Panic welled up inside her, constricting her throat so that she could scarcely get her breath. She might have a sad-ass life at the moment, but it was all she had.
Emma found her voice. “Just remember this: If I live, there’s the chance my memory will return, and you’ll have answers. If you kill me, you’ll never know who really murdered your sister. You might pass the murderer in the street and you’d never know it. Someone in your own organization may be gloating about it right now. Are you good with that? Are you willing to trade a political win based on a lie for a lifetime of wondering?”
They stood, eyes locked, for one, two, three heartbeats. Then Rowan looked away. “I suppose I’ll just have to take that chance,” he said, a muscle in his jaw working. “Now listen. Here’s how the evening will go. I expect the council members to arrive about six o’clock. You’ll hear a lot of coming and going about that time. We’ll be up front until about seven, then adjourn to the study that lets out onto the terrace. I’ll come to get you between seven and eight.” Releasing her, he dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out the gloves he’d taken from her. “Keep these, if you want.” Then he was gone.
Emma stood, frowning, weighing the gloves in her hand, going back over her conversation with Rowan. I expect the council members to arrive about six o’clock. . . . We’ll be up front until about seven . . . I’ll come to get you between seven and eight. Why had he been so specific about times? Why had he returned the gloves to her after taking them away?
Unless he meant for her to use them.
First, she had to get over the garden wall. Emma hauled a chair out of her room and set it next to the wall. Then piled cushions on top of that. When she stood on top of the trembling stack, she could just reach the top of the wall with her fingertips. It was good that she was tall, or she’d never have made it. At least her arms were strong from hand-sanding and carrying wood around. As it was, she skinned both knees through her borrowed jeans as she scrambled for a toehold. Not a good start.
Once on the ground on the other side, she crouched close to the wall and scanned the grounds, looking for the two guards patrolling the compound. She watched until she figured out the pattern. One guard generally stayed in the guardhouse, probably watching the video feed while the other walked the grounds. Then they would switch off. One good thing about their presence was that there were unlikely to be motion detectors, at least nowhere near the perimeter walls.
She waited five minutes after the guard passed by, then fell in behind him, following the same path, every sense alert in case he stopped somewhere along the way.
Burroughs was right. There was a storm coming in. The tops of the trees thrashed overhead, sending flurries of leaves spiraling to the ground. The day had been sultry and summerlike, but now the northeast wind stung her skin, bringing the scent of rain, the touch of cold places in the north. She was glad of her sweatshirt, and jeans, and sturdy shoes. Looking on the bright side, the sound of the incoming storm covered any noise she made. And nobody would expect her to be outside in such weather.
Emma looked back at the house. Her phone was back at Tyler’s, and she didn’t have a watch, so she’d have to guess the time from the rough schedule Rowan had given her. Lights were ablaze in front of the house, cars coming and going. Which meant it was just after six, so she had an hour before anyone would notice her absence and sound an alarm.
She left the path along the wall at the edge of the cliff, knowing she’d be silhouetted against the lake as she walked along the shoreline. She’d have about fifteen minutes before the second guard passed by.
The stone wall that ran along the edge of the cliff was only waist-high so it wouldn’t block the view of the water from the house. Just inside the wall, a large tree shaded the terrace.
The first large drops of rain splatted down.
Swearing, Emma uncoiled her rope. She wished she knew more about knots, but who knew that such knowledge would be important one day? Hurriedly, she doubled the rope, threaded the loop around the tree, then ran the ends through the loop. She pulled on the gloves, then boosted herself over the wall.
It all but ended there. Had she not had a death’s hold on the ropes, the wind howling along the cliff ’s edge would have blown her away.
Emma looked down, at a jumble of jagged rocks at the bottom. The cliff seemed higher now that she was getting ready to climb down it. At least it was getting dark, making it harder to see the bottom. She swallowed down the terror rising in her throat. You can do this, she told herself. And then: Don’t think about it. Just do it.
She turned, facing away from the raging lake, gripped the ropes in either hand, crouched, and stepped backward.
She could tell right away that this mission would have been a total no-go without the gloves. Desperately, she clung to the increasingly slippery rope as rain needled her face and rivulets of mingled water and sweat ran down her neck.
Cautiously, she slid one hand down the rope until it came up against a knot. She followed with the other hand, kicking off the rock and planting her feet a bit lower.
Repeat.
Despite all her precautions, the wind caught her and slammed her against stone before she could get her feet in proper position. Swearing some more, she turned and planted her feet against the rocky wall.
In that way, she crept down the face of the cliff, agonizingly slowly. By now she was soaked through, battered and bruised, blisters already forming on the palms of her hands through the gloves. She wished there were a way to stop and rest, but there was no place to wedge herself in order to relieve the stress on her hands.
Best to get it over with as quickly as possible. At least it was not an electrical storm. That would’ve been terri— The entire shoreline lit up as lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating layers of threatening gray clouds. Thunder crashed, the sound reverberating off stone.
Emma glared up at the heavens, squinting against the torrents of rain. “Hey!” she shouted. She would have shaken her fist if she’d had a hand free. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry, all right? Can you cut me a break?”
She was answered by another strobe of lightning. As she turned her head away, she thought she saw something moving on the cliff face, farther down. The shoreline went dark again as the crash of thunder seemed likely to shake her loose from her mooring.
Was somebody already climbing down after her? If so, why was he over there? And how did he get below her? Granted, she was slow, but . . . she looked up the twin ropes to where they disappeared over the cliff ’s edge and saw no activity, no lights . . . nothing.
She kept her eyes fixed down the shoreline to the east. When the lightning flared again, she saw nothing unusual.
You really are seeing things, she thought, and continued her painful descent.
Now the spray from the crashing waves was drenching her, adding to her general misery. Amazingly, that meant she must be nearing the bottom. Kicking out with her foot, she managed to find purchase on an outcrop of broken stone. She found a place for her other foot, then stood there, trying to catch her breath, her shoulders screaming in pain, all of her muscles quivering. Waves swirled around her feet, then receded.
She looked to her left. Heaps of broken rock formed a sort of path along the shore. If she could just keep her footing, she might be able to work her way down past the perimeter wall and find a way to climb back up to street level.
She inched her way to the left, keeping hold of the rope, hoping it would slide sideways enough to get her past the wall. Then her questing foot met nothing but air and she looked down to see boiling water far below. There was a major gap in what had seemed to be a continuous if dangerous path. Emma slid the rope a little farther, but then it caught on an outcropping high above her. She eyed the gap, judging the distance. Could she somehow swing across it?
“Emma!” someone shouted. Sheltering her face with her arm, she looked up and saw figures milling at the top of the cliff. Her escape attempt had been discovered. Had it really been an hour?
“Emma! Don’t move! Stay there and hold tight to the rope! We’ll come down and get you.”
It was Rowan DeVries. Even with all the wind and rain and crashing waves, she recognized his voice, his silhouette.
Not going back, Emma thought. There’s trouble up top, and trouble down below. But I’ve already been up top.
Again, she turned and faced downshore. She set her feet, bent her knees, and pushed off, swinging in a long, low arc across the breach. Her feet had actually touched the other side when a huge wave slammed into her, hurling her sideways against the cliff. She took the impact in her shoulder, and immediately her arm went numb.
She screamed, blood welling up salty in her mouth where she’d bitten her tongue, tears of pain and frustration welling up in her eyes. She bumped against the cliff twice more before she ended up dangling against a sheer rock face. The cliff jutted out to either side, so that she was enclosed by stone on three sides. She could think of no way to get past it. It was hard enough holding on to the ropes with her injured arm.
She was trapped. Sooner or later, a wave would hit her hard enough so that she’d lose hold on the rope and drop into the foaming lake below.
Chapter Thirty-four
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
“Are you hurt?”
Emma started, nearly losing hold of the rope. The voice came from just over her right shoulder. In fact, the speaker sounded like he was nearly on top of her. Carefully, she turned to find a boy perched on a rock outcropping like a . . . like whatever thing it is that perches on rocks. He wore black clothing that seemed to turn the rain, a nylon webbing harness overtop. His black hair was plastered to his head, but otherwise he looked like he belonged there, one leg thrust out, foot resting on a ledge below, the other bent beneath him. He had a coil of rope slung over his shoulder, gloves on his hands, and narrow-toed, high-tech sneakers on his feet.
Oh, and his eyes were so blue a person could drown in them. Blue, and somehow familiar, striking a chord that had sounded in her heart before.
“Are you hurt?” the boy repeated, those blue eyes sweeping her for damage. He seemed tightly wound, vibrating, like a guitar string tuned to a high pitch.