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Far in the distance—too far—she heard the faint, but shrill sound of sirens.
Hurry. Please hurry.
She took one step forward, then froze when a deep, raspy voice rumbled through the vast, nearly empty building.
“Well, look who’s here,” Lucas said, his voice almost a croak. “Mommy did come after all.”
How could this demon, this murderer be her nephew? Luke’s son? The boy she had watched grow from a baby in diapers to a tall, strapping man. Now, a monster.
“Where’s Harper?”
“You tell me.”
Oh, God, it was a game? “Look. I just came for my kid.”
“Right on cue.”
She heard a movement behind her and the hairs on the back of her arms raised. She spun, staring into the stygian umbra.
Nothing.
“This isn’t funny.”
“No one’s laughing, Auntie.”
He sounded almost disembodied, without any human emotion. Her stomach curdled. “Where’s Harper?” she said again. “And Xander?” As she asked, she moved, inching sideways, coming to the ladder to the upper level, the one she’d cowered behind years ago.
No response.
She thought she heard footsteps, light and fast, and she had to swallow back her fear.
“Lucas? What’s going on?” She had to keep him talking so that she could find out where he was hiding, where he was keeping Harper.
“Oh, come on, Auntie, you’re smarter than this. You know what you did. You killed my father, your own brother, right here, in this very building. Right? This is the spot, Auntie, where you literally got away with murder.”
“You’re right. I did. But Harper had nothing to do with it.”
The blood. Whose blood had she seen by the gate and leading into the cannery?
“Collateral damage.”
Her heart squeezed painfully.
“Like those other two bitches who thought they would get you off. Your friends.”
Oh. God. He was crowing about killing Violet and Annessa.
Where was he? Above, up the ladder, or farther back, past the chute where the fish guts had been flushed so many years ago? She closed her eyes, listening hard, her fingers clenched over the bolt cutters.
“And what about his best friend?” Lucas demanded.
She was sweating, trying to think, remembering the layout of this building all those years ago. Was he in deeper at the far end of the cannery where boats had tied up to unload their catches, where the water was the deepest?
Listen hard, Rachel. Try to pinpoint his voice.
“You know who I mean. Nate Moretti. What about that dick? Why didn’t he step up and save him if they were so tight? What kind of a friend doesn’t step in to save him?”
That didn’t make any sense. How could Nate, could anyone, have saved Luke?
