“I didn’t want to, but I was scared. Tilly was missing and Catrice had just told me about Freya’s murder. It was a lot to take in and I wasn’t thinking clearly… .” I trailed off. “Surely you can understand how her accusation might have given me pause.”
“What did she say?” His voice was very tight, very controlled.
“I already told you—”
“I mean exactly. Word for word.”
“She said that you would do anything to solidify your position in the Asher family. That you’d cut off your right arm to be the one to give Pell Asher an heir.”
“I see.” He was still staring straight ahead, speaking very softly. “There is a certain plausibility in that, I don’t deny. But for you to think that I would hurt you…that you would hesitate to take my hand on the cliff…” He drew a breath. “That’s hard to accept.”
“I’m sorry.” I turned back to the window, watching the night shadows fly past me. “But maybe it’s all for the best.”
“Why?”
“Because of who I am.”
Another pause. “This is about the other night, isn’t it? You said you were the one who had let it in.”
“It seems it all started on the night of my birth. Freya Pattershaw was my mother.”
“So Freya and Edward…?”
I faced him, my gaze going again to the marks I’d left on his cheek. “There’s a lot I still don’t understand, but this place is very dangerous for me. And I’m dangerous to the people who get close to me. Whatever is out there…whatever you and I felt that night…it’s coming for me.”
“How do we stop it?” he asked, the dangerous edge in his voice making me shiver.
I closed my eyes. “I don’t think we can stop it.”
Thirty-Eight
As we came around a curve, the police flashers took me by surprise. Obviously, someone had managed to get a call through. Then I wondered if there’d been a bad accident. Not unusual in this weather. But as Thane slowed, I saw the yellow hazard lights on barricades that had been pulled across the road.
He rolled down his window as one of the policemen approached.
“What’s going on?” Thane asked.
“Flash flood washed out the bridge,” the officer said, water rolling off the brim of his hat as he bent to glance inside the car. “You won’t be able to get across tonight. Creek’s too high.”
“We need to get up to the house,” Thane said. “My grandfather is an invalid.”
“He’s not up there alone, is he?”
“I don’t know if anyone is with him or not. That’s why I need to get up there.”
“If the rain stops, the water should recede in a few hours. At least by morning.”
Another cop approached. “What’s the problem?”
“No problem,” Thane said. “We’d like to get home, is all.”
“Not going to happen tonight. You try to go across now, you’ll get swept downstream. My advice is to find someplace warm and dry and wait it out. And keep away from these bluffs. We’ve got reports coming in from all over the county of mudslides. People claim they’ve seen boulders the size of cars crashing down on highways. You get enough rain and sooner or later these ridges will start to cave.”
“Thanks.” Thane reversed the car, turned in the road and headed away from the barricades. As soon as we were around the curve and out of sight, he pulled to the shoulder.
“Why didn’t you tell them what happened?” I asked anxiously.
“Because I didn’t want to get waylaid with questions and statements. I’m going up to the house,” he said. “You can tell them after I’m gone or you can go home and wait for me. Do whatever you want.”
“But…how do you intend to get across the creek?”
“There’s a foot bridge about a half mile downstream. I’ll go across there.”
“Thane, that’s crazy. Why don’t you just wait until morning to talk to him?”
“It’s not about that.” He tapped a restless finger on the steering wheel as his gaze searched the darkness. “I know it’s crazy. I could kill him with my bare hands after what I heard tonight. The man took everything from me. But I don’t have it in me to leave him up there in that chair.”
“What are you going to do? Sit up there with him until the storm passes? With everything you found out tonight? That’s a terrible idea. And what if the flooding gets worse? You could be trapped for days.”
“Which is why I have to get him out. There’s an old four-wheel drive he used for hunting. If things get too bad, we’ll come downhill in that.”
“But you heard what the cops said. The water’s already too high. You won’t be able to get across even in a four-wheel drive.”
His eyes glittered angrily. “Then I’ll bring him down as far as I can and carry him the rest of the way. I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t even understand it myself.” He fell silent. “Just go and let me do this.”
I glanced back. I could see lights twinkling in Asher House, and I could imagine Pell Asher up there, master of his kingdom, as the hillside crumbled around him. I hated myself for it, but I didn’t have it in me, either, to leave him up there. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Thane said adamantly. “It’s too dangerous. Just take the car and go back. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Yes, it does. And, anyway, if no one else is up there, you’ll need my help. You can’t get him down that hill by yourself, and you know it. So let’s just go.” I opened the door and got out. He came around the car and took me by the arms, staring down into my rain-soaked face.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. Let’s go and get it over with.”
The surrealism of that whole night would strike me later, and I would replay the events in my head over and over trying to make sense of what happened. Why I agreed to put my life at risk for a man who had never shown me the slightest regard until he’d needed something from me. A man who had destroyed lives and been all too willing to cover up a young woman’s death in order to protect his son and the Asher name. A man who had flooded a cemetery and opened a terrible door. A man who had invited evil into this town and into my life with wide-open arms.
And yet there I trudged, head bowed against the torrent. Without rain gear we were drenched to the bone, our shoes caked with mud. I felt weighed down from that mud and from the storm and from my own bleak thoughts. I was glad when Thane picked up the pace, and I had to concentrate on keeping up with him. All around us, the woods were dark and gloomy. Over the drumbeat of the rain, I could hear my own ragged breathing, not so much from exertion, but from nerves and pent-up emotions. Too much had happened too quickly. I felt pummeled and assaulted from every direction.
Thane glanced over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I moved up behind him, my gaze going now and then to the light at the top of hill. I imagined again Pell Asher at that window, regal and defiant and unrepentant even as he reaped the bitter fruits of what he had sown.
Thane pointed ahead. “The bridge is just down there.”
We slipped and slithered our way down the treacherous bank, and my heart jumped when I got my first look at the bridge, nothing more than a few wooden planks and a flimsy guardrail. The water was only a foot or so from the bottom, and as we walked across in single file, the icy spray made me catch my breath. I didn’t want to consider how easy it would be to lose my footing and get swept away by the swirling foam or bashed against the rocks. So I concentrated on not slipping.
Once across, we scrambled up the bank and headed over the rocky hillside to the road. The going should have been easier on the tarmac, but the incline was steep and we were climbing into the wind, so even here the trek was a struggle. I was anxious to have this over and done with so that I could go home to a hot bath and a warm meal. This hellish night needed to be behind me.
As we approached the house, I heard a pop that sounded like gunfire.
I caught Thane’s arm. “What was that?”