CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 39

Marilee?

Marilee had sent the previous warning texts when she was seeing Gideon?

The messages were different, but just by a few words.

Or was it a coincidence?

Either way Brooke couldn't take a chance.

She wrote back:

I know. Stay with your dad. Go somewhere safe. Find a hotel somewhere in another town. Let me know. I love you!

She pushed send, hoping the message would go through, but her phone connection was failing. Dead. "Come on, come on," she said, shaking the thing, seeing a flicker of another message:

I told you I'd never let you go.

As soon as the words appeared they faded, the phone completely dead.

Her insides turned to jelly and she quickly used her laptop to skim through the cameras she'd set up in the house. The upper hallways and entry hall were clear. No one in the guest room. The living room camera had taken footage and her heart stopped for a beat before she realized that Shep had activated the recording.

All as it should be.

She turned to the outside camera, its tiny lens already starting to ice over. Snow distorted the view, but as she stared she thought she noticed a movement by the woodshed.

"No," she whispered as the figure appeared, dark and looming.

With a touch to the screen she enhanced the picture just as Elijah Rossario moved to the doorway. He smiled into the camera's eye, snow collecting on his beard, his eyes dark with the night. And curled in the fingers of one gloved hand?

An axe.

Her grandfather's axe.

The one they used in the woodshed.

For a split second she couldn't move. Her breathing seemed to stop. The world spun slowly, as if off its axis. This couldn't be happening.

But it was.

She shot to her feet.

Just as the lights went out.

The rumble of the furnace died.

What?

No, no, no.

She couldn't lose power now.

But this wasn't just a blink or a flicker. This time everything went dead. Her computer was still glowing, its battery still viable, but when she tried to email, she discovered that her Wi-Fi was down.

She had no flashlight but thought it would be best if she didn't show herself. Elijah Rossario had already let her know that he was coming for her.

Were the doors locked?

So what?

He had a key. She knew that already.

She tried to dial 9-1-1, but her phone didn't respond.

You're on your own.

She couldn't stay upstairs or she'd be a sitting duck. No, she had to get out, get help, run to the nearest house, anything.

The house wasn't in total darkness; the computer screen still glowed and the dying fire downstairs illuminated the stairs and the dark hallway somewhat, casting a dim orange illumination.

Just what she needed.

Click.

Creeaak.

A downstairs door opened.

Whoosh. The wind blew inside.

The fire burned bright for a second, fed with fresh air.

Frantically, she thought. She couldn't be trapped up here. There was nowhere to hide. Even if she locked herself in the bathroom, he could break down the door.

He had an axe.

She had a knife.

Not good odds.

Shep let out a sharp bark.

What?

Then the dog started growling, and the thought of Gideon attacking Shep with the axe was too much. She ran down the stairs as she heard a yelp, then whimpering and the scrape of claws scrambling on hardwood.

"Stop!" she yelled over the whimpering. "Don't you do anything to that dog!"

And she flung herself into the living room.

Which was empty, the coals of the dying fire casting a bloodred glow.

"Shep?" she said, then more loudly, "Shep!"

She spun around, bracing herself. Where was Gideon? Where was Shep?

Her pulse was pounding, adrenaline racing through her blood.

"Shep. Come!"

At the open back door she shouted into the night, "Shep, come!" Before she noticed the impressions in the snow. Not only paw prints running off the deck and into the surrounding forest, but fresh footprints in a direct path from the woodshed to the house.

She didn't move a muscle

Shep's name froze in her throat.

No human footprints were visible.

He hadn't chased the dog.

Where was he?

Panic coursed through her.

She thought she heard the scrape of a footstep somewhere in the house behind her.

Muscles tensed, ready to spring, she slowly turned, her eyes searching the house with its eerie reddish glow. Was he standing in the umbra near the staircase? By the hutch in the dining room? In the darkness that was the kitchen?

Somewhere.

She couldn't see.

But he was here.

She knew it.

Could feel him.

She inched toward the door.

Reached down, slid the knife from its sheath.

Every nerve-ending stretched to the breaking point, she peered into the weird orange shadows.

And then she heard his voice. No longer raspy, it was as recognizable as her own.

With clarity, Gideon said, "I want my knife back."

She froze. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the kitchen.

"Did you hear me?" he said, leaping onto the counter, standing high above her, the axe in his hand. "I said, I want my knife back."

"And I want my life back," she said, her gaze focused on him, on the axe. His face was cast in an eerie orange glow, the blade of the axe glinting. "Leave me alone."

"Too late."

The front door was close. She just had to sprint to it, but how far could she get in this blizzard? If she screamed would anyone hear her?

"I told you I would never let you go," he warned.

"But you were going to marry Leah."

"A means to an end."

The fire popped loudly and she jumped.

Get to the door. Somehow you have to get out of here. In the house you have no chance. Get the hell out!

"So why marry her?"

"To be close to you."

"After all this time?"

"Patience," he said. "I told you once I was a patient man."

"You're a sick man," she countered, her mind spinning with ways to escape. In the meantime, though, she would keep him talking, knowing that the tiny camera in the Christmas tree was recording it all. As long as there was movement in the room. She inched closer to the door and he shifted. In one leap he could land in front of her. There wasn't time to unlatch the door and run into the night.

"How did you get here?"

"A lie about needing to go to the restroom at the church and a few dollars in the right pocket of the owner of a boat who didn't have anything better to do on Christmas Eve than ferry someone to the island. It's convenient that the church doesn't allow cell phones to be active during mass, so Leah couldn't call." Then he looked around. "And just so you know, the island isn't out of power. Just this place."

She felt sick inside. "You cut the wires?"

"Nothing so dramatic. Just threw the main power switch." He grinned, and it was pure evil.

Keep him talking. By now Neal has probably called the police. They could be on their way. Or not.She blurted out, "I found the bracelet."

"I know."

"Why? Why would you leave it here?"

If not the front door then the back. It's not locked. Get him to commit to jump one way, then feint and run out the other.

"So you wouldn't forget me."

"As if I could," she said, her fingers sweating on the knife. If she could just get close enough to him, to strip away the damned axe. "And it's more than that, Elijah," she said and saw his eyes narrow at the use of his real name. "You want to terrorize me. Just like you terrorized Emme," she threw out.

Again he flinched, this time his lips flattening against his teeth.

"I know about her, and I'm not the only one. So no matter what happens tonight, no matter what you do to me, you're already found out. It's just a matter of time. Good thing you're a patient man."

He warned, "You leave Emme out of this."

"Why, because you killed her?"

Get out. Don't goad him! Appeal to his obsession for you. Pretend that you still care for him, that breaking up with him was a mistake.

But she couldn't.

The man repulsed her.

And he wouldn't believe it anyway.

She had to find some way to escape.

After she got his confession, the proof she needed to expose him. To stop him. Her heart thundered, her neck taut, every muscle tense.

"Kill Emme?" he repeated. "Is that what you think?"

"That's what happened."

He was shaking his head. "Emme fell overboard."

"And you didn't save her? Didn't go to the police?" she challenged, so close to the fireplace that she felt the heat radiating from the coals. From the corner of her eye she saw the poker.

"No one would believe me."

"Because you murdered your family? Because the police are still trying to figure out how to prove that you killed them and staged the accident? Killing them along with the driver of the log truck, a completely innocent man?"

Brooke, why the hell are you incensing him? Why? Run! He's said enough for the police. Get out and run! Now!

"You've got it all wrong," he said, his lips barely moving. "All wrong."

"I don't think so," she said. "You already tried to kill me. I remember."

"You're the one who brought the gun," he reminded her. "I found it, you know," he said as she kept slowly moving toward the fireplace. "I've got it."

"On your boat? Where the hell is the Medusa?"

"Dry dock," he said. "I'd hoped you and I would sail off on it."

"Are you kidding? After what you've done to me, to my family?"

He was so nuts. And so dangerous.

"It was all a game."

"Not a game, Elijah," she said, her pulse pounding in her eardrums.

"Gideon. Call me Gideon."

"Murder is not a game, Elijah." She reached the firebox and his eyes had followed her every move. "You're a murderer and you've been living a lie all your adult life. And the walls are closing in. And just for the record, I never loved you. Never. I was just unhappy and you came along and I made the worst mistake of my life. I didn't even want you. I was just using you to fill a void, to get back at my cheating husband," she said, realizing the truth. "I despise you." She flung herself toward the poker.

"You bitch!" He leaped, the axe raised.

Hand on the poker, she whirled, ducking his blow and slamming the iron poker over the back of his head.

Stunned, he swung wildly.

She hit him again; then, using his knife, she slashed.

The sharp blade sliced across his chest.

He roared in pain and fell backward, still clutching the axe.

Stumbling up, he swung again, but she was already out the back door and into the blizzard.

Across the deck, slipping and sliding, plowing through the snow, she headed for the forest. Her phone, deep in her pocket, was useless to call or text, but she hoped that someone could find her through the location device.

And she still had the knife and the poker.

If she could use them.

The wind was brutal, screaming through the trees and rattling the branches. Frozen limbs slapped at her or broke off, scraping at her arms and legs as she plowed on, along the narrow path, snow falling from the sky and falling from the laden branches.

He was behind her.

And he had a light.

From the corner of her eye she saw the beam bouncing along the trail she'd broken through the snow.

But he was wounded.

How severely she didn't know, but it was enough to slow him down. And she knew the island so much better than he. If she could circle around to the landing and the houses that were occupied, she might have a chance. Someone might help her. But he was close.

She heard him crashing through the undergrowth.

Run, run, run.

Up through the trees to the dunes, where frozen blades of dune grass shivered and the sea stretched out endlessly. White caps showed on the roiling dark water and the roar of the ocean pounding the shore thundered over the howling wind.

She'd lost track of Shep.

She'd seen his paw prints entering the woods, but then they'd disappeared. She couldn't think about what might have happened to him, her loyal dog. Even he was a victim to this madness, she thought as she took note that she was leaving her own footprints. Even if she could outrun this monster, he would track her down relentlessly.

Relentless.

Obsessed.

He would follow her to the ends of the earth.

Until her fate was the same as that of Emme Cosgrove, whose body was, Brooke believed, lost somewhere in the deep sea among the islands of Polynesia.

On the beach she realized her mistake. She'd been so freaked out that she'd run out here by instinct. But on the unbroken shoreline she was an open target. Out here there was no hiding.

Except...

There was a place she'd gone as a child, a spot in the beach grass and brush on a dune that she and Leah had called the cave. It wasn't a cave at all but an opening in the thick Scotch broom that grew on the dunes.

Would it still be here?

Would it provide cover?

Even if she did find it, would it be a dead end where she'd be trapped?

If it worked she might be able to get away and back to the houses that were occupied. If not . . .

She wouldn't think that way.

She just had to keep running along the shoreline, her frantic mind whirling as she raced toward the northern point where the ocean crept into the bay.

"Brooke!" he yelled and she glanced back once to see him, not fifty feet behind, lagging, hauling the heavy axe with him.

Not since their last struggle on the deck of the Medusa had she wanted a gun, but now she would give anything for Neal's little pistol that, according to Elijah, he still had hidden on his boat.

Keep running, she told herself, angling back toward the dunes, searching for a light, any sign of life. But the few houses on this side of the island were dark. Unoccupied. Of no help.

Where was the break in the vegetation of the dunes? Where?

Did it even exist any longer?

She was breathing hard, her lungs tight from the cold.

Her blood was pumping fast.

She felt the area where she'd tweaked her ankle, but it was solid, holding her up, the pain minimal compared to the harsh, gut-wrenching fear curdling through her blood.

Run, run, run.

"Brooke!" he yelled again. "Stop!"

No way. No effin' way.

The lack of visibility made finding anything impossible, but she cut up to the dunes again and ran through the grass and clumps of Scotch broom, all covered in ice and snow. If she could outrun him and get to the main road . . .

"Brooke!"

He was so close.

She couldn't see him in the whiteout but kept running inland . . . and noticed the house. Dark and uninhabited, it rose on the dunes, a large deck stretched from sliding doors facing the ocean.

She took a chance, running across the deck, her tracks leading to the front of the house and the road, and then she slid behind a hedgerow and waited. Shivering. Squinting. Freezing. She slid the knife into the waistband of her jeans and held the poker like a baseball bat. When he rounded the corner—

A sharp bark threw her off.

Shep?

The dog dashed toward her.

No!

With a roar, Elijah appeared, springing from the curtain of snow, the axe high over his head, blood pouring from his soaked sweater.

Brooke didn't think twice.

She rounded on him, both hands on the poker, and he went down with a thud.

The axe fell away, buried in the deep snow.

Shuddering, Brooke watched as the life slowly seeped out of him.

"You—you're mine," he whispered hoarsely, blood bubbling from his lips.

"Never," she vowed. "Never. You asked me once how far I'd go for something I wanted. Now you know."