Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
HERO
Ella
Sebastian’s loud wail pierced my stunned state, and I blinked at the body at my feet.
A body. Not a living person anymore. Nobody could’ve survived that.
In his attempt to catch me, Richard had fallen under Mrs Hinchcliffe’s wheels.
On the side, his skull was crushed, his body crumpled by the opposite wheel. It made a gruesome sight, and I clutched my nephew closer, blocking his eyes from the scene.
“Oh, Ella!” Hinchie keened from the driver’s seat. “I didn’t see him in time!”
I took two steps away from the mess that had been my uncle and spun around. At Hinchie’s door, I helped her out of the car. She shook, peering around me.
“Is he…? Did I…?”
“Hush now. Don’t look.” Pushing her lightly towards the rear of the car, I clamped down on rising nausea. Then I guided her into the house and paused on the steps, taking out my phone to call for help.
Richard was dead, his feet visible under the front of our housekeeper’s car. For years, I’d despised the man, wishing for something just like this to happen. I’d imagined it over and over: his bloodied remains, the sneer wiped from his evil face.
Well, I had my wish.
“You’re through to nine-nine-nine. Which service do you require?” came the voice in my ear.
“There’s been a terrible accident,” I uttered. But there hadn’t. It was just desserts.
And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving man.
“Tell me again.” I tried to impress my will on the paramedic.
Her face remained sympathetic but firm. She folded her arms. “Only a doctor can pronounce a person dead. I can only tell you what I’ve already said.”
“But he is dead, right?” I gestured at the ambulance where the second paramedic closed the doors. Richard’s body lay on a gurney.
“His injuries are not conducive with life. I’m sorry for your loss. Would you like to follow us to the hospital?”
Not conducive with life.
Good enough. I already knew it, but the confirmation was everything. I’d sat on Belvedere’s front steps and waited for this—for a professional to release me from the years of abuse at this man’s hands. My shock settled into a cool kind of realisation.
He’d never hurt us again.
Behind the ambulance, a police car drew to a halt, two officers exiting the vehicle.
“No, thanks. I need to talk to the police.”
“That’s fine. If you call later, we’ll be able to discuss the next steps.” The paramedic left, and I hurried back to where the police officers made a beeline for Mrs Hinchcliffe. She’d slipped past me and stood, staring at the ambulance, tears streaming down her face.
In my arms, Sebastian slept. Unaffected by the drama, or by our narrow escape.
I took a breath and greeted the two men, then began the story.
Nearly two hours later, thick clouds had me turning on the lights, despite it being the afternoon. The police were concluding their questions and readying to leave.
A car crunched on the gravel outside. I peered out of the window to see my brother exit a taxi. He was alone.
Where was Gordain? Where was Beth?
I skittered out of the room and into the hall.
“Did you see my messages?” I demanded. I’d sent him several, telling him what had happened.
“I just got them. I had to turn my phone off in the hospital and only turned it back on in the cab. The battery had gone, but the driver let me charge it. Beth’s staying overnight, but they think she’ll be fine.”
James threw out his arms, and I embraced him.
“Is he really dead?” he asked, his voice tight.
“He is.”
“Are you all okay?”
“Sebastian and I are fine. We should worry about Hinchie. She’s shaken by it.
She’s lying down with Sebastian in your rooms. Mr Hinchcliffe is on his way home.
The police breathalysed her and asked a hundred questions, but it seemed routine.
They are just about to go.” I cocked my head to one side.
“Why didn’t Gordain come back with you? Or did he?
” I craned my neck to look over my brother’s shoulder, but there was no movement in the dark afternoon outside the front.
My brother didn’t answer. When I brought my gaze back to him, he’d gone deadly still.
“Ella, Gordain took off not long after he delivered us to the hospital. He was coming here to see you.”
Cold spread through my veins, heading for my heart. “He didn’t show,” I almost whispered. “I’ve sent him messages, like I did you. He hasn’t answered.”
James’s face creased in worry. “He flew out into the storm…” He snapped his mouth closed.
“Oh God.” Gordain had been gone so long. That could only mean…
I was going to be sick.
“He would’ve let us know if he’d been diverted elsewhere,” I uttered, misery rising.
Snatching up my phone, I called his number. No answer came.
My boots slapped the marble floor as I raced back to find the police.
Last known position. He has a last known position.
In a flurry, I threw myself into my car.
A search party was being convened, but I knew this area.
Knew where air traffic control had tracked Gordain’s borrowed helicopter.
When we were kids, our parents would take us hiking all over the Peaks.
Last summer, before I’d returned to Castle McRae, I’d driven the remote lanes and traversed the valleys.
My brother swung open the passenger side door.
“Don’t ask me to stay. Or wait. I’m going,” I said.
“I wasn’t about to. I’m coming with you.”
I shot a look at him. The flashing lights of a fresh set of police cars reflected on his face, damp from the relentless rain. “Are you sure?” He must be exhausted.
“Gordain is my best friend. My brother now. Like I could stay home and rest with him missing. We can cover more ground together. Besides, I’d never let you go alone. Not ever again.”
Emotion swamped my throat. “We’ll find him,” I managed.
“Hit the gas,” James instructed.
“Here.”
At James’s exclamation, I braked, stopping the car on a barely there track in the middle of wild countryside.
My brother held an OS walking map, unfolded to a huge sheet.
“Northcote Ridge is the highest point closest to his last known location. If he had to bring the helicopter down fast,” he pressed his lips together, stifling emotion, then continued, “it’s more likely that he’d aim for higher ground.
Don’t you think? So it wouldn’t pick up so much speed. ”
Unless it fell from the sky.
Neither of us said it, but the thought couldn’t be avoided.
James cleared his throat and pointed at a ridge that dominated the skyline ahead. “Drive up the hill as high as you can. From there we’ll make sweeps.”
The light was dying. The storm had finally lifted, leaving a blustery cold and wet dusk. We had maybe forty minutes before I’d need to put on my headlights.
It would leave us blind to anything outside of the beam.
My eyes filled and overspilled once more, and I batted away the tears, pushing the car on to reach the ridge. Crying was no good. Crying meant I couldn’t see as well.
I’d cry when there was something to cry about.
“You know the last thing I said to him? I told him I’d bought Castle Braithar,” I said to James, not taking my attention off my scanning the moorland.
“I saw Lachlan McRae this morning and made him an offer. He accepted. I should have consulted Gordain, I really should have, but I so badly wanted to make him happy, and if for some reason it couldn’t work out, if maybe Lachlan had already sold the place, I didn’t want G to be hurt by raising his hopes. ”
James’s warm hand landed on my shoulder. “The two of you will be very happy there.”
I let the tears fall this time.
At Northcote Ridge, I drove to the highest point, and we jumped from the car, yelling Gordain’s name across the hillside. The wind whipped our voices away.
I strained to hear a response. Squinted to see the silver-and-blue helicopter.
Nothing.
James pointed to the edge of the ridge. “Let’s climb to the top. We’ll be able to see better from there.”
Silent, I jammed my hands into my armpits and marched behind him, my feet catching in divots on the uneven ground, my legs soaked from wet foliage.
We reached the top and stood on the stacks of smooth, rounded boulders.
“Gordain!” I screamed, twisting to scan the hill below.
The faintest of sounds filtered over the wind.
A voice? A trick of my desperate imagination?
The police had been way behind us, forming an official search party. It couldn’t be them.
“Did you hear something?” I asked James.
“I don’t know. I think so.” My brother sprinted across the plateau and clambered onto another stack. He hollered Gordain’s name once again.
I chased him, my heart hammering. My fear couldn’t let me believe we’d found him. I needed to see him. To hold him and to take him home.
The faint sound came again, carried by the wind, working in our favour now.
My brother’s face lost its muted anguish and formed of steely determination. “I can’t see anyone, but that’s definitely a shout. It’s coming from this way.”
He pointed west. In that direction, the sky still held the faintest glimmer of light.
“There’s no way we can get the car around this side of the hill.” I scanned the ground. Nothing beyond animal tracks, piles of loose rock, and thick undergrowth.
“Then when we find him, I’ll carry him.”
A sob broke from my lips, but I stifled it and nodded. James grabbed my hand, and together, we descended the rough terrain of the hillside.
Then my brother stopped abruptly.
“What?” I demanded.
He blinked then dove forwards, picking something up.
A blue painted piece of metal.
I touched it. Cold.
“Wreckage?”
James swallowed. “Part of the helicopter.”
He’d gone deathly white, and I suddenly realised why. A decade ago, James had been in the car crash that had killed our parents. He’d been badly injured. They’d been crushed to death. No, this was not happening again. Not with Gordain.
A sob broke from me. “He’ll be okay. He’s here somewhere. Keep going.”
James palmed my shoulder and shook me once in solidarity. Then my brother ducked his head, and we pressed on, sliding down the slope.
Night was almost upon us. The ridgeline behind us made for easy navigation to get back—so long as we could see it.
I led the way, screaming Gordain’s name.
We rounded a rocky outcrop. Across the ground, a long drag mark marred the hillside.
“Ella!” The answering shout—Gordain’s voice—nearly made me lose my footing.
It was him. He was alive. Oh God, oh God.
“G!” I screamed.
James and I ran, passing scattered pieces of debris.
“Gordain!” I screamed again.
“Here! Ella! Thank God you’re okay!” he called from the gloom. “I’ve been so worried.”
He’d been worried? About me? Oh my life. “Where are you?”
“Stuck. Follow my voice,” he called back, clear as day. The next thing he said was lost to the wind.
“Just keep talking. Say anything.” I strode on, my brother at my back.
“Take it steady,” James said to me, his voice tight. “Don’t twist an ankle. We’ve got him.”
“I’m so sorry,” Gordain yelled. “I love you. You’re my life. I acted like a jerk. I didn’t even tell you how glad I am that you bought Braithar. You’re fucking amazing, do you know that?”
A silver limned object appeared ahead, half-concealed by trees and undergrowth.
The helicopter.
“You didn’t thank her?” my brother called back. “Shame, brother.”
“James!” Gordain’s laugh resounded, so close, so vibrant. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice.”
We picked our way over the ground. Then a light shone ahead, illuminating Gordain sitting in the wreckage of his helicopter.
“G!” I dashed the tears from my cheeks and stumbled the rest of the distance.
When I reached him, he dropped the arm holding his phone and pulled me into a hug. He was damp and cold. But alive.
“Fuck, I thought I’d lost you.” He hissed as I crushed him to me.
“Are you injured?” I drew back and examined his face. Dark, sticky blood decorated one cheek, leaking from a gash at his temple.
“Broken leg’s the worst of it. I had dislocated my shoulder but I fixed it. Couple of scratches. Other than that, I’m good.” He gazed at me, a beautiful smile on his bashed-up face.
I laid a soft kiss on his lips, my pulse slowly coming down from the high-speed race I’d been in for hours. “You crashed. I can’t believe we found you.”
Gordain cupped my cheek and examined my features. “A freak accident. I was flying back to help you. Your uncle... Are you okay?”
“He crashes and asks after everyone else.” James appeared at my shoulder.
Gordain reached out and hauled my brother in for a hug. “Get me the fuck out of here, aye?”
James gave a short laugh. “I’ll retrace my steps and call for help. You sit tight with that broken leg.”
“Ha ha,” Gordain uttered, but stark relief held in his gaze.
My brother left us, and I carefully scrutinised my husband. He pulled me into a hug, grunting slightly, no doubt hurting.
“Richard’s dead.” I ran my fingers over his hair and gave him the short version of what had happened. I hadn’t processed any of it. In hours, my life had been turned upside down over and over.
“Autumn left with her nephew,” I said carefully. “She stood up for you at the RAF hearing. Why didn’t you tell me you’d miss it by helping me?”
“Because, my lass, none of it mattered compared with being with you and fixing the wrongs your uncle made. Your life is more important than mine to me. Ye ken?”
“Yours is more important to me,” I whispered back.
We held each other in the dark afternoon.
A distant chopping tore the air. A helicopter.
Rescue.
Gordain relaxed onto me, his breathing heavier. “You saved me. You’re my hero,” he said, his voice quieting, probably in exhaustion.
“You’re mine,” I replied. “Did you know that once, ages ago, when I was at university and missing you so badly it hurt, I Googled your name? It means hero.”
How apt.
Gordain chuckled again but didn’t reply.
After a short wait, action hit us. The helicopter lowered a man with a stretcher.
“You’re fucking kidding me.” Gordain threw back his head and laughed. “Jordie! I didn’t know you volunteered. For how long?”
“Long enough so I could save your arse. How’s the leg?” The rescuer beamed at Gordain then got to work checking him over.
“My buddy from the RAF,” Gordain explained to me. “Jordie, meet my wife. My Ella.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Jordie raised his eyebrows at me but didn’t slow in his task.
Gordain winced when his friend pressed his shoulder muscle then gave a strangled yell at his examination of his leg.
“I know you missed me,” he said through gritted teeth, “but you don’t have to beat me up to show it.”
With care, Jordie manoeuvred Gordain onto the stretcher and got him onto the helicopter. Then he fastened me into a harness, got me aboard, and we flew. James had returned to the car and, far below on the moor, headlights flooded the tracks, the search party guiding him home.
Finally, finally, I permitted my muscles to relax.
Gordain was alive.
We’d found each other.
I’d never let him go again.