”
“Come on.” James rounded the car and climbed in the passenger seat.
She settled in beside him. “Catch me up. It was a cop at the door, right?”
“Yeah. Did you recognize his voice?”
“Why would I have?”
“Vince was new to the force when we were in high school. He was the guy who gave the Don’t do drugs talks. Whenever there was a problem, he was there. I just thought…”
She was shaking her head. “I vaguely remember who you’re talking about. I paid even less attention in those stupid assemblies than I did in class. I doubt I could pick him out of a lineup. And anyway, the door muffled his voice.”
James told her what happened after she climbed from his window. That he’d been questioned. Arrested. Arraigned, because of her.
She buried her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”
Gently, he urged her hands down. “I could’ve turned you in. I could’ve sent you away. I didn’t do those things, and not for your sake. I did them because I wanted to find Ella.”
“But we didn’t. And you’re saying the police searched the cave and the surrounding area and found no sign of her.” She dug her hand in her pocket and came out with the hair tie. “I found this and stuck it in my pocket right before I was shot. I remembered this morning.”
James took it from her. “It looks like something she’d wear. She was there.”
“She’d definitely been there, but now she’s gone. And we have no way of knowing where. Eugene was the one who stole our food?”
“I never got confirmation of that.”
“Do you think he shot at us? Or the father—”
“Wilson.”
“Yeah. Maybe… maybe he did it, and Eugene told him we were up there, and he went up the next day.”
James was nodding. “Or, if Eugene didn’t do it, what if Wilson thinks he did? What if he’s trying to protect his son.”
“That makes sense.”
“Except they reported having seen you. Why do that if they planned to kill you? Eugene was at the police station yesterday around noon. He’d have to have left there, driven up the mountain, hiked to the cave, and been there to shoot at us. I think it was around one, right?”
Cassidy thought back. “It’s all so fuzzy now.”
“It could be either one of them.” James’s tone, though—devoid of the anger she would expect—told her he didn’t think his neighbors were the culprits.
“Or it’s somebody else entirely.” Though the thought that they could still be so far from knowing the real killer made her sick to her stomach. “It could be somebody not on our radar. I wonder if Eugene told anybody besides the police he’d seen us.”
“Eugene keeps to himself,” James said, “but he told Wilson. I guess Wilson could’ve told someone.”
“Or the killer saw us. He obviously knows the mountain as well as anybody. Maybe he saw us in time to get Ella out of there, and the fact that Eugene saw us on the mountain is unrelated.”
“Possible.” James faced forward, took a long breath and blew it out. “Truth is, I have an idea, but I’m not sure. I have zero proof, zero evidence. Really, zero reason to believe it’s true except a gut feeling.”
“What is it?”
“We need to check the cave again.”
“Why would he go back there?” Cassidy shifted to get a better look at James’s face. “He knows we’ve found it. The cops searched it.”
“Exactly for that reason. What place would be safer now than the mountain?”
“A hotel. A house.”
“Too easy to be spotted in places like that. Especially with a little girl.”
Cassidy hated to suggest it, but… “Safest thing right now would be to kill Ella and dump her body.”
“But he hasn’t done that. For whatever reason…” Those words hung in the air. She considered what he might be thinking.
“The kidnapper wasn’t cruel.” Not to Hallie anyway.
At her words, James turned her way, a grim expression on his face.
“I never got the impression…” She tried to think how to express this. “He never hurt your sister. He treated her like… like a little sister, I guess. He wanted her to be happy. He was kind to her.”
James turned back to the window.
“And Addison wasn’t molested.”
“I know.”
“I think it’s logical to assume Ella isn’t being mistreated, at least not in that sense. I know it’s not everything—”
“It’s something, though.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Did he hurt you?”
Now it was Cassidy’s turn to look away. “I wasn’t molested, either.”
He must’ve seen the truth in her expression, because he said, “Tell me what happened.”
She shrugged, tried to swallow the memories. The kidnapper had hurt her. When Hallie had slept that first night, he’d crawled on top of her, pinned her down.
She could almost feel the heat of his breath against her cheek, the pain of his grip on her arm, the weight of his body on top of hers. His hand… He’d touched her, pinched her. When it hurt so badly she wanted to cry out, he covered her mouth with his hand. All he said was, You wake her, you die. You don’t want pretty Hallie to watch you die, do you?
The message had been clear. He could do whatever he wanted to Cassidy. If she wanted to survive, if she wanted to protect Hallie, she had to take it.
Both the night on the mountain and the night in the cave, when Hallie slept, he’d climbed on top of her. Never going farther than the threat, but the threat was enough to keep her quiet.
He’d hit her once when they were climbing. He’d grabbed her and squeezed hard multiple times to get her to do what he said. But it wasn’t the pain that had plagued her through the years. It was the fear.
She tried to explain it to James without causing him further distress. She must’ve succeeded because, when she finished, he said, “I’m glad he didn’t hurt you too badly.” As if physical pain were the worst thing that could happen to a person. Her bruises had healed. The memories visited her almost every night. Someday, when this was over, if he forgave her, if they were still together, she’d try to explain the rest.
“We need to return to the cave,” James said. “I think this guy’s arrogant enough to go back there.”
“But, now that we have the hair tie, we could call the police, get them up there looking for her. The hair tie is evidence, and… and we could use the help. This guy’s a killer.”
“You’re kidding, right?” His eyebrows hiked up. “Yesterday, you were terrified to call the cops.”
“You could call them, and I could”—she shrugged—“you know, make myself scarce. You could tell them you were searching alone. It just seems safer than us going up there by ourselves.”
James stared past her. A long moment passed before he shook his head. “I don’t think that’s the best plan right now.”
“Why not?”
He squeezed her hand. “They won’t believe me. There’s not enough time for me to have hiked up there again today, found it, and returned to report it. They know I was with you yesterday. If I suddenly turn up with evidence, they’ll believe I got it from you. It’ll be about finding you, not about finding Ella. I just… I don’t know that it’ll work. And right now, the most important thing is finding Ella. I think… I think I should return to the cave and see what I can find out.”
“Okay, to the cave. Where do we park?”
“I know the perfect spot.”