Red Dawn Rising (Red Returning Trilogy) (13 page)

“Of course you did.”

“No!”

“You set your sights on him long before we broke up.”

“No! No! I didn’t!”

Rachel raised a quieting hand. “Stop it! I didn’t come here for this.”

Cass shook violently and had to grab the tiller with both hands to steady herself.

“I discovered I was pregnant after we broke up.” Rachel looked away and closed her eyes. “I didn’t tell anyone but Adam.” She squeezed tears from her eyes and let them run at will down her cheeks. “He was so angry at first. He cursed at me. I didn’t hear from him for days.” She opened her eyes, wiped them, and turned a suddenly wistful expression on Cass.

“And then, he came to see me. He said he had warmed to the idea of having a family. He promised he’d marry me. That everything would be all right. I was ecstatic.” Then the face contorted with the next words. “But one night on a beach, Adam forgot all about that promise … and me.”

Cass could hardly breathe.

“Then he told me he couldn’t possibly marry me … when he was in love with Cass Rodino.”

A whimper slipped from Cass and she clamped both hands hard against her mouth, against the cry rising inside. And then the words slipped through. “Rachel, I was drunk! I didn’t know what I was doing. I hardly knew who I was doing it with. Please understand. Please!”

But Rachel acted as if she didn’t hear. “I can’t tell my parents. It would kill them.” She swiped a strand of wet hair roughly from her face. “No, I can never tell them.”

“Rachel, listen to me! I’ll take care of you! We’ll go somewhere together until the baby is born. Where no one knows us. I can get the money. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

The green eyes held Cass with contempt. “And that would make you feel better, wouldn’t it?”

A sudden wind broadsided the sails and tipped the girls toward each other. Cass grabbed at Rachel to keep her from falling until the boat was turned back into the wind. Rachel looked down at Cass’s grip on her arm. “I always thought you were the strong one, the one who always knew the best thing to do.” She looked at Cass distantly, a feverish smile stretching her lips. “But now it’s me. Now
I
know what’s best.”

Cass searched the face, the eyes so strangely dim.

Rachel lifted a hand to her hair and removed the clip, letting the shining tresses unfurl in the wind. “There’s always a way out, isn’t there?” she asked, drawing her feet from under the strap.

“Of course there is!” Cass wailed, hope rising inside her. “You can move in with me and we’ll do this together. We’ll get you to a doctor, and we’ll—”

Rachel suddenly reached to touch Cass’s hand, halting her words. “It’s okay,” she said softly, then slid backward into the water.

“Rachel!” Cass lunged across the trampoline.

But it took only seconds for Rachel to release herself from the vest and begin her descent. Almost as if she’d rehearsed it.

Cass stripped off her own vest and dove in, stroking frantically after Rachel. But the clarity of the afternoon waters had already yielded to the coming night. The deeper Cass plunged, the blinder her chase. The more she thrashed downward, the quicker her breath escaped. Through the sightless waters she grabbed aimlessly for a head of chestnut hair, willing her fingers to lock into its tangled web and find the body beneath still pulsing warm blood.
God, help me!
she screamed inside her skull.

When the searing began in her lungs, Cass knew she would have to choose. Go with Rachel? Accept the fate Cass had brought down on them both? Or go back … and pretend to live. Decide quickly! There’s no more time!

But then the waters grew so cool. So peaceful. Cass felt them swirl
gently
around her, pulling her into their embrace, her arms floating up to meet them. Had she made her choice?

No! I can’t do this!

Suddenly, her body convulsed. Her legs scissored violently, thrusting her upward.

Exhaling her last breath, her lungs screaming for air, she split the surface and instantly dragged oxygen into her body, forcing the cold knife of air to pierce her.

She could do only one thing now. Scream. Hysterical screams, as if they would raise Rachel from the depths.

Why did she do it? God, why?

Only when her voice failed and the screams died did she observe her surroundings. The capsized boat floated in the near distance, toward the inlet. Two orange life vests floundered in the swells. Could she make it to either? Exhaustion displaced the adrenaline that had fueled her manic dive. Hysteria paralyzed her mind, her limbs. Darkness fell upon her, and she wallowed into a half-conscious float, face up.

Then a sound. What was it? A voice. She managed to raise her head. There! A light coming from shore, bobbing in the waves.

“Cass!”

A familiar voice.
Dad?

“Grab the ring!”

Just then, something white sailed toward her, and she lifted one limp arm toward it. Missed it. Missed it again.

Then a splash. A man’s arms beneath her, lifting. Her dad’s voice in her ear. It was over.

Now, as her body slumped against the dune and her sights fastened on that place where the sea had consumed a broken young woman, Cass mourned as if the eight years since that day had never passed. As if she’d never been plucked from the dying waters.
God, why didn’t you let me go, too? And why do I keep talking to you as if you’re here?

Cass pulled her knees to her chin and began to rock herself, wishing some kind of oblivion to catch with the cadence of her motion and relieve her pain. Then she stopped. A voice. A light coming toward her. Just like that night.

And again, a voice yanked her from the madness of her grief, snatched her from the brink. “Cass, where are you?”

Jordan!
Something hot and smothering lifted from her. She stood and faced the light beam strafing the sand, searching for her. No, she was not going to drown. Another man’s arms were about to lift her again.
Jordan, you came for me!

She ran headlong for him, calling his name, and barely slowing when she reached him. As he opened his arms to her, she leapt at him and laid her head against his broad chest. There were no words. They just clung silently to each other with the surf rolling gently toward them. Cass inhaled the warmth of him and felt herself go limp in his arms.

When she finally pulled away and found her footing on the sand, she looked up at him through the blur of tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know what—”

He ended her words with a finger to her lips, then bent and kissed them gently. When he pulled away, she reached with both arms around his neck and drew him to her again, this time kissing him back with an intensity she didn’t understand. She could only lose herself in it, with only the slightest suspicion that it was her temporary escape from torment. But if that’s what it was, and nothing more, she would not hurt another soul with her rash and reckless ways. She broke away from him, her guard back and firmly in place.

“Whoa,” he said, letting her go. “What just happened?”

She looked sadly at him. “Something that shouldn’t have, Jordan. I’m sorry I did that to you.”

“Well, I’m not.” He grinned down at her. “Want to do it again?” He reached for her.

But she stepped back and laughed.

There in the hurting place, she laughed. Something immovable inside her had just yielded. To Jordan’s touch. She looked into the winsome face
of
this man who had no idea what happened off this beach eight years ago. Someday, she would tell him.

But now, she must leave one horror buried while she unearthed another.

“Jordan, I can’t explain what just happened. Let’s just—”

“Let’s just admit that there’s more to us than friendship, and that in our own good time, we’ll discover what it is. Is that what you were about to say?”

She nodded slowly. “I truly don’t deserve you.”

He shrugged. “Probably not. But you’re stuck with me. Especially since we’re guilty of breaking and entering together.” His smiling eyes turned serious. “And since we just uncovered the secret life of Hans Kluen.”

Cass zipped her jacket to her chin and shoved her hands in her pockets. “There’s only one thing I’m going to do about that right now. I have to warn Liesl Bower.”

Chapter 15

A
cheerful cerulean sky contradicted the dread Ben Hafner felt as he paced beside Annapolis Harbor that Friday morning. No matter the direction he pounded the splintered boards of the wharf, his line of sight never veered from the entrance to the harbor.

Jeremy Rubin had once again slipped through the security grid to enter U.S. waters, this time inside his own stateroom aboard a sailing vessel of Bermuda registry. Its sails down, the sleek boat finally motored through the turn at the mouth of the Severn River, past the U.S. Naval Academy, and into Spa Creek. Plying the harbor’s brisk chop with the grace of a dolphin, the boat finally eased into a slip a short distance from Ben.

No sooner had the boat’s crew secured its lines to the dock than the slight figure of a man in a puffy black jacket and knit cap quickly disembarked. He stopped to locate Ben’s position, then headed straight for him.

Ben didn’t move from his post beside a metal warehouse that leaned precariously toward the water. His hood snug over his head, sunglasses in place, he scanned the area continuously as his brother-in-law walked over to join him. Ben thought it a confident swagger.

Moments later, the two left the harbor in a small sedan, Ben driving, his eyes roving to and from the rearview mirror. There was too much at stake to be careless.

“You’re looking well fed, brother,” Jeremy snickered, as Ben headed away from town.

“I’m not your brother. Not even your friend. And if I had to live my life as a fugitive outrunning authorities over half the world, I might be as scrawny as you.”

Jeremy sniffed derisively. “Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.” He looked out the window as if composing what he would say next. Then he turned full-body in his seat to face Ben, who kept his eyes on the winding country road ahead. “Look, we’d better come to some kind of truce because I’m going to be your handler for a long time to come, and there’s not much you can do about it. Moscow chose me for obvious reasons, and if you’re coming in with us, it’s healthier for you and me both if we demonstrate a united front. Kind of like old times in Boston, you know.”

Ben glimpsed the conspiratorial smirk on Jeremy’s face. “The only thing that’s ever united us was Anna.”

Jeremy turned to watch the road. “How is my lily-white sister?”

Ben threw a dagger glance at him. “The one whose life you would sell to the highest bidder? Whose husband you tried to disgrace by feeding his past dirt to a traitorous White House aide? That sister?”

“I told you, that wasn’t me. I don’t know who sent all that stuff to Ted Shadlaw.”

“Obviously someone who didn’t know I’d already told the president all about my brief tenure with the Boston Bolsheviks. Someone like my clueless brother-in-law, who, by the way, would be the only one who could have supplied the incriminating shot of you and me on that paramilitary charade. Only try to explain to the FBI that the automatic weapon was just a prop.”

“That wasn’t me, either.” Jeremy began to fume. “You don’t know what it’s like! What they’re like! They get their hands on you, on everything you own—including your family photographs! They own all of you.”

“Is that why you abandoned your wife? They made you? Or did you love your freedom more?” Ben knew he’d better back off, reminding himself why he was there.

Jeremy ignored the taunts. “Boston was like nursery school. The Boston
Bolsheviks
. What a laugh. Just a bunch of Harvard brats in diapers throwing rocks and breaking a few windows. But even then, I did it because I thought I was right and the establishment was wrong. And they
were
wrong!”

“So you turned against your own country and ran off to join the world’s brotherhood of misfits, wherever you could find them.”

Jeremy’s eyes glazed. “It was so good for a while. I belonged. In Paris, London, Istanbul, Jerusalem. Like a secret fraternity.” He looked at Ben. “I never belonged anywhere before. You know that.”