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Stroking her cheeks with his fingertips, he stared into her eyes, his feelings for her were so powerful they were overwhelming. “You hang in there, okay? I'm going to get you help. Miller is at the cabin. Back up and an ambulance should be there by now. Paramedics will take care of you, get you to the hospital, and once you're safe I’ll find Andrew. I’ll do whatever I have to to make sure you stay safe, but you have to do your part, you have to keep fighting. I know you're tired. I know you want to sleep, to let go, but you can't. You can't, Aggie. You can't let go. I need you.”
“Not going anywhere,” she gasped the words on a whispered breath, but he clung to them.
“All right, let’s go get you some help.” He moved to pick her up.
The blow came out of nowhere.
Cracking through his skull.
Nick had a split second to realize he was about to pass out, and that neither he nor Aggie was likely to make it out of these woods alive before his world turned black.
* * * * *
12:23 A.M.
“I'm all the help my sister needs, but thanks anyway, Detective.” Andrew smirked at the unconscious cop.
Although he supposed he should really be thanking Aggie’s Detective Sleigh. He had been wandering the woods for what had to have been at least half an hour without success. He hadn’t thought that finding his seriously injured sister would be particularly hard. If he had, he would have gone after her first then gone back for Emily and his father.
He had expected Aggie to head for the road. So once he’d delivered fatal stab wounds to the others, he had set off to find her. However, he had not had any luck whatsoever. How far could she have gone? He honestly didn’t believe all that far. Perhaps he had been thinking about it too logically. Aggie was bleeding to death, blood loss would make her confused, she was probably walking around in circles. So he had started crisscrossing the woods, covering as much ground in as short amount of time as possible. He wanted to be there when she took her final breath. But he still hadn’t found any sign of her.
Finally deciding that there was a possibility Aggie wasn't even in the woods at all and had done what Emily did and hide instead of run, he was going to head back to the house and search around there when he heard her screams.
Following the sound, he’d quickly located his sister and her detective, arriving just as he was tying his shirt around her stomach in an attempt to stem the flow of blood while rambling at her about keeping her safe.
Well, the detective was wrong.
Aggie wasn't safe.
She didn’tdeserveto be safe.
Using a rock he’d found on the ground, he had hit Detective Sleigh over the head. The man had been too preoccupied with Aggie to notice him approaching, so knocking him out had been easy. Now the man lay at his feet, unmoving, his body partially on top of Aggie’s.
Summer Height had obviously caved and given up the address of the cabin where he had brought Aggie to ‘rest and clear her mind’. His sister was so gullible all he had needed to do was suggest the cabin and some quiet time and she had been on board.
Andrew wasn't sure whether the detective had come alone or with someone. Not that it really mattered if anyone else was out here he’d simply kill them too. But there was a chance that Detective Sleigh had already called in the troops. He must have been to the cabin. How else would he know to be out here looking for Aggie?
That didn’t mean the cops were on to him though. His father and Emily were dead, Aggie soon would be. The detective too. As far as he knew, everyone still believed that Sebastian was the killer, and that should gel with the scene at the cabin. When Sebastian found his daughter had stumbled upon what he was doing he killed her, along with his kidnap victim, but Aggie managed to fight back, stab him, and then flee.
Confident that the blow he had delivered had been sufficient to permanently incapacitate the detective, Andrew decided to leave him there and come back for him later. He couldn’t wait any longer to get to Aggie.
Shoving Detective Sleigh out of the way, he scooped up the gun and then his sister. He’d thought she was unconscious, but when he moved her, she groaned. Delighted, he sing-songed, “Wakey, wakey, little sister.”
“Nick?”
“Nope.”
“Andrew.” She winced and let out a small exhale of air. Her breathing was irregular, he would have to hurry, he didn’t think she had long left.
“Don’t go dying just yet.” He jostled her and was rewarded with another groan. “I have a few things I want to do to you before you die.”
Carrying Aggie quickly through the woods, he knew where he was heading and he wanted to get there quickly. There was only one fitting place to end this. She was the last one. Once Aggie was dead all his ties to this life would be gone. He could move on. Finally move forward.
He’d left his car hidden around the back of the property because he hadn’t wanted Aggie to know he was there while he retrieved Emily from the pool. Of course he hadn’t expected to find that his sister had gotten her out, or that their father had arrived. But he had dealt with all of that and now he would deal with Aggie. He paused to grab the rope ladder from his car then headed back to the pool. Emily was supposed to die in there, instead, his sister would take her place.
He considered tossing her down so he didn’t have to carry her, but he was concerned she wouldn’t survive the landing. And she wasn't going to die untilhedecided it was time. Lowering the ladder, he balanced Aggie in one arm and climbed down. Once at the bottom of the pool, he laid his sister down and stood over her.
“Aggie.” He slapped her cheek. Her eyes half-opened and looked groggily up at him. Or rather she looked groggilynearhim, her unfocused gaze stared straight through him. “We need to talk.”
