Page 71 of Glimmer in the Darkness

“After you’re safely away, I’ll tell Vince everything.”

“Vince is… who?”

“Detective working on the case, and my friend.”

James was friends with the cop who was searching for her, who thought she was a murderer? How did that work?

She hobbled into the downstairs bathroom. What she really needed was a shower, but she’d do that when she got back to the cabin. For now, she washed her hands and splashed some water on her face.

She’d lifted the bandage and was trying to get a look at the wound in the mirror when the doorbell rang.

James’s footsteps rumbled down the stairs. He knocked once on the bathroom door. “Stay there. I’ll see who it is.”

Probably nobody to be afraid of, but her heart hammered anyway.

“Hey, man. What brings you by?” James’s voice was faint through the walls and wood that separated them.

“Is she here?” The voice was muffled, the words clear.

Adrenaline whooshed through her veins. Who was it?

“She who?” James said.

Footsteps pounded on the hardwood.

“Sure, come on in.” James’s voice was laced with sarcasm.

Cassidy rushed to the window and raised the sash. Her hands trembled as she worked to lift the screen on the decades-old window. Finally, she got it up. She stuck her head out, half expecting to see cops surrounding the property, guns drawn. But the backyard was empty.

She hoisted herself onto the sill and out the window, dropped between the rhododendron bushes that lined the back of the house, and ran across the grass.

Where should she go?

The campground. She had no other choice. She bolted through the woods, pulling out her phone on the way and thanking God she hadn’t stored it in the backpack. She opened the Lyft app and ordered a ride, praying the driver wouldn’t recognize her.

She hid in the woods between the campground and the trailhead and waited until her ride was close. Mercifully, just a few minutes later, she jogged to meet the little Volkswagen with the Lyft placard in the window and slid into the backseat.

“How you doing?” the young driver asked.

“Too much sun.” She angled her back to the window and closed her eyes as if she couldn’t keep them open another minute, hoping the guy wouldn’t notice the bandage on her head.

If only she had her sunglasses, her baseball cap. They were in her backpack.

She had the feeling the driver would be asked about this ride, so she couldn’t go straight back to the rental. As desperately as she needed to rest, she settled in for the long drive to Plymouth, the first town that had come to mind when she’d ordered the Lyft. When she was dropped at the supermarket, she’d order an Uber to take her to her rental. She just needed to throw off the police long enough for her to collect her things and disappear. Again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

While Vince searched the house. James deleted Cassidy’s phone number from his contacts and recent calls. Someone at the station would be able to retrieve that information, but hopefully by then she’d have dumped her phone.

He shoved her sweatshirt deep in his kitchen trash, then slipped her glass and bowl into the dishwasher.

He sat and sipped his water as if his insides weren’t balled up like a fist.

He wasn’t sure what to hope for.

He’d convinced himself on their long trek down the mountain that the best course of action would be to call the police, report the shooting, and tell them everything they’d learned. But now, as one of his best friends stomped through his house, gun drawn, James wondered if Cassidy had been right. It seemed that Vince and the rest of the Coventry PD were so sure she was guilty that they might not listen to reason. When James had opened the door, Vince’s face, contorted in rage, had shocked him. He’d never seen his friend wearing that expression before. If Vince had that much fury built up, James worried what he would do if he found Cassidy.

With a gun in his hand.