Chapter 17 #2
Jericho walked over to his father’s wooden desk, the one with the scrolled legs. He could almost see the old man sitting there, tapping out figures on his computer. Jericho traced his finger along the grooves in the weathered leather top.
“Give me wisdom to guide them, faith to release them, and time enough to see the men you’re shaping them to be.”
Maybe he owed his father the same apology he’d given Harley. I’m sorry I didn’t come home, Dad. I’m sorry I wasn’t the son you wanted me to be.
He closed his eyes. I miss you.
Then, softly, a voice inside . . . “The legacy I want isn’t just this resort—it’s you. You were made for this.”
He drew in his breath, the words from the fight before the crash, fresh. Brutal. And yet . . . maybe the fight hadn’t been about coming home . . . but rather his dad saying he knew him.
He loved him.
“Help them to trust you in all things, with their lives, their hearts, their futures.”
For a second, it was summer. Jericho was sitting on the shore, the fire flickering in a ring of stones, his father beside him. Funny, it didn’t seem like a memory, but it could have been.
And then his father looked at him, smiled. And weirdly, he heard his voice, almost as a tremor inside him. “You were made for this, son. Made to rescue. Made to save. That is the hero I raised.”
Maybe it wasn’t his father at all, but . . . He put his hand to his chest. Breathed in. Yes, the new heart was still there, the ache gone.
Yes. He was done running.
Jericho sat at his father’s desk, his hands on it. “God, if you want me to come home, to help helm this place, this legacy, I will.”
He waited for a voice, maybe, or even a sort of yes in his heart. But he didn’t get it.
Huh.
Maybe the legacy wasn’t about the resort but being the kind of man who carried on the Bowie name. In word and deed. Doing what he’d been designed for.
That, he could do. Would do. “Whatever you ask of me, I’m yours.”
A sort of peace fell through him. And there it was, suddenly, the conversation finished.
He got up, Harley’s words in his head, and headed up the stairs to the bedrooms. Four of them, his at the top of the stairs, facing the dome. He entered and discovered a queen bed, his old checkered blanket replaced by a thick comforter and fancy pillows.
But his light—the old tiffany lamp with the multicolored glass—still sat on the bedside table.
He looked down at the dome, to her window, and turned on his light.
Waited. Any minute now, her little flowered light would turn on. And weirdly, he was thirteen again, hoping she’d see it.
See him.
Darkness.
He waited longer, then turned off the light and back on again—although he didn’t know why.
Still nothing.
Strange, but maybe she was cooking.
He turned off the light, headed back down, through the house, then pulled on his boots and finally stood at the door.
Goodbye, Mom. Dad.
He took another look around, then let himself outside and closed the door.
The crunch of his feet in the snow died in the wind whipping off the lake. The temperature had dropped, so maybe another blizzard gathered in the mountains.
He followed his trail back through the woods, spotted the light beaming from her porch, beckoning.
Still no flowered light.
He drew closer and that’s when he noticed the light spilled out, not just from the lamp by the door but through the open door.
Did he forget to close it?
But his heart hiccupped and he took off running. Slammed up the steps.
“Harley?”
She wasn’t at the stove. No lights from the loft and . . . Where was Orlando?
So maybe she took him out for a walk. He’d forgotten to do that after they’d arrived—poor guy—so, yes, Harley to the rescue again.
Except, as he turned to take off his boots, he spotted something red, a liquid oozing from the kitchen floor—
Not blood. Soup. The saucepan lay upended on the floor as if—
As if it might have been used as a weapon? Flung at someone?
“Harley!”
He ran to the door, stood on the stoop. Shouted her name again.
Nothing but darkness.
And then, a whine. Something high-pitched, urgent—
Orlando?
He turned back to the house, listened again. It came from downstairs. He opened the basement door.
Orlando sat on the steps, big eyes on him. He bled from an open welt across his snout.
Jericho crouched, caught the dog’s head. “Buddy, what happened?”
Jericho stood up, his heart thundered, even as Orlando came out of the room, went to the kitchen slowly.
Started lapping up the soup.
Jericho returned to the door, stared out into the night, his heart a fist in his chest. Then he crouched again and called to Orlando.
The dog came over. Sat. Whined.
And then, his ears flicked up and he stood up, as if already knowing Jericho’s words.
“Find Harley.”
DON’T DIE. Don’t die!
Harley’s heartbeat screamed the words—not sure if they might be for her or for Jericho, because any minute the man would return to the house and find her gone.
A branch broke behind her, the heavy breaths of Mars Sorros breaking through the stiff night—or maybe it was just the wind casting through the trees like a hound on her tail.
Of course, she left without a jacket, running for her life through knee-deep snow in her stocking feet. But Harley barely felt the chill through her wool socks, her body on fire after the rush of seeing Mars standing in the hallway.
To think that she’d been on her way to that sappy, sweet, nostalgic moment when she turned on her bedroom lamp to remind Jericho he had someone waiting for him.
Yes, she should have waited for him. His apology—again—this time with a terrible tenor of regret, instead of just realization, had undone her.
So many mistakes, so many wounds.
But not anymore. Not with a brand-new heart to give him, a heart that loved him without the scars.
So, yes, she would turn on the light and keep it burning.
But then Mars had appeared.
He stood in the hallway, dressed in boots, canvas pants, a wool hat, and a grimy canvas jacket looking like he’d ascended from the bowels of the earth. Or, at least, the dark tangles of the bush.
And he’d held a gun.
All she could think in that terrible moment was that he must have come up from the basement. Maybe she’d forgotten to shut the garage—and the horror of a terrible whine from Orlando on the other side of the door said that the dog had gotten trapped down there.
Please let him not be seriously hurt.
She whirled around, diving for the knife block, but Mars had rushed forward, grabbed her arm.
So, she swept up the first weapon she found—the soup pot—and hit him with it. It seared his face, and he shouted, releasing her.
She dropped the pot, pushed him—he banged against the wall—and ran out the front door.
Into the frigid night, toward the Bowie house.
Except not toward the Bowie house because Jericho wasn’t armed, and in her worst nightmares, he and Mars faced off in round two . . . and Mars killed the man she loved right in front of her.
So she veered away from the Bowie house, running hard, the plan simple.
If she could make enough noise, she could lead him away.
Maybe hide.
And with Orlando locked in the basement, maybe he’d survive the night too.
So, into the darkness she ran.
Now, she kept her hands out, plunging through the snow, pushing away the tree branches, the moon slicing through the forest in patches of luminescence to light her path. She fought her ragged breathing, stopped against a tree.
“I’m going to find you, Tatum!” Mars’s voice bulleted through the trees.
No, no he wasn’t.
She crouched, breathing hard and spotted light flash against the trees.
Mars had brought his Maglite.
And here she was, wearing a red sweater, like neon. But she couldn’t take if off—not if she didn’t want to freeze to death. Already, her static position had turned her feet to ice cubes.
Sticking around much longer might turn them black.
She crept away from the light, deeper into the forest, hiding under an old-growth evergreen, its arms shaggy and broad.
Get back to the house. The thought pulsed. Get back to the house, lock them all inside, call for help.
Fight or flight. Well, running seemed like a superb option at the moment.
Already, she’d lured Mars away from the houses, maybe a tenth of a mile toward the ridge. It would box her in, but if she circled back toward the lake, she could trek back along the shoreline.
Felt like a good plan.
She got up, her footsteps soft in the snow. Oh, she hoped she could keep her toes. She liked her toes.
The moon barely broke through the webbing of the forest here, and she tried to douse her breath before it gave her away.
The wind picked up the sound of a tiny bell, and she stilled.
No—
The sound deepened, the tinkling faster, as if Orlando had found her trail.
Because of course Jericho would have returned to the house by now. Discovered her gone.
So, maybe she’d fight?
No. She was unarmed. And not stupid.
Rounding, she took off at an angle, back toward the house, through the snowy drifts and uneven ground. And even as she did, she tested the wind.
It came off the lake, through the trees, sending her scent north.
Which meant Orlando would keep coming.
And behind him, Jericho.
Worse, as she stopped, her hand gripping the icy bark of a paper birch, she no longer heard the huffing of Mars, crunching through the snow in his heavy boots.
She took off, running harder, back toward her house. Please, please, Orlando, pick up my scent. Follow me home.
A flashlight beamed through the forest, maybe a hundred yards away, and she ducked under a tree as light scanned past her.
Then she took off running again. Oh, why didn’t she carry a decent weapon?
Maybe her father still kept his weapons locked in the basement. She knew the code—
Barking.
Orlando had picked up her scent. Or maybe—maybe Mars’s scent? The dog did know it, after all. Mars had tried to kill him before.
No—no—
She broke through the forest and found her own trail, footprints blotted out by bootsteps.
And then, the bell, so loud now, sounding like he was on top of her. She turned, peering through the darkness.
The light scoured the forest again, this time closer, and she threw herself against an evergreen, crouching low.
Orlando bounded into the swath of light. His tongue out, his ears perked, his body joyous in the snow. For a second, the terror of life and death dropped from her.
To Orlando, this was a game. Fun, with a reward at the end.
Which turned her stomach even more when, from behind her in the forest, a shot sounded.
It echoed into the night, the sound sharp and raw and—
Just as she expected, Orlando froze. Barked, as if in warning. And then, he bolted back into the darkness.
So, mission over.
Maybe that was a good thing, right? Because then he’d return to Jericho safe. Afraid, yes, but unharmed.
Please let her get to the house before Mars.
She stood up.
Too soon.
Another shot, and this one shook the arms of her evergreen and chipped off frozen bark from a nearby tree.
“Stop, Tatum!”
Close. Too close. She turned and Mars thundered toward her, his gun pointed at her, his light trained on her.
She lifted her hands.
Run, Orlando, run.
And take Jericho with you!
Because, wouldn’t you know it, she was again in the hospital, hearing his voice. “They would have killed me.”
Yes, yes they would have. And Mars wasn’t even out for blood then.
She stepped out into the light. “Nobody needs to get hurt, here, Mars,” she said, her voice even.
He stopped, a good ten feet away from her—too far for her to grab the gun—and laughed.
Laughed.
She stared at him.
“Oh, Harley, don’t be stupid. Everyone is going to get hurt.”
From somewhere in the darkness, she heard a growl. Maybe it was Mars. Then he pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger.