Night Stalker Page 17

  There wasn’t time to comfort her, to try to grab the gun or to flee.

  Liam was coming at Charlotte, the gun raised, his gaze hot with anger.

  “I will kill you for that,” he muttered, his hand suddenly on her throat, the gun pressed into her temple.

  She didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. Her oxygen was cut off, her trachea crushed beneath the pressure of his hand.

  She gagged, falling into a shelf, grabbing for a weapon. Her fingers curved around a box of crackers and she slammed it into his eye.

  His hand dropped away, and she gasped for breath, shoving at him, trying to get to the ladder.

  She managed to take a step, and then he was on her again, slamming the butt of the gun into her temple, the sound of Anna’s screams still ringing in her ears as she fell.

  She didn’t feel the pain.

  She didn’t feel anything but the desperate need to escape. He grabbed her hair, lifted her head.

  And she saw it.

  The gun.

  Just inches away.

  She grabbed for it, her fingers brushing metal.

  “I don’t think so,” he spat, his eyes blazing as he grabbed her arm, yanked it away.

  She twisted, thrusting her palm into his jaw, Anna’s screams mixing with something that sounded like a dog barking.

  Clover?

  She didn’t have time to think about that, to wonder if her dog was on the other side of the closed panel trying to get to her.

  Liam had fallen back, the blow to his chin throwing him off balance.

  She wiggled out from under him, running to the folding stairs and clamoring up, cold air sweeping across her hot cheeks as she scrambled onto the roof.

  Someone snagged the back of her coat, and she screamed, arms swinging, fists flying, the sun streaming down from the clear blue sky as she landed one blow and then another.

  Desperate.

  Frantic.

  Terrified.

  Determined to escape.

  Please, God, she prayed, swinging her fists again and again.

  Please.

  Because she wanted more time to find that thing she’d been missing since Daniel died and Adam walked away. More time to let the empty places in her heart be filled, to let the broken pieces mend and to find out if what she’d felt when Adam had kissed her was real and lasting and true.

  * * *

  “Calm down,” Adam shouted, grabbing Charlotte’s wrists and trying to keep her from landing another blow as he pulled her away from the ladder and the monster who was ascending it.

  She couldn’t hear him.

  She was blind and deaf with panic and terror.

  “Charlotte,” he said more gently, pulling her close, wrapping his arms around her and holding her there.

  “Calm down,” he repeated, and she stilled, her body stiff, her muscles tense.

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, pressing her head to his chest because he didn’t want her to see what he could—Liam emerging from the opening in the roof, his hair gleaming in the sunlight, blood streaming down the side of his face.

  A gun in his hand, pointed at Charlotte and Adam.

  “Here’s how it’s going to be,” Liam said as if he really thought he were going to call the shots. “I’m going down the fire escape. You’re staying here. As long as that happens. No one is going to get hurt.”

  “I have a better idea,” Adam responded, releasing Charlotte and taking a step toward Liam. “You put the gun down, I arrest you and you make your case in front of a judge and jury.”

  Liam laughed. “I think I’ll pass on that.”

  “We have a warrant to search your cabin,” Adam said. Not because it mattered, but because he could see Sam, moving across the roof behind Liam. Another minute and he’d be close enough to bring him down without firing a shot.

  “So?”

  “Want to give me an idea of what we’ll find there?”

  “I think you already know. If you don’t, it’ll be a pleasant surprise.” He smiled, his eyes empty and flat.

  “You killed nine women, Liam. There’s nothing pleasant about that.”

  “Ten,” Liam corrected, shifting the gun so that it was pointing straight at Charlotte’s heart. His finger tightened on the trigger, and Adam rammed his full weight into Charlotte, slamming her to the ground as the morning exploded.

  TWELVE

  One gunshot.

  Charlotte was expecting more.

  A hail of bullets, maybe.

  Shrapnel raining from the sky.

  A cacophony of noise and confusion.

  Instead, the world had gone deathly quiet.

  She lay still, trapped beneath Adam, his weight pressing her into hard cement.

  He shifted, his breath fanning her cheek as he raised his head and looked into her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, and she nodded.

  “Fine.”

  He frowned, touching the side of her throat. “You have bruises.”

  “Bruises heal,” she replied. “Where’s Liam?”

  “Dead,” he said bluntly, standing up and pulling her to her feet. He stood in front of her, and she knew he was trying to block her view, but she could see Liam’s body lying prone a few feet away. Blood seeped from beneath his torso, staining the white cement rooftop. She could smell the coppery scent of it in the air. No one lost that much blood and survived. The bullet must have hit an artery.

  She turned away, relieved, sad.

  Liam had taken nine innocent lives. He’d planned to take hers, but that didn’t mean she wanted him dead.

  “Did you kill him?” she asked, her eyes trained on the horizon—the bright blue sky and puffy white clouds that drifted there.

  “No,” he said gently, standing behind her, his hands cupping her shoulders, his fingers resting just above her collarbones.

  “I’m glad. I’d hate for you to carry that burden with you.” She leaned back, letting herself accept his comfort and his support. Allowing him to see the vulnerability she’d always been afraid to show.

  “It wouldn’t have been a burden,” he said, his breath ruffling the hair near her temple. “As much as I’d hate taking a life, I wouldn’t regret doing what was necessary. Liam’s finger was on the trigger. He planned to kill you, and if I hadn’t been focused on getting you out of the line of fire, I’d have pulled my firearm and taken him out.”

  “I’m still glad you didn’t have to do it.”

  “Thanks.” His lips brushed her nape, the gentle kiss so sweet it took her breath away.

  Somewhere behind them, a woman was wailing, the sound mixing with the raucous call of a blackbird and the wild barking of a dog.

  “Clover,” she murmured, turning around, finding herself in Adam’s arms, his hands on her waist, holding her still.

  “He’s fine. River has him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Anna? She was helping Liam. Has someone—”

  “Listen,” he said quietly, his hands sliding up her arms, skimming along the column of her neck, his thumbs brushing her jaw.

  And suddenly she was looking into his eyes, staring into their depths, while the woman’s cries filled her ears.

  She didn’t move from Adam’s embrace.

  She didn’t want to.

  She levered up, looking over his shoulder.

  Anna was kneeling beside Liam, her face red and stained with tears. There was a gun on the ground beside her and one a few feet away. Sam was there, a hulking figure who looked more protective than sinister, his brow furrowed, a phone pressed to his ear.

  “Was it Anna?” Charlotte asked. “Did she shoot him?”

  “Yes,” Adam
responded.

  “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “Nothing. She did what was necessary to save someone else’s life. She’ll be taken in for questioning, but no charges will be filed.”

  “Poor thing. She’s never going to get over this.”

  “Human beings are resilient, Charlotte. She’ll get over it, and she’ll go on.”

  “Still, she killed the man she loved. That’s hard.”

  “Even if the man she loved was a monster?”

  She hesitated, wondering how she’d feel if she were in Anna’s place. “Probably.”

  “Don’t feel too sorry for her. She set you up, and if things had gone the way the Night Stalker planned, you’d be on your way to whatever death he chose for you.” He took her hand, leading her away from Liam’s body.

  “That’s true, but she had no idea what he was capable of. She believed his lies, and I can’t fault her for that.”

  “Can you fault her for agreeing to his plan to kidnap you as a distraction? I heard what she said to you. Even if she didn’t believe he was a killer, the fact that he was asking her to help abduct you should have been a red flag that sent her running.”

  “It should have been, but Anna wanted to be part of a couple. She wanted to feel cherished and adored and special. That’s what love does. It gives us validity. It makes us feel whole. Sometimes wanting it turns us into fools.”

  “And sometimes it turns us into the people we should be. Sometimes it helps us become our better, wiser, stronger selves. That’s what loving you did for me, Charlotte.”

  They’d reached an open door that led into the building, and he stopped at the threshold, his dark gray eyes filled with everything Charlotte had been longing for—love, acceptance, forgiveness.

  She wanted to reach for all those things and for him.

  She wanted to pull him close and hold on tight, because she knew what it was like to go without. She knew the emptiness, the grief, the regret that came with being too afraid to believe that love could last.

  “It’s what it still does,” he continued. “I have never stopped loving you. I never will. I should have said that a long time ago. I should have let you know it in a million different ways.”

  “You did,” she said, tears clogging her throat and spilling down her face.

  He wiped them away, his palms rough with calluses, his touch as gentle as the first summer rain.

  “Then I should have let you know in a million more,” he murmured against her lips.

  When he pulled back, she had no questions. No doubts.

  This was where she belonged.

  He was where she belonged.

  “Honor and River are waiting in the lobby. They’re going to bring you back to the cottage. One of them will take your statement when you get there. The state police might want to do the same,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers warm against her cold skin.

  “Where will you be?” she asked.

  “I have some things to tie up here. Then I’ll come home to you,” he said, taking her hand and walking into the building, leading her away from the Night Stalker, away from the fear, away from the silences that she’d spent so many years dwelling in.

  “You are my home,” she replied, speaking the truth into the quiet stairwell, watching his face as it registered.

  “You’re mine, too, Charlotte,” he said.

  And every dream, every hope, that she’d thought had died sprang to life again.

  THIRTEEN

  The rhythmic pounding of a hammer on wood drifted through the evening quiet, mixing with the sound of birds chirping and squirrels bounding through the treetops.

  To Charlotte, it was a beautiful symphony, a wonderful reminder of the path God had put her on, of the future He’d planned for her.

  Even in the darkest hours, even when she’d felt abandoned and alone, He’d been there, guiding her steps, moving her to this time and this place where healing could finally begin.

  A truck engine roared to life, the soft whir of a cement mixer making her smile.

  Even with the construction going on at Bubbles’s house, the lake was peaceful, the warm spring air drifting across the water as Charlotte sat in the old swing and watched the waves lap against the shore.

  The kitchen window was open, and she could hear dishes clanging as Savannah cleaned up after dinner. In the month since Liam had died, life had settled into a new routine. One filled with people, activities and hope.

  Hope most of all.

  “Want some help?” Charlotte called to the teen, scratching Clover’s fuzzy head.

  “You’re asking now?” Savannah replied. “I’m nearly finished.”

  “Better late than never,” Bubbles intoned. She’d completely recovered from her near-drowning, and she’d taken up knitting. Something to keep her hands occupied until she could return to her own home.

  Her new home.

  The old Victorian had been demolished.

  Picking through the ashes of what remained had been difficult, but Bubbles had weathered that like she did everything. With grace, aplomb and faith. She’d planned to move to the Pine Valley Residential and Memory Care Center until her new house was built, but Charlotte had plenty of room in the cottage.

  And plenty of room in her heart.

  For Bubbles.

  For Savannah.

  For Adam.

  He’d been true to his word.

  He’d returned home to her, staying in the cottage with the team while the investigation into the Night Stalker was completed. Once the case was closed, he’d rented an apartment in Whisper Lake. He stayed there on the weekends and in Boston during the week. Charlotte had told him it was too much, that the commute was too hard, but he’d continued to make it.

  He’d been back in her life for six weeks, and it felt like they’d never been apart. When he was in town, they spent every minute they could together. When he was away, she yearned to have him back.

  “You’re smiling,” Bubbles said, looking up from the mustard-yellow knitting project she was working on.

  “I’m happy.”

  “Of course you are, dear. Adam is back. Just like I knew he would be, and the two of you can start again, building the life you should have had all along.”

  “Maybe we’ll build something different than that,” Charlotte said. “Something even better.”

  “That, too, my dear,” Bubbles responded, holding up her project and frowning. “Does this look like a sweater to you?”

  It looked like a droopy misshapen map of Florida, but Charlotte didn’t have the heart to tell her that.

  “Well—”

  “No,” Savannah called from inside the house. “It does not.”

  “Savannah,” Charlotte chided. “Sometimes silence is the better part of valor.”

  “And sometimes it’s the same as a big fat lie.” The teen walked out the back door, wiping her hands on the frilly apron she’d tied around her waist. She looked softer than she had the day they’d met, her purple hair fading, the roots coming in a deep burnished red. She still wore her combat boots and ear studs, but she’d removed the eyebrow piercings and most of the attitude.

  Therapy was helping.

  So was getting accepted into the community college.

  Charlotte had encouraged her to do both.

  She’d made Savannah’s first appointment with the counselor, and she’d driven her to the community college for placement tests. She’d cheered her on as she’d applied for financial aid, gotten her college ID and her books for the two classes she was planning to take in the summer.

  She’d watched as Savannah began to relax, as she’d slowly begun to feel at home. The two-thousand dollars Wren had given her had offered Savannah hope that the future would be better than the
past had been. Charlotte had offered her the rest—a place to stay as long as she needed it, someone who believed in her. A voice of encouragement that would hopefully one day drown out the voices from the past.

  Savannah still hadn’t opened up about her life prior to running away, but she’d begun to plant herself firmly in the rich soil of acceptance that Charlotte and Bubbles were offering her.

  “In this case, I prefer honesty to a lie.” Bubbles studied her creation and sighed. “I’m starting to think I’m not all that good at knitting. Which is a shame. I was planning to make all of you sweaters for Christmas.”

  “You’re not bad at it,” Savannah said, sitting next to Bubbles and taking the knitting from her hands. “You just need to concentrate a little more. Watch me.”

  She started knitting, her stitches quick and tight and beautiful.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” Charlotte asked, and she shrugged.

  “I wasn’t always a runaway.” She glanced at the book Bubbles had taken the pattern from and continued the project, humming quietly as she worked.

  “You know, Bubbles,” she said, “if you really want to make sweaters as gifts, you might want to choose prettier colors.”

  “You don’t like the color? I think it’s lovely,” Bubbles exclaimed.

  “Lovely if you like mustard. I prefer butter yellow and golden sunsets and green-tinged moonlight on the lake. Maybe tomorrow we can go to town? I can take you to the knitting store and help you pick some really pretty stuff.”

  “Well, I guess I couldn’t turn my nose up to that,” Bubbles responded. “A date with my favorite girl will heal the pain of knowing that she despises my taste.”

  Savannah laughed, handing the knitting back to Bubbles. “I don’t despise it. Maybe I even like it. As a matter of fact, it’s possible I was just being rude because I wanted an excuse to spend more time with you.”

  “Sure. I’ll tell myself that as I cry myself to sleep tonight.” Bubbles set the knitting down. “We do need to go to town, though. I still need to pick up the flowers for...” Her voice trailed off, her face flushing.

  “Bubbles,” Savannah hissed. “That’s a surprise.”