The firefighters spread the trampoline below Emily.The murderer was still kicking weakly, but her arms had fallen limp at her sides.
Kate sawed at the rope.It was a plastic cable, threads twisted into twine twisted into ropes twisted into a thick cable.The thickness was probably what saved Emily’s neck from being broken, but it also made cutting through the plastic next to impossible, even for Kate’s sturdy utility knife.
The plastic threads snapped free one at a time with ephemeraltwangs.The air wafting around Kate from the rotors stung her eyes and sent dust into her nose.Snot trickled downward, and though the night was warm, a chill ate through her shirt and caused goosebumps to rise on her chest and shoulders.
Her shoulder burned as she cut.It felt like she had been slicing into the plastic forever, but when she looked at the rope, she was barely halfway through.She released a soft cry of anguish and looked down.
Emily wasn’t moving.
“Shit!”she cursed.“Shit!”
She cut faster, ignoring the burn in her shoulder, ignoring the voice in her head—Cox’s, of course—that told her it was pointless.God’s will would be done whatever pitiful resistance she provided.
“You’re not God,” she whispered.
That phrase, simple, obvious, powerful, lent her strength.Her arm pistoned back and forth, and the plastic threads separated faster and faster, two, then three at a time.
With each stroke, she imagined another of the bonds tying her to Cox separating.His escape, the murders he committed while she hunted him.Their first fight, when he tried to kill her by burning a church around them.The disciples and the murders they committed in his name.Robert Denton, Cox’s first student, who had nearly killed her over ten years ago.Peter S.Gadd, possibly her father’s murderer, possibly also Cox’s student, possibly Cox’s mentor, possibly just another psychopath who couldn’t find a way to fill the emptiness in his soul.
Each snapping thread was severance from the hold he so desperately wanted to have on her.Each separated twine was freedom from the clutch of his nails scrabbling for purchase in her mind.
You’re not God.I am not your spotted calf.I am not your scapegoat.I don’t belong to you.
The knife flinched as the last thread was cut.The rope fell away, and Kate sank to her knees and cried up to the sky as tears streamed down her cheeks.She took a deep breath of clean, cool air and didn’t care that it caused more mucus to stream from her nostrils.
Her phone buzzed.She answered.Marcus.“Kate, you beautiful bastardess, you.You did it.”
Kate laughed.She wiped the snot from her nose with her sleeve and looked down.Emily was sitting up on the trampoline, the rope removed from around her neck.Her hands were cuffed behind her, and when the paramedics tried to help her stand, she went to her knees and had to be lifted onto a gurney.
But she was alive.Cox had failed.His mission had been left incomplete.
And Kate was free.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Marcus met Kate next to their rental car.She lifted her bandaged hands and said sheepishly.“You’ll have to drive.Turns out I’m not Tarzan after all.”
Marcus grabbed her and pulled her into a tight bear hug.His stubble rasped against her cheek.He smelled like a full day of sweat.Kate hadn’t felt so happy since before her father died.
Or so brave.“We should go out to dinner,” she said.
“Hell yeah,” Marcus agreed, separating from her.“I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse’s family and save him for dessert.”
“No, I mean dinner,” she said.“Like,dinnerdinner.”
He blinked.His smile faded.For a brief, world-teetering moment, she thought she had ruined their friendship, and he was about to refuse.
Then he said, “Yeah.You’re right.We should.”He took a deep breath.“Cheryl’s leaving me.She texted me this morning.She said it’s a break, and she just needs time to center herself and figure out what she wants her future to look like, but it’s going to end with her leaving me.”
Kate wasn’t sure how to reply.Her elation at hearing him accept her invitation to a date was tempered greatly by his need to tell her about Cheryl right after.
On the other hand, if what he was saying was true, then neither of them needed to feel guilty.Kate wasn’t a homewrecker.Marcus wasn’t a cheater.They were just two people who had feelings for each other and finally had the opportunity and the courage to see where those feelings might lead.
She still wasn’t sure what to say, so she said what she’d want to hear if her husband was leaving her.“I’m sorry.”
Marcus nodded slowly.“Yeah.Me too.”Another world-teetering moment, but then he said, “It’s a good thing, though.I would have spent my entire life making both of us miserable by trying to fit my square peg into her round hole.”He grimaced.“Ouch.I could not have said that more awkwardly.”
“No, you really couldn’t have,” Kate said with a laugh.“But I understand.You loved Cheryl, and you tried hard to make her happy.It just didn’t work out.”
