God, please. Help me.
The rifle fell across her neck, the man’s body on top of hers, as the cold wood and metal cut off airflow. Her arms flailed, but he pressed harder. “Liar,” he rasped. “The money. Gimme the money.”
The edges of her vision blackened.
He seized her left earbob, yanked off the pearl jewel, as hot pain speared her earlobe.No.The second earbob ripped from her skin. His face dimmed.Please—
Something lunged on the man’s back.
John.
No.He was supposed to run. He was supposed to take Mercy and hide. They needed to be safe…needed to escape, to disappear, for Simon…
A loud thump, as if John had been thrown, but the rifle on her neck loosened. Georgina rolled, lurched to her feet, everything spinning.
The stranger was over top John’s small frame. He lifted a fist.
In one frantic movement, Georgina seized the gun and swung. The crack was sickening. The old man’s back arched, lips sputtered, then he slumped over top of John with blood trailing down his neck.
Georgina slid to her knees next to them. She shoved off the body, pulled John free, grasped his face. “Mercy.”
“Outside.”
“You should not have…why did you…”
The door flew back open. Both of them flinched, turned, as a dead silence fell and her mind spun into the next plan of action.
But when the figure in the doorway entered, her panic faltered.
Mercy was in his arms, hugging his neck. John was already racing for his legs. The air was easier to breathe and the world easier to bear.
Simon Fancourt was here.
They were safe.
“He is gone now.” For the second time, Simon stepped back inside the cottage, a blade of guilt already slicing through him.
Wind whistled through the broken windows. Glass shards glistened on the dirt floor, and the animal droppings and nests lent the air a stifling, musty scent.
He should not have sent them here.
Not alone.
He should have known the cottage would not be the same. That years, like everything else, had eroded what was once intact.
Mercy ran to him again. He swept her up, fought the urge to squeeze when her wet cheek pressed into his neck. “It is too late to travel,” he said. “We will stay here until dawn.”
John nodded, as if he had suspected as much, but Miss Whitmore rose from her pile of quilts. She glanced about the cottage, opened her lips, blinked hard, but said only, “Of course.”
Then she brushed past him and outside, the door thudding shut behind her.
Simon knelt next to his son by the hearth. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Even so, his left hand cupped his right elbow, and the set of his jaw was tight. “Did you kill him? That man, I mean.”
Simon pushed up his son’s sleeve. “Turn so I can see.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
