Page 173 of Paranoid

She swam away, wanting to scream, the world spinning. All the horror in her life converged in her brain as she felt the air leave her lungs.

Harper, she thought wildly, trying to concentrate. She’d left her daughter with that monster. Her heart cracked as she let out her final breath and thought, Oh, baby, I’ve failed you.

* * *

Using her flashlight, Kayleigh took one look at Lucas Ryder, Cade’s nephew, a damned bolt cutter lodged in his back, his throat showing a gaping hole where blood still ran from being attacked by God knew what. He was still alive, but just barely.

She recognized the second man as Xander Vale, the person he’d used as a human shield. Vale, too, was in rough shape, suffering from a wound in his leg, possibly a gunshot. How the hell had that happened?

“Where’s Rachel Ryder?” she asked just as a deputy yelled, “She went through the floor! Holy crap, did you see that?”

Kayleigh strode to the opening in the floorboards and spied a metal slide of sorts.

“Down there?”

“Yeah.”

“Crap.”

She pointed to the two injured men. “Take care of them. Get ambulances out here and keep each suspect under guard. Call for River Rescue. I want a boat out here ASAP. Then, for God’s sake, back me up and keep that light shining down there!” Then, cursing the fates, she lowered herself into the rusting slide, let go, and slid down the damned chute after Cade Ryder’s wife.

If she was lucky, she could save Rachel.

If not, they both could drown.

She dropped into the Columbia, felt its frigid pull as the current drew her westward, toward the Pacific.

She blinked, tried to see through the darkness. God damn, where the hell were Rachel and the light? Come on, where was the light? She broke the surface. “I can’t see a damned thing down here!” she yelled, then took a deep breath and dove deep. A light from above illuminated the water and she nearly screamed as she spied the body of a man, floating near the bottom, his foot tethered to some rocks, the flesh of his face in tatters.

Sick!

Her skin crawled and she swam backward, then saw a woman, caught in the current.

Not on my watch!

Kayleigh kicked hard, knifing through the water, moving to the shadowy depths where the light didn’t reach. She reached Rachel, whose face was milk white, her hair billowing around her in a cloud, air bubbles dancing up from her lips. Come on, Kayleigh thought, reaching around her and wrapping her arms under Rachel’s. Freezing, her lungs tight, the pull of the current dragging, Kayleigh kicked hard, dragging Rachel upward, spying the surface where she saw light.

Come on, Rachel. Fight, damn you. You’ve got so much to live for. Your daughter Your son. And Cade.

Rachel kicked, her efforts weak, and Kayleigh cursed her as she struggled, her lungs burning, her legs cramping.

Kick, kick, kick!

Up they swam, the light brighter, Kayleigh’s lungs on fire.

They broke the surface and Kayleigh gasped, holding Rachel’s head above the inky depths, treading water. They were downstream from the old cannery, where lights from police and emergency vehicles lit up the ghastly old complex in flashes of red and blue.

Rachel coughed and sputtered but stayed afloat, her teeth chattering as badly as Kayleigh’s, but to her relief Kayleigh spied a boat approaching, its searchlight sweeping the black surface of the water, turning the dark night into day.

The crew shouted and pulled up alongside, throwing life rings before pulling them aboard. Not the rescue boat but someone out at night, a cabin cruiser that, in Kayleigh’s estimation, was a yacht, with its dry towels and hot cups of coffee. Rachel looked like death warmed over, her lips blue, but, Kayleigh guessed, she would make it. They motored back to the cannery, where Rachel, like Lucas Ryder and Xander Vale before her, was driven away in an ambulance.

Shivering and half drowned, she’d refused care at first and begged Kayleigh to find her daughter and insisted on calling her son. “I will, but first I need to tell you about Cade,” Kayleigh had said. If possible, Rachel had blanched whiter still until she heard from Detective Voss, at the cannery, that Cade’s wounds weren’t life threatening. His nose was broken, two ribs were cracked, and the muscles in his shoulders were ripped to shreds, but he would live. Then Kayleigh had given her Cade’s phone and she’d connected with Dylan only to discover that Harper was home and safe, that, Rachel had reported to Kayleigh after hanging up, she’d escaped Lucas by attacking him with an umbrella.

“An umbrella and bolt cutters,” Kayleigh had said aloud, thinking about it. “Beating out a pistol. Who would’ve thought?”

At that point Rachel, finally realizing that her kids and ex were safe, had nearly collapsed in relief. She’d agreed to go to the hospital to be checked over and have her torn hand tended to, but she’d been insistent that she be released immediately.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Kayleigh had said as Rachel was helped into the ambulance. “These days a total knee replacement is day surgery.”