Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
A throbbing ache pulled Victoria from sleep. She opened her eyes.
At least, she thought she’d opened them. But she couldn’t see anything.
Why was her room so dark? There was always some light from—
“Vicks?”
Cillian. What was he doing in her room?
Alarm spiked through her, and she sat up.
The pain in her head sharpened. She gasped.
“Easy. Don’t try to move fast.”
She turned toward his voice, but she could only see a dim outline of what appeared to be his head.
“Don’t worry, your eyes will adjust. I think he must have the back windows covered with something. Though maybe the snow is blocking the streetlamps and city lights anyway.”
Cillian’s words jumbled in her mind like babble.
She blinked, hoping to rush the adjustment process as she tried to organize his statements and her thoughts in her mind. “Are you saying we’re in a vehicle of some kind?”
This had to be a dream. A very peculiar one.
“Yeah, I think it’s a van. Do you remember how you got here?”
Did she? She tried to ignore the spikes of pain that seemed to shoot from the back of her skull to her forehead. She didn’t recall going to bed before this dream, actually. She hadn’t said goodnight to Max or—
She hadn’t been sleeping. She’d been walking through snow to her car, in a hurry, worried. The text.
Her breath caught as she recalled the message. “Sydney. Is she all right?”
“I don’t know. I assume you got a text? I got one, too, from Lawrence Massey.”
The memory returned sluggishly. “I received one from Sydney. She said he would kill her unless I came.”
“And don’t bring the cops? Yeah. I was on hold waiting to tell Willis when I got clocked from behind.”
Victoria reached to touch the back of her head. A large, painful bump swelled on the back of her skull. “I was apparently knocked unconscious, as well.”
“Massey must’ve been waiting for you, then came and ambushed me at my place. He took my phone. Did he take yours, too?”
She peered into the darkness. A pointless exercise. “It was in my purse. I assume he wasn’t courteous enough to bring that along for me.”
“Seems weird, doesn’t it? That Massey would resort to abduction and…whatever he has planned for us?”
“We pushed him too far. We never should have confronted him.” Her words ricocheted back at her.
Dad. He’d been angry with her.
Her foggy brain slogged through the effects of the blow, trying to retrieve the memories.
Her father glared at her from the head of the table.
Treese accused her of hurting Sydney.
Robert, Hank, Spring—they all defended her.
The raised voices ping-ponged against the walls of Victoria’s mind, stinging each time they hit.
Oh, no. They’d all been fighting at Dad’s birthday dinner. Because of her.
“…now we see how right it was to show Massey we know what he did. But what I don’t get is the leap from cowardly abusing teen girls to this.” Cillian’s commentary drifted past her in the darkness like a distant, mismatched echo of the much louder voices of her family in her head.
“No wonder you’ve gotten yourself arrested for murder, your face and name plastered all over the news.” Dad’s accusation rang in her ears. That was it, the real reason he was so angry. Not her involvement with Sydney.
It was that she’d become a criminal. Branded as one for all his friends, acquaintances, and patients to see. His perfect reputation had been destroyed by her.
“I knew that Doherty boy would ruin you. I don’t know who you are anymore. You have dragged the Weston name through the mud.”
More than anger had flashed in Dad’s eyes with those words. Disappointment and—
“Whoa.” Cillian’s remark drew her gaze toward him.
She could see a clearer outline of his face now and a flicker of some bit of light catching his eyes.
“I didn’t see it before.” Shock lined his tone. “This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment break of character for Massey.”
She blinked, but it didn’t help her see Cillian better. Not that it mattered. Her mind and aching heart were focused elsewhere. With her family’s—
“It was him. All along.”
She brushed aside Cillian’s interruption to her thoughts. How could she have risked such consequences to her family, to everything she’d dedicated her life to since Mom passed?
“He was the one trying to kill us. The threatening note, the shooting, the car that tried to run you down. All of it was Massey. He was trying all along to silence you, and then me when he saw I’d met Sydney, too.
He knew we could find out what he’d done and would expose him. Especially with you being a Weston.”
Cillian let out a half-laugh of disbelief. “Man, were we off on that. We assumed it had to be Glenn since he killed Briscoe. I wonder which one sabotaged my bike. Could be Glenn was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know anything about it.”
Only part of Victoria’s mind seemed to grasp what Cillian was saying. Massey may have been the one trying to kill her. But what did it matter? It made no difference to the most precious, important treasures in her life. She had still damaged them beyond repair.
“I cannot believe you would bring shame on our family in such a way.” Dad’s sharp gaze appeared before her eyes more vivid and painful than the darkness.
“You all should leave Dad alone. He’s totally right.” Treese’s ready defense of her father as she had stood between him and her siblings, pinched Victoria’s ribs. Treese would never be reachable to Victoria now or to the God she represented.
“I can’t believe you.” And Hank. Oh, sweet Hank. “You don’t even care about how scary that must be for her or how unfair it is. Your own daughter!”
Victoria shut her eyes, but she was too late to stop the tears. They slid down her cheeks.
Hank had always loved their father, idolized him even. And now he’d turned against him, for Victoria’s sake.
Oh, Lord. Please forgive me. The inward prayer squeezed from her shriveling heart.
Why had she kept pushing Detective McCully when he’d told her to stay away from the investigation of Thomas’s death?
If she had done what she usually did—gone along to get along—than none of this would have happened.
She would never have been questioned, arrested, suspected of murder.
Dad wouldn’t have had reason to become so angry with her.
Her family would still be getting along, living and thriving in peaceful relationships with each other.
Why hadn’t she listened and followed the instructions of the police?
Cillian. He’d convinced her to keep pressuring the police when she’d known better. She’d let him persuade her again and lead her into another disastrous mistake.
How could she have done that? Had she learned nothing from letting her mother die alone?
A sob rose in her throat, nearly choking her as she swallowed it down.
Mom. Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry. The cry of Victoria’s heart seared every fiber of her being.
Mom would be so ashamed. So disappointed.
It was bad enough Victoria had let her die alone. But now she had failed to do what her mother would have wanted most of all—to do everything Mom would have for the Weston family. Above all, to keep the peace between Dad and all the siblings.
Victoria hadn’t merely tried and failed, she had been the one to launch the direct attack on that peace when she’d crossed Detective McCully and then, far worse, her father.
He’d told her, after McCully had questioned her, to stop being involved in the investigation.
Why hadn’t she obeyed him as she usually did? She knew not to cross him.
All she would have had to do was adhere to what her father wanted, as Mom had always done, except when she’d become a Christian.
Then Victoria had come to Christ, too, from Mom’s secret talks and nighttime reading of the Bible when Dad wasn’t around to stop her.
Victoria’s Christianity made this error even more grievous.
“Blessed are the peacemakers,” Christ said.
As a Christian, she was called to make peace. And by following her mom’s exceptional example, she’d kept peace among her family and others for sixteen years. Until today. When she had obliterated her mother’s legacy of peace and love in her family.
They were all against each other now. Divided. Some opposing each other and most turned against their father.
Victoria was probably going to die tonight.
And she was leaving behind four brothers and sisters who would never understand that their father did love them.
They would never know how much their mom had wanted them to love him and each other.
They would never realize how much Mom had wanted them to know Christ.
Victoria’s heart cracked under the weight of what she’d done, of what she’d destroyed, of the grief for the mother she had lost and failed to honor.
A gulping, tearful gasp escaped her control.
Forgive me.
“Victoria?” Cillian leaned toward her, reaching for her arm. She had gasped like she was in pain. “Are you okay? Is it your head?”
“I’m fi—”
The vehicle jerked, like Massey hit the brakes.
Cillian froze with his hand on Victoria’s forearm. Listening.
They’d stopped moving.
A slam. Maybe the driver’s door.
Footsteps broke through the walls of the van. Shoes crunching on snow.
Cillian squinted at the darkness. There had to be something in the van that he could use as a weapon. He could see much better now, past where Victoria sat with her legs stretched in front of her to a solid wall that must divide the front seats from the cargo area.
Nothing but floor and the walls of the vehicle met his searching gaze. No weapon.
Well, a fist had always been enough for him. He’d have no problem handling a wimp like Massey.
Cillian scooted toward the doors. A good double-legged kick should be enough to knock the coward on—
The doors swung open, letting in a rush of cold air and the dark night, brightened only by snowflakes swirling all around.
Cillian stared into the white-flecked darkness, his knees drawn in toward his chest, ready to kick their abductor.