She couldn’t let him catch her!
The attacker—the killer—running her to ground, a huge man who had so brutally slain her family was bearing down on her.
“Kara!” His voice boomed through the storm. “Kara, stop!”
She blinked.
Tate? It was Wesley Tate? He was screaming at her?
She stumbled at the thought. Something broke within her. His voice was familiar, safe.
Her legs became leaden as she plowed through the snow, the lake barely visible through the trees and snowfall. What had she been thinking? Of course he was following her. But her reality was disjointed and pieces of the past kept slicing into the present, painful, sharp shards of memory cutting into the here and now.
It’s Wesley. He’s on your side. Kara, trust him.
Slowing, she turned around, breathing hard, expecting him to— “Run!” he yelled. “Kara, run!”
Tate’s voice?
Or Jonas’s? As he levered himself up on one elbow to beg her get help. That was real, right? She was running from whoever killed Mama and Daddy and her brothers— The scene in her mind splintered again.
Oh, God, Jonas! His head turning on the spindle came to mind and she twisted, ready to run again, her foot hitting a root or rock jutting upward but hidden beneath the snowpack. She fell forward, against a tree, trying to right herself, icy fir needles scraping her face, branches seeming to claw at her, ripping her skin.
“Run!!!” someone screamed.
Tate’s voice. Yes, Wesley Tate was urging her forward, and she found her footing for a second, only to slip and see him bearing down on her.
Not Tate.
No!
The man she saw was Walter Robinson, older than she remembered, his whiskered face set, his jaw rock hard, his eyes skewering her in an otherworldly and cruel glare. In one gloved hand he held a pistol, in the other a knife with blood smeared upon its narrow, deadly blade.
Oh. Dear. God.
“Kara! Run!” Tate’s voice echoed through the hills.
She scrabbled forward, finding her feet, but glancing over her shoulder.
Not one, but two men chased her. Tate was closer, running a zigzagging course, but Robinson was bearing down fast, the larger man galloping through the trees and swirling snow, making a beeline toward her.
She scrambled forward and as she did, she caught a glimpse of movement, something white and blurry, a pale ghost running parallel with her, hidden by snow and trees.
The apparition turned and faced her for a second.
Marlie?
Kara blinked.
Her long-lost sister was out here?
Impossible!
“Kara, move!” Tate’s voice again and Kara looked behind her. Robinson had raised his pistol.
She cut around a tree, a berry vine snagging her jacket, Cold Lake, flat and open in the distance.
“Stop!” Walter ordered, and in her peripheral vision she saw him take aim.
Tate leapt out of the woods just as Walter pulled the trigger.
Blam!
Tate’s body lurched in midair.
He landed with a hard thud onto the snow.
“Noooo!” Kara cried, sliding to a stop as Walter, too, had quit running. Walking with a deadly purpose, his pistol in one hand, the bloody knife in the other, he took aim at Tate’s limp body.
Kara started toward him. “Don’t! Stop! For the love of God—”
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Three shots fired in rapid succession.
Blood spurted from Walter’s chest. His body jerked wildly backward. Gasping and moaning, he fell to his knees, his fingers still tight over his weapons, his eyes wide with surprise. And then he keeled forward, his face landing in the snow.
Kara staggered back, her knees threatening to give as she screamed at the top of her lungs, her shriek echoing over the frozen water.
The ghost of her sister appeared, stepping from behind a copse of saplings.
“Marlie,” Kara whispered as the apparition became real, a living, breathing woman, stepping out of the frozen landscape.
“I’m sorry, Kara-Bear,” she said, and Kara wondered if this was all a horrible nightmare where the past blended with the present and the savagery she’d witnessed all those years ago had finally cracked her frail psyche to pieces. “I didn’t mean to leave you in the attic; I just wanted to keep you safe.” She slid her pistol into her jacket pocket and was walking toward Kara, but it was Marlie. Her face was scarred, slightly uneven while one arm hung limply at her side, but she was still recognizable.
“But where . . . where have you been?” Kara asked, though her concentration was split. Tate lay facedown in the snow and she forced herself around the bigger man, kicking the gun from his hand.