Beach Thriller(101)

Eventually a pair of ambulances arrived. A team of medics administered oxygen to Jade while splinting her broken wrist, cleaning her cuts, and checking her vitals.

With Jade in the hands of professionals, Ethan moved to Anna’s side and checked her pulse. The past replayed before Holly’s eyes. But this time, there was no gurney, no sheet, no death. Today there was life, even though Anna had lost a significant amount of blood. Still, her pulse was strong, Ethan reported. Her heart rate was approaching normal, and her lungs were clearing out the toxic air she and Jade had been breathing.

When Anna was stable enough, Holly returned to her sister’s side. She stroked her cheek. It was warm to the touch. It was strange to see time pass so quickly—as Anna went from twenty-four to her forties, like turning a page in a book. She was as Holly remembered, except she had dyed her wavy, gorgeous auburn hair a less lustrous brown. Her heart-shaped face was fuller with age, and her hazel eyes retained the same color and depth Holly remembered.

“I don’t understand how you’re here. I have so many questions,” Holly stammered. The tears finally flowed, racing down her cheeks like rivers heading to the sea. Her chest was heavy with sadness, relief, and profound confusion, leaving Holly breathless.

“I know you do,” Anna whispered, her words choking out through her tears. She gave Holly’s hand a weak squeeze. “Jade … is she—?”

“She’s alive. She’s going to be fine,” Holly said. “Ethan got her out just in time.”

She used his name as if Anna would know him, as if she’d remember Holly in his arms, sobbing while her sister was wheeled away. But no, it couldn’t have been Anna. There had been a dead body under that sheet, hadn’t there?

If it hadn’t been Anna, then who had died that night?

“How?” Holly asked, her voice trembling, her whole body shaking as the initial shock began to fade. “Where have you been? How is this possible? How are you alive? And why were you in the cellar with Jade?”

Anna smiled faintly, light dancing briefly in her eyes as Holly’s questions lingered in the air. Anna’s smile widened as she held Holly’s hand, their fingers entwined.

“I needed to keep you safe. I knew where to find her, and you,” Anna said softly, her voice gentle as the night breeze blowing through their hair. “Because I’ve been watching. I’ve always been watching.”





Chapter 66

Jade




“Easy, easy,” says a disembodied voice. A woman’s face peers down at me, eyes filled with concern. An angelic glow surrounds her. Is this heaven? No. My head is pounding too hard, too real for it to be the afterlife. I think she’s a medic of some sort.

As my senses sharpen, I become aware of my surroundings. I’m outside on a stretcher that’s parked on the grass in front of the Carmichaels’ house. I still feel untethered from my body, but a tube in my nose is delivering healthy air that’s helping to revitalize me.

Blurry figures fuss over me like I’m some VIP. They check my vitals: pulse, blood pressure, and temperature. Evidently I’m stable enough, but my wrist feels like it’s on fire. I realize it’s been splinted. I tell someone it’s still killing me, and before I know it, I’m on an IV drip delivering pain medication.

Holly. Where is Holly? And Conrad? I stabbed him, right? Is he dead? Did he bleed out?

I can’t take a deep, full breath. My limbs weigh a thousand pounds. But at least the anxiety has finally left me. I am here, I am safe. I am finally out of my prison. I can relax, if only a little.

Someone touches my shoulder tenderly. I turn my head—finally, a familiar face.

Dr. Hill smiles down at me. “Jade, I need to look in your eyes with my penlight. Is that okay?”

I nod because I can’t speak. Light fills my vision. I wince as though it pricked me. It’s not like the ethereal light I saw before—this one hurts. He does it again in the other eye.

“Good, good,” Dr. Hill says. “You’re doing great, Jade.”

But I’m not great. I’m actually trembling with fear because to my left, I see a big, burly cop settling Conrad into a folding chair. The guy looks like he’s had better days. I guess my attack wasn’t deadly, but at least he’s where he belongs—in handcuffs. The cop comes lumbering over to me.

“Can you tell us what happened?” he asks.

Dr. Hill doesn’t take kindly to the intrusion. “Officer Walker, she’s recovering. Please, questions can wait.”

Ah, so this is Tommy Boy.

A new person arrives. I only see them from the back—slender shoulders, hair in a bun, in uniform—a female cop, I guess. “We have medical personnel looking after the woman in the tower. But I found a pair of bloody scissors upstairs, under the bed. Someone got stabbed—badly, by the looks of it, but it’s not the woman. She doesn’t have a mark on her.”

“Let me see those,” Tommy demands.

I turn to look and there it is, a bloody pair of scissors, sharp as can be, stuffed inside a clear plastic evidence bag, the blades soiled with someone’s bodily fluid.

“Who got stabbed?” asks the female cop.

“Probably Conrad,” says Tommy. “He’s got a neck wound like a viper’s bite. Could have been the scissors.”