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Lucy Meyer had released her a few minutes ago, scrambling up onto a small ledge on the cliff face so she could watch her die more slowly. As Alexia gasped for air, wincing with pain as the oxygen surged back into her lungs, it occurred to her for the first time that Lucy was also going to die. The waves would claim her too, just minutes after Alexia’s own life had ebbed away.
She must have known that when she brought me here. She doesn’t care about dying any more than I do. She wan
ts it. The peace. Just as long as she sees me punished first. All she wants is closure. We’re so alike, in the end, Lucy and I.
A noise distracted her. At first she thought she was imagining the low, droning sound, like the buzz of a bee. But then it got louder and louder, overpowering even the cymballike crashing of the waves. Alexia tipped her head back and looked up.
A helicopter! Rescue!
She hadn’t felt afraid before. When she thought death was inevitable, she’d been able to accept it, to make her peace. But now that there was a chance of life, of salvation, adrenaline and desperation coursed through Alexia’s body once more.
I want to live!
Only her face was above the waterline now. Instinctively she tried to wave her arms for help, but they were cuffed and weighted beneath the waves. She began to cry.
“I’m here!” she shouted futilely at the sky. “I’m here! Please, help me!”
The helicopter hovered directly above for a few seconds, so close and yet so tantalizingly out of reach. Alexia strained her eyes against the brightness, searching for a ladder or a rope. Instead, without warning, the chopper turned and sped off into the blue.
“NO!” Alexia screamed. There was no mistaking her terror now. “No, please! Don’t leave me!”
From her ledge-top vantage point, Lucy Meyer smiled.
This is for you, Nicko, my darling.
Soon they would be together again.
Summer dug her fingernails into the crumbling rock as she descended the path.
They’re here. They have to be here.
The way down to the cove was steeper than she remembered it, and the tides were so high she couldn’t see any beach at all from the top of the cliff. But the water bottle had confirmed it. This deep into the moor, there was only one place her mother could be going.
Then suddenly, like two figures in a dream, there they were. Rounding the bend where the path doubled back on itself, Summer saw her mother, crouching on a ledge above a sliver of sandy shore. She wouldn’t have seen Alexia at all had she not followed Lucy’s gaze to a point about twenty feet in front of her. Out in the water, a lone human head bobbed like a buoy.
“Mom!”
Lucy spun around. “Get out of here!” she screamed at Summer. How on earth did she find us so quickly? “Get back up the cliff. It’s too dangerous.”
“Not without you.”
“I said go back!” Lucy raised her gun.
Summer’s eyes widened with shock. She wouldn’t shoot, would she? Not her own daughter.
“Go back!” Lucy shouted again.
Summer hesitated. As she did so, the sandy rock crumbled beneath her.
Arnie Meyer was the first out of the helicopter.
Ripping off his headphones, ignoring the shouts of the two policemen, he ran out onto the moor, half stooping, perilously close to the still-whirring propeller blades.
“Stop, you idiot!” the surveillance officer yelled after him. But Arnie kept running, blindly, toward the edge of the cliff.
He heard a woman’s scream, then another.
Dear God! Don’t let me be too late.
