Page 117

He released me, roaring with rage as he staggered with her and then propelled them both into the far wall. Caoimhe’s head cracked against it and she whimpered, her limbs releasing him. Kenan pushed away from her, and I stood to face him as she slumped, dazed.

I swiped at him with the blade, trying to keep him at a distance, but he batted it away, not caring as it sliced through his palm, as his other hand reached through my defenses to wrap around my throat.

He squeezed, his expression a mask of madness as he slammed my head against the opposite wall next to the cot, hitting the lumpy wound. Severe nausea and dizziness dazed me, and I was barely cognizant of him peeling the knife from my grip.

As I fought through my discombobulation, I saw the sneer of satisfaction in his expression before his arm pulled back and punched forward.

A sharp, burning, tearing pain flared across my stomach.

The shock of the intensity held me frozen as he pulled his arm back and I felt the blade leave my body. My knees shook with the agony as I clamped a hand over my stomach, my warm blood soaking my fingers. He’d stabbed me. I’d just been stabbed. Disbelief and fear whirled together in my mind.

Kenan was mid-grin when Caoimhe appeared just over his shoulder. She kicked out at the back of his leg, sending him down on one knee, the bloodied knife clattering to the floor as my knees went with it.

Caoimhe grunted, snatching the knife up just as Kenan pushed off his knees to attack. With a shriek of fury, tears streaking down her face, Caoimhe plunged the knife into his chest with brutal force. The sound of his shocked gurgle mingled with her harsh sobbing.

“Caoimhe,” I whispered, relief and sorrow and pain coursing through every inch of me. “Caoimhe.”

She whirled on me, releasing Kenan who dropped to the floor with a thud. She cried out at the sight of the blood on her hands.

“Caoimhe.”

Her eyes flared. “Cammie.” She kneeled before me, gaze dropping to my wound. “We’ve got to get you out of here, get you help.”

“Aye,” I gasped for breath. “That sounds like a plan to me.”

52. Forde

Iraced behind the patrol SUV as we took the main A road south through the island. The early-morning hour meant we met only one vehicle on our frantic journey to find the hut Kenan had told me about.

Despite cutting the two-hour trip down by fifteen minutes, the winding roads made it impossible to go any faster without causing harm to ourselves. I’d called Isla and asked her to bring the ambulance, but she must have been quite a bit behind us because I hadn’t seen her headlights in my rearview.

As it was, my truck skidded around a few of the corners as I chased behind the police four-by-four that contained Leth Sholas’s three police officers.

They wanted me to sit this out, but arguing with me was futile and I reminded them they might need a paramedic.

My hands slipped on the steering wheel with sweat, my panic building as the minutes ticked by. It would only take seconds for that vile piece of shit to perpetrate upon Cameron the evil acts he’d committed against all those other women. And I knew … I knew if we got there and he’d already …

I would kill him.

I didn’t care what that meant for the rest of my life.

If I was too late to save Cameron from him, I would kill Kenan Reese. Maybe there was a part of my father in me after all.

As we passed the small sign for Kinroggan, an uninhabited area of the southern coast of Glenvulin, I found myself growing frantic and impatient with the vehicle in front of me. The patrol SUV had slowed down into the winding turns that led right down to a couple fishing shacks.

A quick check had revealed Kenan was renting one of them from Dougie Macdonald, a farmer down here.

Our headlights flared across the shacks as I skidded into a turn beside the patrol vehicle. They kept theirs on, lighting up the hut that sat maybe twenty meters back from the water. A car parked on the other side of it had a scrubbed license plate. There was a huge bolt across the front of the hut door. I jumped out of my truck, desperate to race toward the shack, but DI Paul had warned me not to interfere, so my gaze flew to the superior officer as he stepped out of the SUV. He and his wife held firearms and PC William stood at their backs, armed with a Taser.

The only sounds I could hear was the crashing water off the shore and my thudding heartbeat in my ears. DI Paul communicated with hand signals I didn’t fucking understand, and he’d just taken a step forward when the door to the hut flew open, the bolt rattling so loudly in the tense dusk air my heart launched into my throat.

“Police! Don’t move!” DI Paul barked.

“We need help!” a voice called back.

It took my brain a second to register Caoimhe had her arm around Cameron. Then I saw the blood soaking Cameron’s stomach, and I ran without thinking.

“Forde!” Caoimhe sobbed, almost buckling under Cameron’s weight. “He’s inside. He stabbed her.”