Page 102 of Glimmer in the Darkness

“I know. I know.” Over Ella’s head, he asked, “You have that phone?”

Cassidy held it up, and he rattled off a number. She dialed, then handed it to him.

“Hello?” In the single word, James heard defeat in Reid’s voice.

“It’s James,” he said. “I have Ella.”

“Wait? Where? Is she okay?”

He handed the phone to Ella, who said, “Daddy?” The word cracked, and she buried her face in James’s T-shirt, keeping the phone to her other ear.

With the girl so close, James could hear Reid’s calming voice, his promises to see her soon. Not asking all the questions that had to be filling his mind. Just being the gentle father he’d always been to his little girl.

James turned to watch the man in the cave, but Vince hadn’t moved.

They’d done it. He and Cassidy had saved Ella, together.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Cassidy couldn’t stop shaking.

She couldn’t stop hearing the gunshots.

She couldn’t stop seeing James on the ground. Those first few moments, she’d been sure he’d been shot.

Couldn’t stop seeing the killer’s gun pointed at his head.

Then pointed at her.

James had gotten off a shot before her.

Her bullet had grazed his shoulder. Not deadly, not where she’d aimed, but she should be thankful she hadn’t hit him in the chest. She might not want to live with having killed a man, even that man.

The killer had attempted a shot, but it had gone wild. Thank God. Thank God.

She and James and Ella had survived. Somehow, they’d all three survived.

James transferred Ella into Cassidy’s arms and returned to the cave to check on the man. His friend.

Ella wrapped her arms around Cassidy’s neck, her legs around her waist, and hung on as if she’d never let go. The feeling was so familiar, terrifyingly familiar, she had the urge to push the child away for fear of failing her as she had Hallie. But she didn’t. Ella needed her.

Finally, the faint whir of helicopter blades interrupted the forest’s eerie silence, growing louder. It landed in a distant clearing and, a few minutes later, armed men climbed the path.

A blanket was thrown over Cassidy’s shoulders. With James’s help and gentle assurances, Ella allowed a paramedic to pry her from Cassidy’s arms to examine her.

Vince was carried away on a stretcher, and one helicopter took off, allowing another to land.

Ella was taken to the second helicopter, and, after a quick kiss on Cassidy’s cheek and a tossed “See you soon,” James accompanied the little girl to the hospital.

Not until they were gone did a heavyset man with a gruff voice approach Cassidy.

“Detective Cote,” he said.

Her fake name hovered on the end of her tongue. When had she last said her own name, her real name, to another soul?

Ten years past. Ten long years.

“Cassidy Leblanc,” she said.