The ringing in her ears grew to a roar. The moon whirled above her in a sickening dance as she fell.
* * *
RICK BUSTED HIS ASS, TRYING TO catch up with Summer before she reached the Byassee place. This whole ordeal smacked of something that churned his insides. It felt too coincidental...too contrived.
As he neared the place where the path veered right, an off sound registered in his hearing. One that didn’t belong to the night. Faint, but definitely human voices. He kicked harder, and the sounds grew into shouts...angry tones. One he recognized.
Summer.
As he tore into the clearing, the sounds stopped abruptly. He slowed his movement to a guarded walk.
He listened. The house’s dark facade stood sentry, no hint of turmoil on its watch. Then a noise came from the back of the house. A slamming door.
Rick rushed toward the sound. As he rounded the corner of the house, the sight of Summer’s body sprawled on the ground ripped a combined cry of anger and anguish from his lungs. “Summer!”
She struggled to sit up as he bounded toward her. Shaking her head in protest, she pointed to the truck in the driveway. “Howie!”
Rick’s mind instantly processed the situation. A camouflaged truck. Howie’s dad. The engine started as Rick jerked open the door on the passenger’s side, and Howie flipped the latch to unhook his seat belt.
Rick hauled the child from the cab, scanning him quickly. He appeared unhurt. “Run, Howie.” Rick gave him a push. “Go back to camp.”
The child’s eyes widened with fear and hesitation. He stood frozen to the spot.
“Now!” Rick used his most menacing marine voice.
A cloud of dust rose in the boy’s wake.
Rick heard the truck’s gears shift into Park. He threw a glance toward Summer, who’d made it to her feet, albeit wobbly. That she could stand was a good sign.
He started around the back of the truck, but Summer took a step in the direction of the driver’s door. He moved in fast, blocking her. “Don’t.” He used the same tone he’d used with Howie, but not as loud.
Her chin snapped up in defiance.
In the meager light he saw it—a lump the size of an egg on her jaw, and his insides wound into a tight coil. Blinded by rage, he sprang toward the driver’s door, loaded for action, intent on tearing Howard Gerard apart with his bare hands.
The door swung open, and he gathered the son of a bitch’s shirt into his fists and hauled him past the steering column with one jerk.
Something wasn’t right about the man’s sneer, and Rick’s senses went on alert, but his body had the momentum of his weight behind it.
Too late he saw the flash...heard the pop.
A vacuum sucked his body in upon itself, bringing with it a pain like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He gasped and the very act of breathing caused him to lose his grip. He staggered backward, toppling, with no control of his movements, welcoming the feel of crashing onto solid ground.
Fireworks went off in his head, blinding his sight, but his sense of touch registered a hot, sticky wetness covering his hands.
He became aware of two distinct sounds piercing his brain. On one side, the roar of a truck engine being gunned.
On the other, screams of terror. Summer’s.
He cursed his idiocy. A marine didn’t make this kind of mistake.
Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake.
Maybe the bullet was meant for him all along...it just took seven years to find him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“DO YOU WANT TO LIE DOWN? There’s a couch in that empty waiting room over there.” Tara pointed to the room across the hall. “I’ll come get you if the doctor comes out.”
Summer shook her head, glad it was just the two of them for a little while. Guilt for not joining everyone else in the chapel where Tara’s dad was holding a prayer vigil for Rick pinged at her, but she couldn’t leave the waiting room. The nurse who’d come out most recently said the hospital had contacted his family, and they were on the way. It would be several hours.
That was several hours ago.
What if...
“What if he dies, Tara? It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone into the woods by myself.” Summer’s jaw ached when she spoke, bruised and swollen from Howard Gerard’s backhand, tense and stiff from clenching in fear.
“You did what anyone would do. A child was in danger. When minutes count, we don’t stop and think about consequences. We just