Page 71 of Shallow Remains

The house was still empty.

Maddy’s car was still parked in the driveway, but there was no indication that she had come back yet. My initial search hadn’t located what I’d been looking for.

It was in there somewhere. I knew it. It had to be. Maddy was obsessive about keeping things like that.

The burner phone rang on my passenger seat as I drove past the cottage through the rain. I ignored it. I was done reporting my plan and movements to the man on the other end every damned day, tired of operating on his timeline.

Besides, the plan had changed.

I would still get what he wanted. What we both needed. I would take Maddy. Force her to give up the encrypted file and make her decode it.

But that was no longer enough for me. Not by a long shot.

I was going to make her suffer. Hurt her in the same way I’d been hurt and make her feel what real pain was before she died.

What I’d learned in town had given me the perfect weapon to use against my target.

I turned onto the main road and headed back to town and the little apartment I was renting above one of the shops along Harborview Drive. I’d made enough acquaintances to blend in now. No one suspected me as I went through the motions of being part of the community. In reality, I was hunting.

As expected, the cops hadn’t been able to identify me on the security cameras at the cottage. The force here was tiny, and word on the street said they were overstretched as it was, dealing with an influx of drugs or whatever. I would continue to use that to my advantage.

But the patch I’d left would send a message. Once Maddy saw it, she would know someone from her past was watching her. That she was no longer safe.

I loved being able to fuck with her head. To drag this out and implement more layers before I sprang the trap.

I knew exactly how to twist the knife—and who I would target first. Lachlan McCaffrey, a local guy who operated a whale watching company out of a marina in Whalebone Cove. He’d never see me coming. Or if he did, not until it was too late.

It was the perfect opportunity to get everything I wanted. Almost divine intervention, if I’d believed in that sort of thing.

Maddy Krause would know the true definition of agony before I killed her.

THIRTY-SIX

Rain had turned the hiking path into an accident waiting to happen, and it didn’t take long to strike.

The rivulet of mud flowing down the narrow and steep forest trail suddenly expanded, washing their path from beneath them.

Grey leaped to the side just in time while managing to hold onto his end of the stretcher, but Lachlan’s feet came out from under him. His brother hit the ground hard and slid a couple feet before shoving a boot out to catch himself on the edge of a rock, the weight of the patient’s head and upper body falling on him.

Rain continued to pummel them, a stiff wind through the towering evergreens pushing the drops sideways into their faces as Lachlan grunted and got to one knee, seemed to struggle a bit to gain his balance and lift the stretcher. The man they’d rescued groaned and moved a little in the cocoon of blankets they’d wrapped him in but didn’t say anything.

Grey crouched down, adjusted the angle of the stretcher and eyed his brother, who was now covered in dark mud. “You good?”

Lachlan set his jaw, adjusted his grip on the handles, and pushed to his feet. “Yep.”

He’d tweaked his back. Grey could tell by looking at him. But he didn’t say anything because it would be pointless.

They were both stubborn as hell, trained to take constant physical punishment and keep going. Whatever it took to save a life and get the person in distress to safety. Lachlan would carry his half of the litter down this mountain or die trying.

A little ahead of them down the trail, Emma paused, the beam of her headlamp shining on them while Chris took up the rear a short distance behind Lachlan. “Okay?” she called out.

“All good,” Grey answered, and resumed picking his way down the hill on a more stable path next to the mudslide.

It had taken them more than an hour to hike up to the rescue site in the dark. Why this guy had decided a night hike up here alone in the middle of nowhere during a rainstorm at the end of October was a good idea, Grey didn’t know. He was lucky he’d had enough reception on his phone to call for help, that he’d only suffered a bad ankle sprain, and hadn’t been hypothermic without proper gear by the time they’d reached him.

The wind eased a bit as they descended. It took ten minutes longer to hike down with the victim than it had climbing up to get him. By the time they reached the parking lot where an ambulance waited, Lachlan’s face was tight with strain. Grey gave the medics the intel on the patient as they handed the stretcher and its occupant over.

Lachlan set his end of the litter down with a deep sigh of relief, rolling his shoulders and head.