Chapter Twelve #2
Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears. “I can hear them scuffling, and then she screams, but it’s cut off.” Maya wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
“There’s another sound. Something struck hard, followed by a loud thud as if it hit the ground. Then everything is quiet until . . .”
“Until what?” Asa asked. The room seemed to hold its breath with her.
“He’s dragging her out of the barn. Her voice rises.” She’d peeked. Her mother told her not to, but she had. “I’m so afraid. I don’t know what to do until he shows up.” She looked Asa’s way. “Your father.”
“The dispatcher’s call. Loose ends in the barn. I think my father knew what was happening. That’s why he warned me not to follow him.”
She nodded. “Your father spotted me and started for me when he heard someone approaching. He told me to stay hidden, and then the shot came.” Her brow wrinkled, and she grabbed his arm. “Oh, Asa, he knew the killer.”
“My father knew the identity of the killer?”
“Yes, I heard him say, ‘You!’ I could tell from his tone he was surprised.”
Asa appeared to struggle to make sense of it. “What had my father gotten himself involved in?”
Maya had no idea. “The shot was so loud it hurt my ears. I snatched up my rabbit and held it tight. That’s when I heard you enter the barn.
He kept to the shadows when he spoke to you, but after you left, he came over to me.
” She shuddered. “Asa, he stopped right in front of me. I was so sure he could hear my heart beating.” Her hand went instinctively to her chest. “There’s this long pause, and then he leans down.
I can see his hands now. Just his hands. ”
Asa’s face had gone pale.
“He doesn’t pull me out,” Maya whispered. “He just says it. The part I remembered before. ‘Don’t say a word, little girl. You ever tell anyone what you saw, and I will come back for you like I did your mother. Do you understand me?’” The words shook, but they came clear.
“I nod,” she said. “I remember that now. I nod, but I don't look up. I stare at his boots because if I look at his face, I know I’ll scream. And I can’t.
Because that would mean he wins. That my mom dies.
” She drew a ragged breath. “Then he leaves. I hear the door bang against the side of the barn. The rain. And then . . . then your father’s voice, faint, telling me it’s going to be okay. ”
Asa’s knuckles were white where his hands clasped. “My father was still alive.”
Maya hated having to share that part. “Yes, but only for a moment or two. He sounded so weak telling me to run. Only I couldn’t.
I couldn’t move. I just clung to my rabbit and squeezed my eyes shut.
I didn’t realize the killer had set a fire until I smelled the smoke.
That’s when I ran. Thankfully, the roof had so many holes in it that the fire didn’t spread.
I stood outside the barn, dripping with rain and shivering while your father was dying. ”
Asa’s hand closed over hers, warm and steady.
Tears spilled over, hot and unrestrained now. “If I’d run for help, maybe your father would still be alive. Maybe they would have found my mother.”
Asa shook his head. “It was too late for my father, but we don’t know what happened to your mother.”
Maya did. In her heart, she believed the monster from that night killed her.
“I did what he said,” she cried. “I didn’t tell. I didn’t remember. I let my whole life shrink down to what he allowed.”
“You survived,” Asa said. “That was the assignment, and you passed it. Ruth and Samuel got a daughter because of that. I had the chance to sit here with you now and hear the rest of this story because of that.”
She squeezed his hand like a lifeline. “I remember his voice,” she whispered. “If I hear it again, I know I can identify him. Does that help?”
“Absolutely,” Asa said, his voice low and fierce. “I couldn’t identify him from his voice because it sounded like he was trying to alter it. But it’s possible that you can.”
Her breath shuddered. “I hate him,” she said bluntly.
“Good.”
She let out a startled laugh through the tears.
“I’m serious. Hatred can eat you alive, or it can fuel your refusal to let him win. I’d rather see it burn in you than fear.”
“I’m scared too,” she admitted.
“So am I. Only an idiot wouldn’t be, but fear is not calling the shots anymore. Not for you. Not for me.”
Her shoulders sagged, some of the tension leaking out with the confession and the tears. “Do you think my mother’s still alive?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
He didn’t answer immediately. She appreciated that. She’d had enough people offer easy platitudes over the years.
“I think she fought hard to get you here,” he said finally.
“I think she trusted my father more than anyone else on the mainland. I think she called for help even when it made her a more obvious target. That’s who she was.
” He squeezed her hand. “Whether she’s alive or not, we’re going to find out what happened to her.
She doesn’t stay a question mark. Not anymore. ”
The words spread over her like a blanket. Not a promise of a happy ending, but a promise of pursuit.
Her eyes felt heavy all at once. The kind of exhaustion that came after too much adrenaline, too many memories dragged into the light and forced to stand.
“You can sleep,” Asa said, as if reading her mind. “We’ll keep watch.”
“We,” she echoed drowsily.
“Me. Rachel. JT. Will. All of us.” His thumb brushed lightly over her knuckles, a gesture so gentle it almost undid her again. “If you wake up and it’s bad, I’ll be right here. If you need space, I’ll be out in the hall. You get to decide.”
She stared at their joined hands. For the first time since she was four, the idea of closing her eyes didn’t feel like surrendering to the dark. “Stay,” she whispered. “Please.”
“Then I stay,” he said.
He didn’t let go as she slid down under the covers, the blanket rustling softly. He shifted the chair a fraction closer, stretching out his legs, his other hand resting lightly near his holstered weapon.
She heard the house around them—the murmur of Rachel and JT in the other room, the low rumble of Will’s voice outside on the radio, the wind against the patched window. She heard her own breathing. Steady. Present. Not four years old anymore.
“Maya?” Asa said, just as her eyes started to close.
“Mm?”
“He didn’t write all the rules. You get to write them now. Remember that when you dream.”
A lump rose in her throat. “Okay.”
Sleep came in fits at first—jagged images of boats and barns and boots—but every time the panic tried to pull her under, something else floated up.
A rabbit’s ear, bent but still attached.
The sound of her mother’s voice saying Raymond’s name like it meant hope, and a man in a chair beside her bed, fingers wrapped around hers, refusing to let go while the storm battered the island outside.
For the first time in a very long time, the night didn’t feel like it belonged solely to the man who haunted her.
It was shared now, and somewhere beneath the fear and the fury and the ache, a small, stubborn ember of something else flickered.
Not safety. Not yet. But the beginning of something that could one day grow into courage.