Author: Christina Dodd
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/christina-dodd/page,20,485077-strangers_she_knows.html
Max and Kellen waited thirty-five minutes, then forty. At forty-five, Luna launched herself off the porch. As she raced across the lawn, nose to the ground, she ignored their calls, and in moments she had disappeared into the tall grasses.
“She’s following Rae’s scent,” Kellen said.
“Right. You follow her, I’ll circle wide.”
They set out in opposite directions, riding their bikes, searching, shouting. They were united in their task, but alone in their searches.
After two hours, the wind had increased in strength and volume. The grasses rolled and tossed seeds into the air. The oaks moaned. Sea gulls screamed. Foxes and falcons huddled close to their dens and nests. The first tendrils of rain clouds sent brief gray curtains of rain across the ocean and across the island, drenching Kellen.
She had been riding without fear, without considering the speed she used to race down the island paths. Now she stopped, straddled her bike, and wished she and Max had some form of communication with each other. Tin cans, walkie-talkies—anything.
At last, she heard it—a dog’s wild barking carried on the wind. She fought her way toward the source of the commotion, and found Rae staggering around in ever decreasing circles, muttering to herself.
She caught Rae and placed her on the ground, looked into her eyes and saw the wide pupils and the manic terror.
Rae seemed unaware of Kellen, of her surroundings. Over and over again, she said, “I liked her. I wanted her to know. Why would she hurt me? I don’t take drugs. This isn’t right. I need to get home.” Her voice rose to a shriek. “Don’t stop me.” Then again, and softer, “Why would she hurt me?”
Kellen knew then. She knew for sure.
Mara is back. Mara is here. Mara has tried to kill my child.
Kellen left her bike in the middle of the waving grasses and the ever increasing wind. She coaxed Rae up and with her arm around her, helped her walk toward the mansion.
Luna limped along beside them, whining softly, her eyes wide with doggy fear.
Desperately Kellen prayed, Come on, Max. Come and find us.
As if he’d heard her call, he arrived when they reached the lawn. He took one look at his daughter and swept her into his arms. He carried her toward the house…and suddenly switched directions and ran toward the helicopter.
Kellen followed on his heels, so desperately afraid they would be too late to save her baby—and when Max stopped, she stopped, too. Stopped and gaped at the helicopter.
The windshield had been shot out, the door had been sabotaged, one of the propellers had been riddled with bullets. The radio was destroyed.
The helicopter, their lifeline to the mainland, was useless.
36
Kellen stepped up next to Max. “I will find Mara, I swear, kill her and save Rae.”
She turned away.
But Rae grabbed a lock of Kellen’s hair with abnormal strength. “No. Mommy, no! Help me. I need you. Why did she hurt me? I liked her…” Her eyes rolled back, her head fell like a flower on a broken stem.
After that, how could Kellen leave?
Max carried Rae to her bedroom and placed her on the bed.
Luna followed, and curled up beside her child, desperate to offer comfort.
“We have ipecac,” Max said. “Let me find it.”
Kellen caught his sleeve. “It’s been too long. The drugs are in her system. We need to flush them through. Bring a sports drink, something with electrolytes.”
“Have we got that?”
“Your mother sent it ahead in case someone got a stomach bug.”
He nodded and headed downstairs to the pantry.
All the time they spoke, Rae was mumbling, “I liked her. I thought she was nice. I knew I shouldn’t not tell you, but I thought she was nice. Why would she hurt me? I liked her. I thought she was nice.”
Kellen wet a washcloth in warm water and slid it across Rae’s forehead. “Who? Who did you like?”
Kellen’s warm, coaxing voice caught Rae’s attention, yet she stared at her mother as if she didn’t know her. “Miranda. Miranda Phillips.”
“Of course.” Mara had barely bothered to change her name.
Luna curled into the curve formed by Rae’s knees, and whimpered, begging Kellen to make things right.
Kellen passed her fingers over the dog’s forehead.
Rae caught Kellen’s wrist in a small, fierce hand. “I warned her.”
Kellen returned her attention to her daughter. “What did you warn her of?”
“I warned her about the storm. I warned her about Dylan. I told her…Jamie is missing.” Tears leaked from the corners of Rae’s eyes. “Poor Jamie. Where is she?”
Max returned at a run, a sports drink in his hand. Together Kellen and Max lifted Rae and poured the bottle down her throat.
Rae drank thirstily. Her body knew what it needed—but had they been quick enough?
They could only wait.
The sun set in a violent gasp of red, pink and purple as deep as a bruise.
Night descended. The storm began its true assault. The wind howled. Rain slammed at the mansion. Max and Kellen took turns lifting Rae to her feet and walking her, back and forth.
Kellen put her into the shower and got in with her. She washed her hair and helped her bathe.
When they came out, Max was sitting on the floor with Luna, picking the grass seeds and thorns out of her paws, covering them with cortisone and wrapping them in gauze. “Luna’s nails need to be trimmed,” he said. “When this is over, we need to take her to the groomer.”
Rae dropped on the floor beside her dog and placed her head on Luna’s back, and for long, wrenching moments, she sobbed her apologies to them all.
Luna put her paws on Rae’s shoulders, licked her face, cried with her if a dog could be said to cry.
Max and Kellen returned to walking Rae back and forth, to pouring sports drinks down her throat, to talking to her in the hopes of bringing her out of her madness and back to normalcy.
Finally Rae begged to be allowed to rest, and Max and Kellen couldn’t stand to torment her anymore. They let her recline on her bed.
For one moment, Rae’s gaze cleared, and she said to Max, “Daddy, I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
Then she was gone, unconscious.
Max checked her pulse in her neck. Kellen checked it in her wrist.
“She’s asleep. Maybe that’s what she needs.” Max sounded more hopeful than sure.
Kellen grasped his hand. “What are we going to do?”
He looked out at the black shiny glass window, streaked with rain. “The storm should lessen…soon. As soon as it’s light, we’ll take the boat. We’ll take Rae to the mainland.”
“You’ll take the boat. You’ll take her to the mainland.”
“Kellen, I can’t leave you here with her. With Mara.”
“You’ve got to get Rae to a hospital, and you can’t do that if I’m along. Even if the storm gets better, the seas are going to be massive. To get Rae to the California coast, you’ll need the motor and the sail.” Kellen was calm, matter-of-fact. “You can’t have both if I’m with you, weighing down the boat.”
Kellen could see Max struggling; he wanted to change this, fix this, make it different.
“I wonder how long she’s been on the island? I wonder if the Conkles knew?”
“Dylan knew.”
Kellen thought about how damaged Dylan had been. “Yes. Mara got her claws into him. She gave him something that drove him mad and to murder.”
Max’s gaze shifted to Rae, circled into a fetal position on her bed, so still she might be dead. Luna was curled into her, holding her with a paw across her hips. Max put his hand over his damp eyes. “We can’t let the drugs take her.”
“You’re right, we can’t.” Sh
e hugged him, felt his frustration. “Max, I’m healthy. I’m strong. I’m angry. I can take on Mara and make her sorry.”
His chest rose and fell. Abruptly, he loosened her arms. “Wait here.” He left with purpose.
Compulsively, she leaned over Rae, checked for her breathing, smoothed her hair off her forehead. “We’re going to take care of you, baby,” she whispered.
Max returned with a Smith and Wesson M&P Bodyguard pistol held lightly in his right hand, a nylon holster hanging on his arm. “When I took Dylan in, I radioed ahead to Rafe Di Luca. He brought it for me.” He checked the safety, then offered her the butt of the weapon. “You won’t be completely without defense.”
Kellen wrapped the fingers of her right hand around it. She had been a soldier. She had carried a pistol, aimed a pistol, shot a pistol. The weight, the cool metal, the scent of gun oil settled into her memories, familiar and necessary.
Max said, “As you always point out, a pistol is only good for a short distance. It’s loaded.”
She looked up and smiled. “My fingers aren’t one hundred percent. But even so, I’m more in control of a weapon than most people could ever be.”
He nodded. “That’s what I figured.” As he helped her strap on the holster, he said, “Before dawn, we’ll carry Rae down to the dock.”
“To the SkinnySail?”
“Yes. To the SkinnySail.”
“What if Mara sabotaged it?”
“Then we’ll think of another way.” Max didn’t sound worried. “But Mara doesn’t think small. She wants to make the big statement. Shoot up the helicopter. Terrify us.”
Max knew Mara better than Kellen did.
“Rae and I will leave on the SkinnySail. We’ll avoid Mara. Then you’re on your own. You can fight. You can beat her.”
She slid the pistol into the holster.
He took her not quite one hundred percent hand in both of his and looked into her eyes. “She’ll cheat.”
“All’s fair in love and war, Max. This is a battle.” She allowed her fingers to curl as if they were still far gone into atrophy. “Mara doesn’t need to know how well this hand can work.”
37
Kellen stood on the beach, her toes curled in the cold, wet sand. She was soaked by the windblown rain and her efforts to help Max launch the SkinnySail into the depths of the roiling surf. There was no way—no way—Max could guide the vessel bearing Rae through the storm to the mainland, to the coast of California.
Yet Kellen trusted that somehow he would. He had to. Rae was their daughter, their hope, the proof of their love.
Max struggled against the storm, using brute strength and motorized power. Waves swamped the small vessel; Max and Rae disappeared from view, and Kellen found herself on her toes, straining and screaming at them to come back, come out. As if her shouts lifted the SkinnySail, the boat rose, wobbled at the top of the wave, and finally thrust itself out of the surf and into the rough, gray seas beyond.
Max was frantically bailing water from the tiny vessel.
“My God,” Kellen whispered. She observed until they had disappeared behind a curtain of rain.
They were gone. Gone from sight, gone from assistance, gone beyond all the help she could give them—except prayer. She could pray, and she did, as she seated herself on a driftwood log, rubbed the worst of the sand off her feet, and donned her soaking wet socks and worn running shoes. She prayed fervently and constantly as she fought the wind on the steep and twisted path up the cliff. And she wept.
As she climbed, she kept touching the pistol in the holster at her side. Mara was up there somewhere. She wasn’t going to make her revenge easy and shoot Kellen; if she had intended to end things that quickly, she could have done that at Yearning Sands from a safe distance. No, that demented bitch had some other crazy plan.
Kellen had her own crazy plan: shoot Mara between the eyes, shoot her in the back, shoot her anywhere and anytime.
The wind continued from the south, pushing her up the trail, and at the same time, rain made the gritty rocks slick and dangerous. More than once, as the wind shifted a few degrees to the east or west, she could have bounced all the way down to the beach. When she reached the top, the sand swirled in her face. She slid backward, grabbed a handful of the rough beach grass, and stopped herself. Struggling erect, she wiped the rain and tears off her face, took that last big step onto the top of the cliff, and heard that familiar female voice.
“I gave her only a half dose, because she loved me.”
Kellen used her sleeve to clear her eyes. She looked up at—
MARA PHILIPPI:
FEMALE. DARK HAIR CHOPPED SHORT, FAIR SKIN, BLUE EYES. 5'6". 130LBS. AGGRESSIVELY PHYSICALLY FIT. UNCLEAR ON DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WAR ZONE AND GYMNASIUM. SMUGGLER. LIAR. ACTRESS. SERIAL KILLER. MURDERER OF KELLEN’S OWN CHILD.
Mara Philippi: dressed in a rain poncho, standing beside the golf cart, pointing her pistol at Kellen and smiling as if she’d done something kind.
Kellen didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. She ducked and attacked, head first, driving herself into Mara’s belly.
Above her head, the pistol blasted.
Both women stumbled, thrown off balance by the recoil.
Kellen slammed the top of her head into Mara’s elbow.
The pistol went flying into the tall, wet grass.
Now Kellen could kill her.
But when she went for her pistol, Mara slammed a fist into Kellen’s wrist.
Outraged by the pain, the nerves in Kellen’s arm went numb. Her hand, her right hand, curled into the useless ball it had been after the brain surgery.
She stared at it, at the poor thing at the end of her arm, and all the helplessness of the past rushed at her.
But she wasn’t helpless. She could use this wrecked limb. She had learned how, in the garage, punching at a mattress Max had pressed against the wall.
She looked up at Mara. At Mara, who stared at her hand, lips curled in disgust. “What’s wrong?”
Kellen flung that arm, that hand, at Mara’s face. With all the power of her body behind her, she punched her right in the nose. She felt the crunch, felt the satisfaction of knowing she’d hurt the woman who had drugged her baby.
Mara shrieked, fell backward, floundering under the ferocity of Kellen’s attack. She whimpered. She moaned. She tried to speak, but Kellen didn’t care, didn’t listen. She wanted to beat Mara into the ground, make her unconscious, hurt her until she died.
Punch left. Right. A kick. Left. Right.
Mara spun, caught herself, did a flip so athletic Kellen remembered their former rivalry. When Mara landed on her feet, she had a black and yellow weapon in her hand. She stabbed it at Kellen. Kellen parried with her hand and arm and—
A blast of pain. A shriek of nerve burn. The brain shut down.
Kellen knew nothing. Nothing. Not even the gray.
38
Kellen swam to the surface of consciousness. She lay on her belly, face turned to the side. The surface beneath her cheek was rough. She ached all over, as if she had the flu. She didn’t know where she was, or why she hurt.
She did know who she was, and counted that as a plus.
She listened to the ticking of a clock, to rain and wind rattling the windows, and to an odd, rhythmic clicking. Twice the clicking stopped for a few seconds, then started again.
She opened her eyes. They felt swollen, and when she looked, she saw things from an angle she had never before experienced: shelves lined with books, the legs of a coffee table, a heavy, ornate wool rug that scratched at her cheek. As she looked farther, she saw lamps on the tables that tossed golden light toward the ceiling. On the desk, the gilded edge of a book: Ruby’s diary. That meant something, but she could not recall what.
After long moments of orientation, she realized she was at Morgade Hall on the floor
in the library. She was wet and cold, and when she shivered, every muscle painfully spasmed. Something had happened. Something momentous.
Slowly she turned her head, and as she did, she heard a woman say, “You’re awake. Jesus fucking Christ, you scared me. I thought you were dead.”
Mara Philippi. For sure. Nothing was never her fault. Whatever happened, she was the only one affected.
Following the source of the voice, she saw Mara’s shoes—waterproof hiking shoes, she thought inconsequentially. She followed the length of Mara’s legs up to her torso, to her face, that beautiful, hated face, alive with indignation that Kellen had caused her worry. She had a towel around her shoulders, and she held Max’s pistol.
Like the queen of all evil, she lolled in the big overstuffed chair, the one Max sat in when he was here, and the sound Kellen had heard was Mara clicking the safety on and off, on and off.
She had stolen the pistol off Kellen’s body.
Kellen’s memory flooded back. Rae had been drugged. Rae was dying. Max had taken her in that tiny boat in the hope of getting her to a hospital. Kellen had seen them off into the teeth of the storm, climbed the cliff—and Mara was there. They had fought.
Kellen took another look at Mara.
She wore tough clothes meant for the outdoors: waterproof tights, long-sleeve tee, insulated vest. A rifle with a scope leaned against the chair’s arm. She had prepared for whatever torment she intended to inflict on Kellen—but her nose was swelling, and one eye had a bruise forming beneath it.
She was the queen of nothing.
Kellen had beat the snot out of Mara until… Until what? She worked her lips, her tongue, making sure they were under her command, then asked, “What did you do to me?”
“I Tased you.” Mara touched the black-and-yellow weapon at her side. “Why did you pass out? It was just a Taser.” She sounded serious—and scornful.
Kellen had nothing to lose. Her daughter and her husband had set out to sea in a violent storm, with little chance of survival. Even if they made it to the mainland, Rae had been drugged. She might never recover. She might never smile, she might never speak, she might never be Rae again.