Chapter 46
FORTY-SIX
Amanda stood back, watching the scene unfold.
Trent had gone to notify the Mannings about what they found.
When he reported back, he said the couple would have dropped to the floor if they hadn’t been sitting.
They told Trent they were going to sell the farm and retire somewhere farther north but with lots of people around.
Amanda couldn’t blame them for wanting to make the shift after everything that had taken place here.
The fire department arrived and became heroes the moment they lifted the teen out of the well. Then again, when Valerie was up.
They were both dirty and shivering. Despite the warm summer above ground, they had been about thirty feet down.
It would have been freezing there. One mercy was the well had dried up many years ago.
Another miracle was they hadn’t succumbed to hypothermia or died of starvation or dehydration.
It was especially noteworthy neither of them had any broken bones.
Were they lowered into the well? Hernandez would have only one reason to do that. To prolong their suffering.
Paramedics tended to them, and as much as Amanda would like to let them be, she and Trent also had another job to do. They’d saved them, but now it was time to put the person away who did this to them.
She led the way over to the ambulances, which were parked side by side. The paramedic with Valerie held up a hand and shook her head.
“We won’t be long, but we need to speak with them,” Amanda told her.
“Just keep out of the way and be fast. They both need to get to the hospital.” The paramedic laid a blanket over Valerie, around the same time as the one working on Brooke did the same. Soon after, they were hooking up an IV line on each of them.
The teenager screamed out, “They killed my dad right in front us and my aunt… my aunt…”
Amanda walked over to the girl and squeezed her hand.
She said nothing, just held the space for her.
The girl calmed some under her touch and looked in Amanda’s eyes.
That’s when Amanda spoke. “I am so sorry you had to go through that. No one should ever have to witness such a horrible thing.” Her own heart was breaking since she knew she had a daughter at home who had lived through a similar nightmare.
For Zoe, though, it wasn’t just her father, but her mother too.
“You need to get the people who did this to us.”
“Brooke,” her mother cautioned from the wheeled gurney next to her daughter.
“What, Mom? They deserve to pay.”
“Brooke.” Valerie’s tone was sharp and firm.
“Mrs. Archer, your daughter is right. Your testimony can put the people away who did this to you,” Amanda said.
“I don’t care. I’m not going to—” Valerie sobbed.
Amanda sensed the memory of witnessing Abigail’s tongue being cut out was fresh in the woman’s mind. It would be for a long time. Same too for watching her husband being stabbed multiple times. “I understand that you’re afraid of these people, but you can help us put them away.”
Valerie shook her head. “We want no part of it. We just want to forget.” Her bottom lip quivered.
“Mom,” the girl spat.
“No. And that’s the last of it.”
“That’s all. We’re leaving now,” the earlier paramedic said and placed an oxygen mask on Valerie. As if taking cues from them, the other medic put one on Brooke.
Amanda stepped back and watched while they loaded the Archers into ambulances. She couldn’t just let them go without saying something else to the mother. She hopped into the back just before the paramedic closed the door. “We found Paul’s body, Abigail’s too.”
The woman removed her mask. “They did kill her?” The woman spoke as if in a daze.
“They did. They shot her in the field behind the house where they were holding you,” Amanda told her.
Fresh tears fell down the woman’s cheeks.
“Help us put these people away,” Amanda petitioned in a gentle voice.
Valerie shook her head. “They’ll come for us.”
Amanda wasn’t about to lie to the woman. Prison didn’t stop criminals like Hernandez; it just slowed them down. There were always people on the inside susceptible to bribes. “You would need to go into witness protection.”
“Ma’am, you need to put your oxygen mask back on,” the paramedic urged Valerie.
“Look what that did for Abigail. She gave up everything, and for what?” Valerie replaced her mask.
“Detective, we need to go,” the paramedic told her.
Amanda heard the wheels of the other ambulance crunching on the gravel as it pulled away.
“Is there any way you will reconsider testifying?” Amanda asked.
Silence and more tears.
“Out of the rig now,” the paramedic barked.
Amanda got out, keeping her eyes locked with Valerie the entire time. Trent touched Amanda’s shoulder.
“We’ll get Hernandez without them if we have to,” he told her.
She wanted to lap up his confidence. “I hope you’re right about that.”
“But you can’t blame her for not wanting to talk.”
She looked at Trent. “She’s afraid right now, and I get that. Who knows all that they suffered. I just hope they decide to talk because unless forensic findings come through that put Hernandez and Nina concretely in the frame, he will walk.”
Nothing more passed between her and Trent as the fire department gathered its equipment and headed out.
Amanda was standing there with Trent, feeling like she’d been knocked out and this was the final round.
The seconds were ticking. It was either time to surrender or get up and fight.
And hell, she had more fight left in her.