Ball & Chain (Cut & Run 8)

“Got blood here,” Ty called. They were losing evidence to the rain quickly, and almost as soon as he’d spotted it, the blood had been washed away. The ball in Ty’s stomach grew heavier when he realized the tracks were leading them directly to the cliff’s edge. He picked up the pace, no longer trying to read the story the tracks were telling them. Kelly stopped and picked up something that glinted in the light of his flashlight.

“Oh God,” he whispered. He held up a gold claddagh ring that Nick rarely took off. “This is his.”

Ty broke into a jog, following the obvious path in the grass until they took a sharp left. Ty momentarily lost the trail, then picked it up again. The cliff’s edge opened up at his side like the gaping maw of some primeval monster, angry waves crashing far below. Nick had run along the edge of the cliff.

“Was he going for the cliff?” Zane asked, sounding just as confused as Ty was.

“It’s possible, I don’t know.”

“Could he have survived that fall?” Emma asked, sounding stunned and horrified.

“The fall, yes, if he cleared the rocks,” Kelly answered. “The water, no. Not for long.”

“Could he have cleared the rocks?” Zane asked.

Ty gave a helpless shrug. “I . . . I don’t know. I know I couldn’t.”

“Why . . . why would he do this?” Emma asked.

Ty had no answer. He backtracked, trying to find some clue in the trail. He finally saw one in a patch of mud, and he bent to look closer. “There was someone else out here.”

Zane came to look over his shoulder, offering the light of his flashlight as well. Ty showed them Nick’s track, light and barely there in the grass. There was another, heavier print in the mud. It overlapped Nick’s footprint, meaning whoever had made it had come after.

“Someone was chasing him,” Emma surmised. “There was someone else up there with them.”

“It’s just one pair, though,” Ty told them. “Nick was running from one guy? That doesn’t seem right.”

“I don’t care if it’s the f**king hounds of the Baskervilles!” Kelly shouted. “Nick would have stood and fought! Nothing scares Nick enough to make him run, to try to jump off a f**king cliff! Nothing!”

Ty reached out to take Kelly’s arm, but the man shoved him away and pointed a finger in his face. “He came here for you, Ty! He came here because you’re his brother, and he’d do anything for you!”

“I know, Doc,” Ty managed to say, his voice breaking.

“You know damn well he wouldn’t have left those kids unprotected, I don’t care what kind of flashback he was having! And he wouldn’t have run! He wouldn’t have run away! He would have stood and he would have fought! You know he would have fought!”

Ty held up both hands, wanting to comfort Kelly but too confused and heartbroken to try. He didn’t understand what the tracks were telling him. Everything he knew about Nick screamed the evidence was lying, because damn right Nick would have fought. Ty had seen him stand his ground in situations where even Ty wanted to duck and cover. Nick would have fought to his very last breath no matter what he was facing.

“Maybe he would run,” Zane said after a few moments of silence.

Kelly turned on him, eyes blazing in the light of the flashlights. Thunder crashed right over them, and the skies opened up again. Zane held up a hand to avoid Kelly’s angry words.

“He would run from someone,” Zane said again. “If he was leading them away from something else. Something he was protecting.”

Kelly stared at him for a beat, then he and Ty locked eyes as they both realized what Zane was saying.

“Nick’s the one who moved the kids,” Ty said quickly. “He’s not pursuing someone. He took the kids. He must have been there before the shooting started.”

Kelly swiped a hand over his mouth, looking down at the tracks and then to the cliff. “He must have gotten wind of something coming and didn’t have time to call for help. He hid the kids, then took off running, left a trail an idiot could follow.”

“Hey, I found that trail,” Emma grunted.

Somewhere in the darkness ahead of them came three gunshots in rapid succession, then a garbled shout through the pouring rain.

“Oh Jesus,” Ty breathed as he shined the weak light of his flashlight into the night.

Kelly jammed the ring onto his finger, then cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Nick!”

His voice was swallowed by the pounding surf below and the downpour from above. They all waited, holding their breaths, desperate for a return call. Ty couldn’t tell the difference between the beat of his heart, the sound of the surf and rain, and his desperate desire to hear his best friend’s voice. All the sounds of that moment were, to his ears, Nick crying out for help.

The touch of Zane’s hand to his shoulder spurred him on, and they followed the sound of the gunshots, holding to the swiftly dissolving trail, watching it zigzag like Nick had been dodging something. It came nauseatingly close to the edge at times.

The wind and rain whipped at Ty’s thin shirt, whistling in his ears, stinging his eyes until they teared. He had no doubt those gunshots hadn’t been heard inside the thick walls of the mansion.

They climbed the incline that led to the crumbling ruin of the lighthouse on the hill. When they hit the top of the hill, the scene before them kicked Ty’s instincts into gear, and he and Kelly both threw themselves to the ground. Zane followed suit, and Kelly pulled Emma down so they wouldn’t be seen.

A man stood at the very edge of the jagged cliff, holding something bundled in a white blanket that practically glowed in the moonlight. Ty could tell it was Nick merely by the set of his shoulders. Another man stood with his back to them, pointing a gun at Nick.

“Give me the kid, and no one gets hurt,” the man with the gun shouted into the wind. His accent was Scottish.

Ty’s breath left him in a rush. “Amelia,” he gasped. Nick was holding Amelia, clutching her to his chest to protect her.

If Nick said anything, his response was lost in the wind.

“I don’t need her alive!” the gunman shouted. “I just need pieces of her to send to her granddaddy!”

Zane grabbed at Ty’s arm and back, trying to keep him from getting up, but Zane wasn’t fast enough. Ty lunged to his feet and charged the man. He hit him from behind. The gun went off as Ty and the gunman tumbled to the ground.