Page 62 of Chasing Shelter (Sparrow Falls #5)

ELLIE

I stared at the woman forcibly dragging me up the hillside. It was a face I knew, but it looked more like a stranger than anything else now. “You shot him,” I rasped.

Helen Newbury whirled on me. Her blond hair was threaded with silver and pulled back in an artful chignon, her attire looking like she was spending a weekend at her country estate, not slaughtering people on a mountainside.

She’d holstered one gun like she’d been around them all her life and now had Jasper’s in her possession, as well.

She looked down her nose at me in a way I always thought she was above. “He’s disposable, Eleanor.”

I winced at the sound of my formal name. It felt like it had been years since I’d heard it, even though I knew it hadn’t been nearly that long. But that feeling was a mark of the distance I’d gained from my old life.

My brain whirled as I tried to pull together the pieces of the puzzle. Bradley’s mother’s presence here meant she was involved in some capacity. The question was, what was her role ?

“Move,” Helen ordered, dragging me up the mountainside with surprising strength.

Every inch of my body cried out in pain. My shock had apparently worn off. I felt like I’d been caught in a riptide and battered against the rocks over and over again. “I can’t,” I wheezed.

“Weak,” Helen spat. “You always have been. I thought you had what it took to be with my Bradley, but you obviously don’t.”

I bent at the waist, heaving and desperately trying not to throw up. But I managed to steal a look at the woman I’d known for most of my life. “You’re here because I broke up with Bradley?”

Helen’s hand whipped back so fast I didn’t have a prayer of blocking the blow.

She struck my cheek with her open palm so hard I tasted blood.

“You ungrateful slut. Your father almost ruined our reputation by association, and we had the kindness not to cast you out. And how do you repay us? By embarrassing our son.”

Her knuckles bleached white around the handgun, making the firearm tremble as she towered over me. My mind whirled as I tried in vain to come up with something that would appease her. “It wasn’t working,” I said desperately. “Bradley and I weren’t right?—”

“You weren’t good enough for him,” Helen spat. “I thought you were different from the rest. That you’d be a soft place for him to land. But I should’ve seen it all along. No drive. No purpose. Just a weakling who always went along with what everyone else wanted.”

“Then you should be grateful I’m not in his life anymore.” I was grasping at straws, and I knew it, desperate for something to bring Helen back from an edge she was clearly already over.

“Grateful?” she snarled. “My son’s life fell apart after you left. He started showing up to work drunk. He brought a stripper to a charity function.”

I struggled to straighten, pain flaring in my ribs. “And that’s my fault?”

Helen glared at me. “You broke his heart. He said if you just came back, everything would be fine. That it would go back to normal. And I needed my boy to have everything he wanted. I thought if you just realized how lucky you were to be chosen by him, he’d be okay. ”

My jaw went slack as more pieces came into focus. “You,” I whispered. “You’re the one who sent the threats. The photos. You were watching me.”

“Please,” Helen said, sounding disgusted. “I have much more important things to do than watch your pathetic little life. I can pay people to do that.”

“Jasper,” I muttered.

Helen brushed an invisible speck of dirt from her Barbour jacket.

“Eventually. Bradley had some half-priced private investigator on you at first, but it didn’t take much of an offer to have the PI send his reports to me, as well.

You were spending so much time with that trash of a neighbor that I put the PI on him, as well. That’s how I found Jasper.”

“The break-in while I was asleep?”

“Jasper,” she huffed. “He was already quite transfixed with your downfall to cause that son of his pain.”

“The car nearly running me down?”

Helen’s lips pursed. “Jasper, too. He got a bit too carried away there. He was just supposed to scare you into going home, back to Bradley, where you belong. Bradley was becoming more and more unglued by the day. I’d hoped sending him off with some friends would help…”

“But it didn’t. Because I’m not the problem,” I snapped.

This blow was harder, the butt of the gun glancing off my cheekbone. I doubled over as I cried out.

“I should’ve let Jasper have his way from the beginning and ended your pathetic existence. I should’ve known he wouldn’t be able to do that. But, as they say, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” she spat.

Helen’s face twisted into a sneer. “Such a tragedy. One of Jasper’s associates double-crosses him and shoots him in cold blood. Then you try to escape, but you’re gunned down, as well. It’ll serve as a warning to Bradley. You are the company you keep.”

My heart hammered against my ribs as I struggled to breathe. My face felt as if someone had exploded a tiny bomb just under the surface. But I had to pull it together. I had to fight.

With everything I had, I forced myself to straighten. “You won’t get away with this.”

“Oh, darling. I already have.” Helen’s face went completely cold. “Now, start running.”

I knew what she wanted now. To paint a scene that fit her narrative. But I wouldn’t give it to her. “No.”

“Excuse me?” Helen’s tone went shrill, full of the entitlement borne of the rich and spoiled.

“I said no. I’m not making this any easier on you.” I braced, waiting for her to move just slightly. If I could get the right angle, I could knock her back into the massive boulder to her left.

“Mercer County Sheriff’s Department, lower your weapon,” Beth called through the trees.

My heart seized, relief and panic warring in equal measure. But Helen moved faster than I’d ever seen her move before. In a split second, she was behind me, and the barrel of her gun was pressed to the underside of my chin.

“Lower your weapon,” Beth ordered again, stepping out from between the trees.

Helen started to laugh. “You came alone, little girl? Such a mistake.”

“Not alone,” Anson said, stepping out of the woods to my left.

Helen cursed and gripped my hair harder, making tears flood my eyes. “You sniveling little bitch. You ruin everything. If you think I’m going down alone, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Don’t.”

The new voice nearly had my knees buckling. Trace. If there was one voice I wanted to hear before I left this planet, it was his.

“You,” Helen growled. “She would’ve gone back where she belonged if you hadn’t come along.”

Trace stepped in from the right, his weapon raised. “There’s only one place Ellie belongs.”

Helen let out a low scoff. “Let me guess? With you. ”

“No,” Trace said. “Wherever she chooses to be.”

“Chief,” I croaked.

“Love you, Blaze. You showed me what love means,” Trace rasped, his dark green irises swimming with unshed tears.

Helen gripped my hair even tighter. “You don’t get to love anyone but my Bradley,” she cried.

A crack pierced the air. Pain bloomed. And then chaos erupted.