She fell, her feet sliding off the wood slats as her hands desperately tightened their grip on the rope. Wet knots dug painfully into her palms. Bradley howled as he tumbled into the dark muck of the pond below. She hung there, suspended between the sky and the ground, her feet scrambling for footing and pain shooting through her hands.
Then she felt a strong hand brush her shoulder.
“Come on,” Max said. “Grab my hand. I’ll pull you up.”
She reached for him, detangling the fingers of one hand from the rope and sliding them into the warmth and safety of his grasp. He held her firm. She slid the other hand free, too, and grabbed for him, and only then realized he was hanging upside down, with one hand clutching a plank above her and his strong legs braced against the beams.
He pulled her up, her fingers brushing the strength of his muscles under the skin. Then they sat on the floor of the second tower, side by side, panting and listening to the sound of the man shouting beneath them.
“That water hazard is a doozy,” Max said. “He won’t drown, but he won’t be able to pull himself out either, until someone helps him out or tosses him the ladder. There should be enough water in there to have cushioned his fall, so hopefully he won’t have broken a limb or strained anything. I really don’t want to have to carry him back to the house.”
Her hand brushed his jaw. “You’d carry him all the way back to the house after he shot at us?”
“Yup,” Max said. “Like I said, I don’t get to pick and choose who I help.”
A light flashed in the trees, bright against the cloudy grey sky. Max let out a laugh, leaped to his feet and turned the crank. The light in the distance flickered on and off. Max jiggled the crank back and forth, mimicking the effect.
“That’ll be Trent and Chloe,” he said. “I don’t know what they’re going to think when they get here and find I kindly trapped a second dirty cop for them. But believe me, I’ll be teasing Trent about the fact we practically caught two criminals for him for years to come.”
She watched as two figures drew nearer. Then she saw them. Trent was tall, with slightly broader shoulders than Max and a determined set to his jaw. Chloe almost matched him in height, with long red hair tumbling down her back.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Trent was working hard to contact Gerry, and I’m pretty sure they’re not going to arrest you. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Max slid down the rope ladder to the bottom of the tower and ran across the course to meet Trent and Chloe. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
Gerry had texted four times, with updated directions on where he was and where she was to bring Fitz. Seemed he wanted her to head south and take Fitz to Toronto. At least that was closer than Sault Sainte Marie.
She quickly wrote back, apologized for being out of touch and told him that she hoped to bring Fitz to the meeting place by nightfall. The message was sent.
She’d texted what she’d hoped would happen, but she had no idea what would happen next. Would Chloe or Trent come with her? Or would they be the one taking Fitz to see his father? Would they arrest Gerry? Would the next time he saw his son be through prison bars?
And if they took Fitz, would they let her say goodbye?
She climbed down the rope ladder, out the doorway and then hung back as Max led the two cops over to where Bradley was still thrashing in the water and swearing. She watched for a moment as they arrested and secured him. The precision and professionalism of how they read him his rights and cuffed him was so very different from the way Bradley had blustered and threatened.
She couldn’t imagine the relief they must feel, knowing two traitors in their force had finally been found and caught. She hoped interrogating Bradley and Kelly would lead to the arrest of Smith and Jones and tracing the origin of the sugar maple money.
An odd weight sat in the bottom of her heart. So this was it, then? It was all over. The police had arrived, they would take over and make sure Fitz was taken care of and that Jones and Smith would be stopped. This weird and wild adventure that she and Max had been on, running for their lives and escaping criminals, as terrifying as it had been, had also been the most exhilarating and purpose-filled thing she’d done in her life.
When she’d grabbed Fitz from his crib and run from the Pearce mansion, she’d not only saved his life, she’d finally done something that mattered with hers. And when Max had reached for her hand in the woods and asked her to trust him with Fitz, even if just for a fleeting moment, she’d known what it was like to imagine not having to go through life alone.
Now it was all over. And it was time to say goodbye.
She leaned back against the wooden wall, closed her eyes and prayed for wisdom.
Lord, all this time my gut has told me that Gerry wasn’t a forger. But what if I’m wrong? Help me trust Max. Help me trust that Trent and Chloe are honest and not easily fooled, and that they’ll make sure justice is done.
“Daisy!” Max was calling her name. She opened her eyes. Max strode toward her, flanked by Trent and Chloe. “Quick! They’ve got to take Bradley into custody, but they wanted to meet you first. This is my big brother Trent, and his fiancée, Chloe. Guys, this is Daisy.”
There was a smile on his face when he said her name, broad and wide, like he was proud to know her. She swallowed hard and shook both cops’ hands in turn.
It was clear in a glance that Trent and Max were brothers. Both had the same dark hair and proud shoulders. Though where Trent had a serious determination in his blue eyes, Max had a playfulness that glinted in his green ones. Chloe’s handshake was firm, but there was a soft edge to her voice that implied all Daisy needed to do was say the word and the handshake would turn into a hug.
“It’s very nice to finally meet you, Daisy,” Chloe said. “We’ve heard a lot about you, and we have some very good news. The kidnapping warrant has been canceled. You’re no longer under investigation.”
Relief flooded her limbs. She grabbed Max’s hand and held it tightly. He squeezed hers back and thanked God. She opened her mouth, but her words barely came out as more than a squeak. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Trent said.
“I’m willing to cooperate fully in your investigation and that includes testifying against Gerald Pearce,” she said. Her chin rose. “I’m still not convinced he’s guilty. But I trust Max, and Max trusts you. So I’m choosing to believe that you will do your jobs like honorable cops and that if Gerry’s innocent, he’ll be cleared. I have the phone he gave me and all the texts he sent me. I don’t know much. But I’m willing to do anything I can to help in this investigation. Especially if it will help Fitz.”
Trent’s eyebrows rose. He looked at Chloe and they exchanged a long glance she couldn’t understand.
“Gerald Pearce is dead,” Trent said, gently. “He died in the explosion at his home yesterday.”
* * *
The words hit Max’s ears like boxing gloves. Instinctively, he slid his arm around Daisy’s waist and felt her lean into it, as if her legs had suddenly been knocked out from under her.
“What do you mean, he’s dead?” Max demanded. “Are you sure?”
Trent nodded and Max could tell in a glance how serious he was. “Oh, very sure. They’ve identified his dental records. He was shot and then his body was burned in the fire.”
“But he’s been texting me constantly since I left,” Daisy said. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone and showed it to them. “See? He gave me this phone when he told me to run and take Fitz. He’s been texting me the whole time.”
The words faded on Daisy’s lips as the implication of what she was saying hit her own ears, that whoever had been texting her wasn’t Gerald and that all this time he’d been dead. Her hands shook. Chloe gently pulled the phone from her grip.
“We’ll have our guys analyze it and figure out exactly who’s been texting you,” Trent said. “But I can assure you that whoever it was, it wasn’t Gerald Pearce. They recovered three bodies from the house fire—”
“The news only said there was one body,” Max interjected.
“Only one body was recovered initially,” Trent said. “An adult male was found within the front door. The bodies of an adult woman and an infant were found buried deeper within the rubble. All were badly burned so it’s been taking a while to identify the bodies. Not sure what’s been released to the press yet. It was assumed originally that Anna, Gerry and Fitz Pearce all died in the fire, until someone called 911 and said that you had kidnapped Fitz and set the house on fire.”
“Was it Jane?” Max asked.
Trent ran his hand over his jaw. “That’s the name she gave.”
“You said there was a dead baby.” Daisy’s face paled as the words fell from her lips.
“It was a hoax.” Chloe’s hand landed on her shoulder. “The infant was dead months or even years before the fire. The forensics guys took a second look at it the moment we heard from Max that Fitz was with you. They discovered it was a cadaver, who was several months older than Fitz and had died of illness. Our guys are now searching cemeteries in the Montreal area to see where it might’ve been dug up.”
“Unfortunately, this mysterious Jane woman must’ve figured out that the ruse had failed and already called in the kidnapping hoax,” Trent took up the story. “Our best guess is that whoever killed the Pearce family wanted to kidnap Fitz, so they brought the corpse with them, so that it would be discovered in the fire and people would assume he was dead.”
“Wow,” Max said.
“Oh, they tried to be clever.” Trent couldn’t hide the disgust from his voice. “But no matter how smart they think they are, we’ll still catch them.”
Chloe’s hand hadn’t moved from Daisy’s shoulder.
“I know it’s pretty horrible,” Chloe said, softly. “But you’re safe, and you saved Fitz’s life. Focus on that. And we’ll talk a lot more later back at the house.”
Trent nodded to his brother and then slipped back to where he’d left Bradley handcuffed and fuming. The sigh of palpable relief that he’d heard Trent breathe when his brother had seen exactly who had been floundering around in the bottom of the family’s muddy pond and realized he finally had his man had been matched only by the look of sheer gratitude in his eyes. It was only in that moment that it had hit Max just how worried and stressed his brother had been by this case and what it had meant to him that Max had come through.
Chloe’s eyes met Max’s for a long moment. “You got this?”
“Yeah, we’ll see you back at the farmhouse,” he said. He tightened his arm around Daisy. But as Chloe walked away, Daisy suddenly slipped out from under his grasp.
“Wait!” she said, “If Gerald Pearce is dead, what happens to Fitz?”
Chloe stopped. “Gerald Pearce has a sister in Alberta. We called her and she’s flying out today to come take custody of Fitz. I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, Daisy. But everything will work out okay, and we’ll do everything we can to help you. There are some great resources available to help victims of crime, and that can include helping you get back to England.”
Max and Daisy stood there for a long moment and watched as Chloe joined Trent, and then waited as the two of them and a swearing Bradley disappeared back through the trees. They followed slowly, bending the wet grass beneath their feet and walking in silence, so close to each other that their shoulders almost touched. But she didn’t reach for his hand, and he didn’t know how to reach for hers. His heart was heavy, as was every word he thought of speaking, as they lay there uselessly on his tongue.
Finally, he saw the roof of the old familiar farmhouse that, despite his small apartment, he’d always considered home. Funny how he hadn’t even thought twice about bringing Daisy and Fitz here. That somehow, in his own weird way, although he hadn’t been able to say so, he’d wanted to welcome them into the place where he’d grown up.
No, more than that, he’d wanted to welcome them into his life.
“You said you were disappointed you hadn’t got to do any sightseeing,” he said. “I know it’s not the CN Tower, the Parliament buildings or the Rockies, but how many tours of Canada include a random guy’s family farm and the opportunity to trap a criminal in his family paintball course?”
A sob slipped through Daisy’s throat. She buried her face in her hands, but not before he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. His heart plummeted.
“Hey, I’m sorry!” he said. “I was trying to lighten the mood. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with me!” she said without lifting her hands from her eyes. “You don’t get it. I don’t cry. I never cry. Not when my stepfather hit me. Not when he had me falsely arrested. Not when I was kicked out. Now, ever since meeting you, it’s like my tear ducts have broken and suddenly all they want to do is leak.”
“Let me see, please.” His voice dropped as he took her hands and pulled them from her eyes. Then he reached up and carefully, gently wiped away the tears that shone on her skin.
She had no idea how beautiful she was, did she? Whether she was crying or laughing or yelling at him or raising her chin in stubborn defiance. Every bit of her was gorgeous and real. “You don’t need to hide your feelings from me.”
Her eyes met his. She shrugged and he recognized the motion as a subtle and defiant way to deflect his compliment. He almost chuckled. Did she have any idea how alike they were? Both so stubbornly determined to push people away. Both so determined to deflect people’s attempts to show affection. They were like two hearts of stone that crashed and banged against each other, setting off sparks.
“Well, you’re used to watching people fall apart,” she said. “I’m not used to doing it.”
His eyes flitted over to where Trent and Chloe now stood on their phones by their car. He was so tired of feeling like they were on borrowed time.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Max said, turning back to face her. “People cry in front of me all the time. They also yell, curse, lie and beg. They kick me, punch me and threaten my life when I’m only trying to help. People throw all their emotions at me and hit me with everything they’ve got. I’m like an emotional punching bag, it’s part of a paramedic’s job and I let it roll off me. I never let myself feel any of it and I don’t let it impact me...usually.”
There was something about that word—usually—that had been so reluctant to be spoken he’d had to practically force it past his tongue. He wondered what it would be like for him, for both of them, to turn all that determination not to get involved with anyone into a determination to cling tight to another person and love them with all of their might.
“My mother says I was her perpetually happy child who never cried,” he said. “I’m sure that can’t be true, but it definitely feels like it is. It was more than just not crying, though. I was always level. I never get wound up about anything. I don’t tend to lose my temper or yell or get emotionally invested. That’s how weird meeting you has been for me. Before you, whatever was happening around me, good or bad, I just laughed it off and let it roll off me.” His voice caught in his throat, as if suddenly hearing his words for the first time had jolted something in his brain. “Because that’s how I handle what happened to my sister.”
He took a deep breath, but again the words he wanted to say seemed to be stuck somewhere inside him, unable to break free. There was this dam, deep inside, walling him off from all those feelings that crashed and surged inside him, and he didn’t know how to break through it.
He let go of Daisy and ran both hands through his hair. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’m sorry. I feel like all my words are coming out wrong.”
She reached up, grabbed both of his hands and squeezed them hard. “Don’t stop. Keep talking. I don’t care if you get your words wrong, I still want to hear them.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. An odd lump formed in his throat.
“My sister, Faith, was murdered when she was twelve,” he said. “She was killed by a stranger, walking home from school. He grabbed her and tried to abduct her, she fought him off and died in the struggle before he could even take her anywhere. They never, ever caught the guy. Which I think is why Trent and Jacob take it so personally when they can’t solve a crime.
“I was only a toddler when it happened. I don’t really remember her. But the sadness my family felt at losing her, that grief, covered my whole childhood. Sadness was like this weird, gray mist that always floated around my home, just above our heads, and would just suddenly descend on us sometimes, slowing everything down and making people disappear into it. I never knew when it would hit. I’d be playing with my mom, and she’d just start crying. Or we’d be having family dinner, conversation would just stop and everyone would go silent. Holidays were the hardest—birthdays, Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving.”
Daisy squeezed his hands even tighter. He opened his eyes again, looked into her face and saw the family porch light that meant home reflected in her eyes.
“My mom always had a hard time at holidays, too,” she said. “Very different, but still. It was the only time she’d talk about my father. First, she’d start yelling and breaking things, until it all got too much and I’d run off to the park or into town and just go wander the shops. Running out was like my way of hitting Reset, because when I came home she’d be calm again and it was like nothing had even happened.”
“My mom would just get really quiet,” Max said. “Now, Trent was a hothead. He’d lose his temper and run off to the barn and start punching the wall. My dad would go after him and calm him down. Jacob was always the peacemaker. He was the responsible one, who’d start clearing the table, take over the dinner or do whatever needed to be done. Nick would act up and be naughty to get attention, so Jacob would basically have to grab him by the scruff of his neck and make him stay put before he could cause too much chaos.”
He chuckled, then he eased his hands from her viselike grip and slid them onto her shoulders. “We probably all sound pretty dysfunctional when I say it like that, all with our different ways of dealing with a horrible thing. But now when I watch families fall apart in grief at crime and accident scenes, it helps to be able to relate to them.”
Daisy’s hands slid around him and he felt her fingers brush the back of his neck. Shivers ran down his spine. He pulled her tighter.
“Okay, and what were you doing while all this was happening in your family?” she asked.
“I was the one making everybody smile,” he said. “I got good at figuring out when the family was going to descend into grief and I’d try to stop it from happening. Sometimes it worked. It was like I was a superhero and grief was my enemy. I could sense the sadness was starting to descend so I’d quickly figure out the right thing to say to make everyone laugh. I learned to skip across the top of my feelings and not let myself sink into them. But it wasn’t because I didn’t feel things. It was because my feelings always seemed too big, too strong and too scary. I was afraid if I let them in, they’d flood over me and I’d drown.”
He closed his eyes and brought his head forward until his forehead touched hers. He felt the soft rise and fall of her breath against his face. And as much as he wanted to kiss her, he knew it was more important that she heard what he needed to say.
“Maybe I’m just as scared now of feeling things as I always was,” he said. “Because when I look at you, and I think about you and Fitz leaving my life, it feels an awful lot like drowning. I don’t know what I’ll do when you say goodbye. Maybe I’ll cry like Mom or punch something like Trent or build something like Dad and then shoot paint at it. But whatever it is, it’s going to hurt a lot, that much I know.”
The farmhouse door flew open. A wail filled the night, loud and long and so heartbreaking, Max felt like his heart would split at the sound. Then he heard a single word, gasped from Daisy’s lips, and it felt like someone had cranked up the pain past his breaking point. “Fitz!”
They sprang apart and ran for the farmhouse. His mother ran down the stairs toward him. Her face was pale and a screaming Fitz clutched in her arms.
“His fever’s spiked, suddenly,” his mother said, easing Fitz into Max’s outstretched hands. He brushed his fingers across the baby’s scalding skin and knew in an instant what he needed to do before his mother said the words. “You have to get him to the hospital.”