Chapter Thirty-four – Cassandra
Chapter Thirty-four
Maisey
CASSANDRA
Performed by Taylor Swift
SIX MONTHS AGO
HIM: Movie?
HER: Not today. I’m finishing a series.
HIM: Which one?
HER: It’s romance. You wouldn’t be interested.
HIM: We’re too big for the treehouse, but maybe we should reinstate reading time.
HER: You could join the book club Fallon, Andie, and I started up.
HIM: You’re missing the point, my Maisey-girl. It’s you I want to spend time with.
PRESENT DAY
I laughed as Andie and Francois teased each other, all the while drooling over the Watery Reflection band members. The men may have been old enough to be our parents, but they were still attractive. Still had that enticing rock star energy.
Beckett had that same dynamism that drew people to him like wildlife to the river. If he’d ever had any interest in music, it would have served him well. It was perhaps the one and only way he’d ever been like my sister.
Chelsea had the same vibrant pull.
My soul ripped a bit more, thinking of my sister.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was seeing the worst in her instead of the best.
But I hadn’t received a single text from her today, when I’d expected something.
Even though I’d told her to lose my number, if she’d heard the false rumor about Dad having passed away, she would have called, right?
Maybe it simply meant she hadn’t heard? But then again, she’d heard about my engagement to Beckett before I’d even been able to tell Dad.
The tension that had been released momentarily as I’d spent an afternoon twined in Beckett’s arms returned, hammering into me until my shoulders felt like bricks were stacked on top of them. I desperately wanted to hear from the sheriff. To finally know where things stood.
My phone vibrated, and I swiped, hoping it was Wylee, only to see that, somehow, I’d missed a call from the county hospital.
My stomach fell…until I read the translated text of the voicemail. Dad was awake! He was awake and asking about me. He wanted to know if I was okay and if they’d caught whoever had done this to him.
Thank God… Thank God… He’d pulled through.
I wasn’t going to lose him too. Not now. Tears of relief washed over me.
I needed to leave. I needed to go see him.
My phone vibrated again, this time with a text. And when I read it, confusion bled into the relief and joy I’d felt over the news about Dad.
BECKETT: Wylee needs us up at the barn. Come right away.
I searched the dark, scanning the area by the fire truck where I’d last seen Beckett with his crew. While I couldn’t see any of his team clearly, I did catch the reflective stripes on the jacket of at least one firefighter as he strode down toward the lake.
Would Beckett really leave his crew to go to the barn?
As soon as I thought it, I knew the answer was yes.
If he thought I needed him, he’d go, no hesitation, no questions asked.
But would he leave me to do it? Again…yes.
He’d leave me with Cleaver if he thought he could end this for me.
He’d do anything to make sure I was safe.
I stood, and Andie glanced up at me, brows drawing together. I wasn’t sure how much she’d heard from Fallon and Parker about what was going on, but after what had happened with my dad the day before on the ranch, she knew enough to be worried. “Where are you going?”
“The sheriff needs to talk to me. I’ll be back.”
She studied me anxiously as I made my way down the grandstands with Vader on my heels.
I expected to find Josh, expected to find him waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me, but the spot where he’d been was empty. I scanned the area, pulse rate picking up. I didn’t understand… He’d promised Beckett he’d be at my side all night. So where was he? Why would he leave?
That creepy feeling I’d had off and on since finding the very first note, crawled up my back and over my neck like a ghost walking on my grave.
ME: I can’t find Josh. Should I come alone?
BECKETT: Cleaver is handling something for the sheriff. You’re safe. It’s almost over, but Wylee needs us to hear this for ourselves.
I should have felt relief. Should have felt glad that it was nearly over.
But if it was, it also meant a permanent tear in my family.
What was I going to tell Dad when I saw him?
That his daughter had tried to kill him?
That she’d cared more about whatever she might inherit from him than his actual life?
I clenched my jaw, trying to hold back the tears.
Vader and I made our way to the dozen golf carts and the group of teens hired to drive them throughout the day. I was thankful when I saw Chuck with them, because he knew me well enough to let me take one on my own.
“Hey, I need to zip up to the barn. Is it okay if I take a golf cart?”
Chuck scratched his head and looked out at the dock where the fireworks would be going off any second. “We’ll just need it back after the show to shuttle everyone to the parking lots.”
BECKETT: Do I need to come get you? Or can you handle getting here by yourself?
Unease sifted through me again. Nerves rattling like chains on cement.
Something was wrong.
What if this message wasn’t really from Beckett? Worse, what if they’d somehow grabbed him like they’d grabbed Dad? What if, even right now, he was waiting for a dose of naloxone to save his life?
I pressed a hand to my stomach, doubts and indecision warring with my first instinct to race to the barn to find him.
To help him. I could be walking into a trap.
But if Beckett was at the barn, lying on the ground, drugged…
I had to go. There was a med kit at the hotel.
I could save Beckett’s life and call for help.
Saving him was all that mattered.
Saving him but also making sure we had help on the way.
I put a hand on Chuck’s arm. “Can you do me a favor? Find one of Wylee’s deputies and tell them to meet me at the barn.”
Chuck’s eyebrows lifted. “You okay? You need me to come with you?”
“No.” I shook my head violently. “What I need you to do is find an officer to come to the barn.”
He took off at a dead run, and I slid into the driver’s seat of the nearest golf cart, hands trembling as I turned the key while Vader leaped up next to me.
The cart’s headlights barely made a dent in the dark as I headed back up the hill to the main buildings.
A partial moon shone over the fields and trees, turning the landscape into a weird panorama of shadows and light.
The hot day hadn’t quite rid the earth of the damp from the storm, and the air smelled of both.
As I pulled the golf cart into a slot by the barn, the quiet of the hotel and outbuildings felt eerie. Almost like it had felt when I’d approached the watchtower yesterday. Like a horror movie on repeat—one nearing the climax. A shiver went up my spine in the silence.
The fancy lanterns on the outside of the barn made triangular, yellow shapes on the ground, broken by the shadows Vader and I cast as we approached.
Only one of the large barn doors was open, and I hesitated at the entrance. My instincts were screaming at me to run, but my head and heart weren’t listening.
Beckett was here, and he might need me.
But Vader hadn’t gone running inside to greet Beckett like he would have if he’d smelled him.
Instead, the dog was pressed up against my leg, and the fur at the scruff of his neck was raised.
My entire body trembled as I called Beckett’s name.
I got nothing in return but the quiet greetings of the horses.
Soft nickers and snorts. Sounds that should have been reassuring but weren’t.
I looked down the road toward the lake and up the other way to the castle. Should I wait for whoever Chuck grabbed? My nerves tightened more, fear traveling along them. I’d promised Beckett I’d stay at the grandstands. That I wouldn’t go anywhere alone, and yet here I was…alone.
Stupid, Maisey. You’re so stupid. The hissed taunt from my past almost felt real.
A noise hit me. A quiet groan followed by the rustle of movement in the hay.
Beckett!
My feet flew toward the sound.
Behind me, Vader yelped in pain, and I whirled around to see him lying on his side in a stall just as a blond-haired woman I didn’t recognize slammed the door shut. Fury bled through me. At him being hurt. At this person, who I didn’t know, coming after me and my loved ones.
“Don’t you dare hurt him!” I raged, stepping toward her.
The scraping of shoes behind me screamed a warning, but I had no time to react. Strong hands grabbed my arms, twisting them backward. The brutal force shot pain through my shoulders, and I cried out just as a firework exploded.
The horses whinnied nervously, pawing at the ground uneasily.
“Stupid choices, Cornlette.” My sister’s voice came from a face I didn’t recognize.
The woman reached up and pulled a silicone mask, hair and all, from her head, revealing the person I’d grown up thinking was beautiful.
Chelsea dropped the mask at her feet and pulled pins from her hair before brushing it out with steady hands.
“You’ve made a series of stupid choices in the last two weeks.” My sister’s voice was cold. Detached. “Why in the hell did you decide this was the time to leave your saintly obedience behind? Why didn’t you just do what you were told and leave?”
It was hopeless to talk to Chelsea when she was like this. For twenty-six years, she’d always walked away the winner of our arguments. But perhaps I could talk some sense into Gavin.
I twisted, desperate to catch his eye, but pain lanced through my shoulders at the movement. My captor yanked my already strained joints higher just as a familiar, overpowering cologne hit me.
By the time I caught sight of him, the shocked acknowledgment was already ripping from me, “You!”
“Hello, metal breath.” Carter’s sneer matched the feverish mania gleaming in his eyes.