“It’s okay,” I said to Thane. “Let me talk to him.”
After the others had gone, I stood in front of his chair. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of kneeling.
“Where is she? You can’t keep him from her. You have to tell him,” I pleaded.
“Are you that anxious to send him into the arms of another woman?”
“I care about him. I want him to be happy.”
He sneered. “How noble.”
“Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve taken everything from him. Even his peace of mind. He’ll never stop looking for her.”
“He won’t find her.”
“Then why tell him at all? Just to torment him?”
Pell reached for a book on the table beside him. It was the leather-bound volume he’d been holding the first night I met him. He traced the emblem on the cover with his fingertip. “I’ve watched the two of you together. The attraction is palpable. But you won’t let it happen, because you can’t let go of the past. You can’t forget about that Charleston cop.”
I gasped. “How do you know about him?”
“I know everything about you, my dear. I’ve kept track of your every move for years.” He handed me the book. “Take a look.”
I thumbed through the pages in horror. He hadn’t been kidding. Every stage of my life had been meticulously photographed and cataloged. I saw pictures of me in Rosehill Cemetery. Pictures of me with Papa. Pictures of me with Devlin. I looked up, trembling.
“You’re the last of the Ashers,” he said. “The bloodline depends on you.”
“What does that have to do with Harper?”
“You hold the key to her freedom.”
I clutched the book. “What do you mean?”
“On the day you produce my first grandchild, Harper Sweeney will be set free. Not a moment sooner.”
I said on a ragged breath, “You make it sound as if you’re holding her somewhere, but I don’t believe you. You’re bluffing. Even you can’t be that unspeakably cruel.”
“You said yourself that you care about Thane. You want only his happiness. Or were those words empty?” he taunted.
“You think you can play God with people’s lives, but you’re wrong.”
“We’re Ashers,” he said. “Here, we are God. We’ve always been one with this land. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve felt it. It’s already there inside you. Accept it.”
“Like you did? Like Luna did?”
“Luna.” He all but spat her name. “Good riddance, I say. The other two parasites can meet her in hell for all I care. But you…” His hand reached out to grip my arm. I tried to move away, but his grasp tightened until I could feel the pressure of his bony fingers through my wet sleeve. “You have more power than the lot of them. You have the chance to start a new dynasty.”
I wrenched away. “No, thanks.”
His eyes hardened. “The legacy won’t end with you, girl. Your children and your grandchildren will be Ashers. They’ll be drawn to this place just as you are. They’ll be connected by blood and by land just as you are. They’ll feel it in the wind as Ashers have for generations. And one of them will embrace it.”
I shivered. “And if I don’t have children?”
“You must, for Thane’s sake and for Harper’s. And for your own. It’s your destiny.”
Thane appeared in the doorway. “We have to go.”
I looked down at Pell Asher.
Silently, he turned back to the window.
Thane brought around the four-wheel drive, and I climbed in beside him. We both turned to stare at the façade of the house, and my gaze lifted to the upper balcony where I had seen Pell Asher staring down at us the night Thane kissed me. He had known who I was even then. He must have been so pleased that his plan appeared to be working.
I clutched the book to my chest. “What about the others?” I asked.
“It’s their choice,” he said. “Stay here or face the police.”
“That’s not much of a choice.”
“It’s more than they deserve.”
And no sooner had he said the words than the power line running into the house snapped, and the live wire danced across the wet pavement in front of us. A moment later, the windows in the house exploded.
The hillside gave way beneath us. The truck shifted sideways, and I gripped the seat in terror as Thane fought the wheel and we thundered down the drive. I glanced back just as the house separated from the foundation and started to slide.
“Thane…”
He glanced in the rearview mirror. “I see it.”
“Can you go faster?”
I knew we could outrun the house. That wasn’t the problem. It was the idea of that house—of Pell Asher—pursuing us down the hill.
“Hold on!” Thane yelled a split second before we slammed into a boulder that had landed in the road in front of us. I flew toward the windshield only to be yanked back painfully by the seat belt.
Thane reached for the ignition and tried to restart the vehicle. It wouldn’t turn over.
The house loomed behind us.
“Oh, God…”
“Jump!”
We bolted from the vehicle and scrambled across the wet hillside. By the time we reached the creek, the rushing water had flooded the footbridge. The flimsy structure swayed and creaked, and the water sucked at our feet. I clung to the guardrail—and Grandfather’s book—and didn’t draw a breath until we were all the way across.
And then we turned in unison to watch Asher House collapse at the bottom of the hill.
Thirty-Nine
Hours later, Thane, Tilly and I stepped from police headquarters into a glistening, deserted town. We’d been there for hours answering questions and giving statements to the two state police detectives who had commandeered Wayne Van Zandt’s office. Wayne had gone off to join the search-and-rescue team, but not before I’d noted a satisfied gleam in his eyes when he’d heard about Luna. I wondered if we’d ever know the truth about what had happened to him at the falls. Maybe his amnesia was a blessing.
Thane had been questioned first, and while Tilly and I waited, she cleaned up my scratches and doctored the superficial cut on my back with antiseptic she’d plundered from a first-aid kit. I asked her about my mother as she worked. She reminisced softly, and I could see Freya clearly in my mind, so lonely and tragic and desperate to fit in. A girl who had once found solace in a graveyard.
“What about Edward?” I asked.
“I won’t talk about him,” Tilly said.
“Why not?”
“Maybe he didn’t have a hand in what happened to my girl, but he didn’t do anything to help her, either.”
“I think he must have been a weak man,” I said. “And probably terrified of his father.” And of the evil, perhaps.
“That don’t make it right.”
“I know.” But a part of me wanted to believe there’d been some good in my birth father. I didn’t want to think of Pell as my only Asher legacy.
Tilly put her gloved hand on my shoulder. “Don’t dwell, girl.”
“I won’t.”
But, of course, I would. How could I not?
“Did you know that Luna was the killer?” I asked Tilly.
“I knew they were all involved, but she’s the only one I dreamed about.”
“But you kept it to yourself. All these years you knew…”
“I had no proof. And besides…I didn’t want anyone finding out about you.”
“You burned your hands to keep me safe.”
“I did what I had to do.” She closed the first-aid kit and set it aside. “I’ll give you some remedy when we get home,” she said.
“Thank you.”
She sat down beside me.
“Why did you take the necklace off Luna’s body?” I asked.
“It had a drude’s foot on the back,” she said. “I meant to destroy it.”
“Like the one on the cliff?” I asked anxiously. “It had an open point?”
She nodded.
“There’s another one at the library. Sidra showed it to me.”