Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
“ E asy,” Dylan warned as Nate helped Abe up the stairs.
“Yes, Mom,” Nate teased as he shifted to take a little more of Abe’s weight.
“I could have done this myself,” Abe complained while Nate practically carried him through the front door.
“No, you couldn’t. You’re not allowed to put any weight on that leg until you see the doctor in two weeks,” she warned. “And it is my mission to keep you off your feet.”
“Sounds like heaven,” Nate joked. He nudged Abe, practically sending him falling just inside the door. “Sorry,” he mumbled. He caught Abe and helped him over to the sofa.
“I’ll go check on Stormy and Blaze.” Nate quickly disappeared.
Once Nate was out the door, Dylan knelt beside the couch, adjusting the pillows behind Abe and tucking a blanket over his lap. The cozy place was quiet again, the kind of quiet she hadn’t experienced in days.
Abe leaned his head back against the cushion and sighed. “I missed this couch.”
She smiled and brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “You missed the view. Admit it.”
His lips curved. “Depends. Do you mean the one outside or the one currently bossing me around?”
She stood with a small laugh. “Flattery won’t get you pie.”
He groaned dramatically. “There’s pie?”
“There will be. After lunch. A bunch of townspeople showed up and dropped off food for you.”
“For us, you mean. You went off that cliff too, and you’re staying here to watch over me.”
“Rest.” She leaned over and kissed him. “You look worn out.”
While he rested on the sofa watching television, she headed into the kitchen to heat up some of the meals that had been dropped off for them. The freezer was full of things, all labeled with their ingredients and instructions for heating them up.
A while later, the kitchen smelled of rosemary and roasted garlic. Every so often she glanced at Abe, who was flipping through the TV with the sound low, his crutches leaning against the arm of the couch, his leg propped up on two pillows.
Even though it had only been a week since the accident, it felt like a lifetime. The screech of metal, the gut-lurching drop, the rocks slamming against the car as they tumbled towards the beach—all of it still haunted her dreams.
She plated their lunch and brought it to the coffee table, handing Abe his before curling up beside him with her own. “No complaints about not having to cook for a while,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m on painkillers. You could’ve handed me cardboard, and I’d be grateful,” he murmured, eyeing the pasta hungrily.
They ate in silence for a while, the familiar comfort wrapping around them like a blanket. Outside, the sky had started to darken, thick clouds rolling in from the west, bruising the horizon.
Once he was done eating, she took their plates into the kitchen and washed them. Then she brought out the cherry pie and ice cream.
While they ate their sweets, he turned the station to one of the late night shows and they laughed together at the jokes.
By the time the show was over, he was fast asleep on the sofa.
She retrieved her new laptop from their shared room and took it back out to the living room. She sat across from him and worked until she too drifted off for a quick nap.
She was still bruised in places, but most of her small cuts had healed already. Her knee was still sore where it hit the car door, but other than that, she was thankfully almost back to normal.
Later that evening, just as she was heating them up some dinner, the storm arrived.
Thunder cracked over the water, and the windows shook in their frames.
Dylan stood at the back door, watching lightning streak across the sky as rain pelted the roof.
The horses were secured in the barn, and Nate had texted earlier saying that he’d gone home to change and would be back first thing in the morning to check on them again.
She turned to find Abe half-asleep again on the couch, his leg propped up and the blanket tucked snugly around him. She reached for a candle and lit it, just in case the power blinked out.
Lightning flashed and less than a second later, a boom of thunder made her flinch as it rattled the dishes in the cupboards.
“Okay,” she whispered, as the lights flickered once and went dark. The light from the television went out, sending the entire house into darkness.
Now, the only light was the candle she held in her shaky hands.
“No ghosts. No murderers. Just a storm,” she told herself softly.
She double-checked the front door, then moved to the kitchen to check the back door. That’s when she heard it.
The sound of a floorboard creaking somewhere from inside the large house.
She froze.
The breath she’d just taken was frozen in her lungs.
It hadn’t come from the kitchen or the TV, since it was still off, along with everything else in the massive house.
Seconds ticked by and she heard the generator kick on outside for the lighthouse. The bright light swung around outside the windows, temporarily lighting portions of the rooms.
Shadows played over spaces, making everything ominous.
Had the noise come from somewhere deeper in the house. Had it been her imagination?
Her heartbeat thundered louder than the storm as she reached slowly into the drawer, closing her hand around the handle of the heavy flashlight that she had seen in there when she was looking for a can opener.
It wasn’t her gun, which was tucked in her purse back in the room she would be sharing with Abe, along with her cell phone. In a pinch, the heavy flashlight would have to do.
She heard another floor board creaking and glanced to where Abe was still fast asleep. She knew that his pain meds would keep him out for hours at a time. Since he’d taken them shortly after lunch, he would be out for at least another hour.
She doubted there was time to creep down the hallway and get her gun or her cell phone. His phone had been lost in the accident and they hadn’t replaced it yet.
Fear had her heading towards the living room, where Abe was.
Another sound. This one louder. A creak of wood. A deliberate step.
Someone really was inside the house.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the hallway.
For a second, just a second, she thought she saw an outline of a person, but no, it couldn’t be. A man in a sailor’s outfit. The shadows were playing tricks on her.
Then another flash and she saw a different shadow retreating around the corner near the bedrooms.
She turned off the flashlight, relying on the storm’s intermittent flashes and the lighthouse’s bright light to guide her.
The air felt electric. Charged.
She crept forward, heart pounding in her throat. She purposely put herself between the sounds and Abe, willing to risk everything to protect the man she loved. Behind her, Abe stirred.
“Dylan?” His voice was groggy.
She turned just enough to whisper, “Stay there. Someone’s here.”
That sobered him instantly.
She heard the rustle of the blanket, the soft thump as he reached for his crutches, but she shook her head fiercely. “Don’t move,” she hissed.
There was a crash from the back of the house as something fell or was knocked over. Then silence.
Pure, aching silence.
Dylan’s skin prickled. She took another step towards the hallway, flashlight raised.
And then nothing.
No one appeared. No more sounds came.
The storm raged louder, rattling the glass, as Dylan slowly took a step closer.
She felt Abe half standing, half leaning on the chair next to her.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
“Yeah.” She nodded just as the shadow appeared in the doorway.
“You should have left it alone,” a voice said. “No one cared what happened to that slut all those years ago.”
Abe gasped as Reba Lyle stepped out of the shadows, dressed in all black, holding Dylan’s gun in gloved hands.
“Reba?” Abe’s voice was shallow, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“I never meant for you to get hurt,” Reba said to him. “Just her.” She motioned and pointed the gun at Dylan. “She was the one poking around. The one who was going to expose everything.”
Suddenly, everything fell into place for Dylan. All those loose pieces suddenly clicked. Every unanswered question made sense.
“James was having an affair with Kara, your best friend. He was the one driving that night. The night Kara died,” she said, certain.
Reba’s eyes shifted between them.
“I… I knew for a while about them. He kept promising he was going to stop seeing her. That after your record went big, he’d make you break things off with her and we would never have to see that slut again.” She swayed slightly.
Was the woman drunk again? Was that the reason she drank? Guilt? Remorse? Fear of being discovered?
“When James came home that night, he was covered in blood. He told me about the accident. Confessed that he’d been drinking. So I went there, to the accident, hoping…” She shook her head. “But Kara was awake. Trapped in the wreckage. She was begging me to help her.”
“She was alive?” Abe gasped and leaned more on the chair.
“What did you do?” Dylan asked, trying to think of possible ways to escape what was going to happen next.
“I warned her to stay away from my husband, but she was determined. She told me that he was leaving me. She laughed about how they had just made love and that they had been heading back to the townhouse to tell me and you that they were in love and going to run off together,” Reba said, her voice rising slightly.
“We were trying to start our family.” She screamed the last.
“What did you do?” Dylan asked again, knowing she needed to stall long enough to come up with a plan. So far, all she could think of was to throw the flashlight at the woman’s head and run, but that would leave Abe to fend for himself, something she would never do.
“I picked up a rock and hit her until she stopped screaming. It wasn’t hard. She was trapped in the wreckage. Her legs were pinned and one of her feet was at an angle. She probably would have bled out sooner or later.” She smiled. “The bitch deserved it.”
“You? You ran us off the road and pushed us over the cliff?” Abe asked.
Reba’s eyes moved to him. She opened her mouth to answer and that is when Dylan saw her opening.
Instead of throwing the flashlight at the woman, she threw her entire body. They hit the wall, bounced off it, and then she flipped the smaller woman over like a rag doll.
The gun flew out of her hands, landing somewhere in the darkness as she used all the years of training to hold down the smaller woman, pinning her to the floor.
“Can you get my phone?” she asked Abe, holding onto Reba as she tried to fight her. Honestly, she was no match for Dylan’s skill. “It’s in my purse in our bedroom. Crawl if you have to.”
“I think I can. Are you okay?” he asked as he hobbled by them.
Reba was crying and screaming nonsense as Dylan gripped her arms hard behind her back, pushing her knee between the woman’s shoulder blades.
“Yeah, she’s a lightweight,” she said, not willing to take her eyes off Reba. “Call 911 or Aiden. His number is programmed in my phone,” she called out as she heard Abe make his way slowly down the hallway.
“You fucked up,” she whispered into Reba’s ear.
“You’ll ruin everything,” she screamed. “James will lose everything. It will destroy Abe. All because of that slut!”
“No.” She smiled and jerked her arms a little harder.
“You just cleared Abe’s name. The only one who is ruined is you.
” She smiled. “You killed your best friend out of jealousy. You’ve destroyed your husband’s career, exposing his lies.
He covered for you for all these years. He’ll pay. Just like you will.”
Reba bucked and tried to break free. Dylan sat on her, using all her weight.
“You bitch! You’ve ruined everything. Do you really think someone like Abe could ever love you?” Reba hissed.
At that moment, Abe came back into the room, talking on the phone with Aiden.
Dylan smiled and locked eyes with him.
“Yes. Yes, I do believe someone like Abe could love someone like me.”
Abe smiled and, suddenly, nothing else in the world mattered.