Page 126 of Last Seen

Cat’s getting paler and paler in the meager moonlight. “It wasn’t me, Halley Bear. It was Ian. Read the letters,” she says, the light leaving her eyes. “Take care of Gray.”

And with a final ragged breath, she goes still. Her hand slips to the ground.

A mournful cry starts up among the women, and Halley joins them. The little boy is brought to her side. Summer is holding him. Heather is stroking Cat’s hair.

“Say goodbye to your mother,” Summer says. “It is an honor to be by her side as she moves to the heavens.”

The little boy looks at Cat with a cry twisting on his lips, but he doesn’t let it loose.

Halley is thrown back to the moment she kneeled next to her own mother, bloodied and bruised, the moment before she was yanked by the foot and thrown headfirst into the fireplace mantel. The moment her life changed forever, the moment that set her on this path. She had no time to say goodbye to her mother. She was too young to truly understand what it meant. And now, she’s lost her sister, too. The woman she mourned for so long is here, covered in dirt and blood, to be mourned again.

She pulls herself from Cat’s side and takes the little boy—her nephew—in her arms.

“Shh,” she says, though he is not uttering a sound. She says the words she wishes were a part of her waking memory. The words that will hopefully eventually transform this nightmare into a bad dream. “Shh. It will be okay. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Death comes for us at the most inconvenient times.

Do not worry.

Dying does not hurt at all.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Halley

It is dawn before they are found.

The fire draws first responders from all the surrounding areas. Fires anywhere are bad; fires in the Great Smoky Mountains can quickly become conflagrations that take out thousands of acres of property, private and federal. The sirens shriek like lonely seagulls for hours until there is another glow on the horizon, this time from the east.

Ian is dead. The threat is gone.

But Cat is dead with him. An obscene Romeo and Juliet, the two purveyors of hell lie in the dirt above the horrendous world they created.

The women argue a bit about what to do. Summer wants to take the group and keep hiking. Get as far away as possible. Heather wants to go back to Brockville for help. Halley is not about to pull Cat’s son away from his mother’s body until he is damn good and ready. They tell Halley some of their story. How Ian collected them. How Cat took care of them. They claim Miles didn’t know, that Ian hid them from him.

Halley doesn’t know if she believes them. She holds her nephew and rocks him, humming, trying, so hard, to keep her own monsters at bay. The darkness has stopped being something protective. It is now full of terror.

In the end, two men appear from the dusty horizon. One is Cameron Brockton. The other is Theo Donovan.

“They’re here,” Cameron yells.

Halley is relieved to see them both. It must show on her face because his voice cracks when he sees her. He drops to his knees beside her.

“Halley? Baby. Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay. Handle them.”

Surely Theo’s presence with Cameron means they are safe now. But Halley is never going to feel safe here again. She’s been rocking Gray since his mother fell, and the blood is dried on them both. Theo’s abject horror at the scene they’ve stumbled upon is quickly rewritten, his professional facade slamming into place. Training kicks in. He starts gathering women and preserving the scene. Cameron isn’t as schooled; he mills about like a lost duckling on the periphery, the truth of his world crashing down upon him. His dead brother was holding a mass of women hostage, and now he is dead again. Lying in the grass alone.

We are all alone in the end.

The crime scene is sorted professionally. Theo knows his job. Halley waits with Gray in her arms. He is fascinated by the blinking blue and white lights. She is glad to see him looking around now, interested. She has no idea what sort of mothering he received, whether he was raised alone with Cat, or as a part of the group. There is so much to learn.

The women and children are taken to a holding area to be reunited with their families, if they have them. Theo comes to Halley’s side.

“Hi,” she says.