Loving Lily (17 page)

"We need
to hurry," the man holding her arms behind her said.

Roy nodded.
 
"Bring her
. "

"Why are
you doing this?" Lily wheezed, unable to stop herself from asking.
 
"You don't know me.
 
I didn't even know you existed. "

Roy turned to
her.
 
"You're so stupid.
 
I can't believe you ended up with all the
money. "

Money?
she
thought.
 
This is all about money?
"What are you talking about?"

He shook his
head.
 
"You're worth over five
million dollars and you have the audacity to stand there looking confused.
 
I hate you.
 
I hated your whole family. "

Lily forced
herself to think.
 
"You want my
money?"

"It's not
your
money, bitch.
 
It was supposed to be mine.
 
Of course, when your dear grandpa caught me
making moves on your mother, he overreacted.
 
He had me arrested.
 
Written out of the
inheritance.
 
I don't know how he
managed to convince the courts that I no longer had any legal rights to the
money my dad left to me, but he did it.
 
Somehow.
"

Lily struggled
to put it all together.
 
"You killed
Jack.
 
And mom and dad.
 
And my brother.
" Her
voice broke on that.
 
He'd killed her little brother, Brian.
 
Oh my God
, she thought.
 
I have to get away from him.
 
She renewed her struggles.
 
A blow to the side of her head caught her unexpectedly.

"Settle
down," the man holding her arms growled.

Lily's face was
wet and it wasn’t from the rain.
 
She
stared at Roy.
 
The lightning made her
cousin look like a gargoyle.
 
His eyes
were no longer cold and dead, rather, they glowed with a light so evil she
shuddered, struggling instinctively.
 
The
man behind her hauled her arms up until she couldn't move at all.

"This is
taking too long," the dark-haired man said, grabbing her around the waist.
 
He hauled her against him, carrying her
like a sack of potatoes.

Lily moaned as
the concussion she'd only suspected she'd received roared in protest.
 
Her brain felt like it was too big for her
skull.
 
Her gut heaved and though she
tried to hold back, she threw up as he tightened his arm around her waist.
 
He didn't seem to notice as he carried her,
but she saw Roy grinning at her as she gave one last dry heave, all the tea
she'd drunk earlier becoming nothing but more wet on an already drenched ground.

"Let me
go," she whispered hoarsely.
 
Her
ribs ached.
 
No one heard her.
 
She tried again, but ended up coughing.
 
That hurt even more.
 
Her throat felt like sandpaper.
 
The man holding her didn't even seem to notice.

"Bring her
over.
 
We can toss her in the water here.
 
They'll think she fell off the bridge
and drowned," she heard Roy say.

The man
carrying her heaved her around and dumped her on the ground.
 
The wet grass soaked right through her jeans,
but she was too out of it to care.
 
She
felt them finally take off the plastic ties, but it didn't matter anymore.
 
She couldn't even stand up on her own at this
point.
 
Everything looked fuzzy: the
water, the dark sky, even the lightning was blurred around the edges, no longer
sharp.

"Goodbye,
Laura," Roy said as the man shoved her down the bank.

Lily groaned as
she rolled, ribs protesting.
 
She
scrabbled weakly at the ground, trying desperately to hold onto something, but
her momentum was too great.
 
She hit the
river too fast to do anything except take a big breath and hope she could
somehow keep her head above water.

****

"What's
that?" Alex pointed down the river.

Matt frowned,
leaning on the steel guardrail.
 
They'd
just finished putting up the "Road Closed" signs on the southern end
of the bridge and were standing near the edge of the road, discussing what to
do next.
 
The old house that had
inexplicably caught fire in the middle of a downpour hadn't taken long to put
out, but they'd had to hurry back to the bridge and set up the cones before
anyone tried to drive over it.
 
People
almost always thought they could make it across, even when the water was
obviously too deep for their cars.

"What's
what?" he asked, squinting.
 
The
light was fading fast.
 
He could barely
make out the water from the bank anymore.

"Is that
someone in the water?" Alex pointed.
 
"There, just at the bend.

Matt pursed his
lips,
then
hopped over the railing.
 
He slid on the wet ground, but managed to
catch himself before he lost his footing.
 
"I'll go check it out
. "

"Careful,"
Alex said.

Matt nodded,
hitching the coil of rope he was carrying higher on his shoulder.
 
He slipped and slid down the embankment, then
carefully worked his way downstream.
 
The
usual trail along the side of the river was completely flooded, making the
going rough.
 
When he'd gone about ten
yards, he realized that his brother had seen a shirt stuck to a branch jammed
against a large downed tree, probably uprooted from the force of the water.
 
He walked closer,
then
began to run, splashing through the shallow water at the edge of the flooding.
 
It wasn't a shirt.
 
It was a woman.
 
Shit!

"Get
help!" he yelled back at his brother.
 
"It's a woman!"

Working
quickly, he uncoiled the rope and slipped it around a tree, then threaded the
end through his harness.
 
Thank God I
have my gear
, he thought, using the rope to control his descent into the
water.
 
The current was strong and debris
hit his legs, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.
 
He was trained for this.
 
He paused for a moment, thinking about how to
approach her.
 
He didn't want to get
snarled in the branch.
 
When he plotted
out the best course, he started walking again, letting the water carry him just
past her.
 
The closer he
got,
the more familiar the woman began to look.
 
Her face was turned away from him, but her
hair was the same brown as Lily's.
 
He
carefully let out more rope, hoping she was okay.
 
The water was up to his chest now.

"Matt? You
okay?" Alex yelled from somewhere behind him.

He lifted his
free hand in a thumbs-up, knowing his brother wouldn't be able to hear him.
 
The woman's hands were clenched on the branch,
but her skin was very pale.
 
She must
have been in the water for a while and he hoped she wasn't hypothermic.
 
The water wasn't that cold…

"I've got
the EMT's here," Alex called.

Matt didn't let
his brother's news distract him.
 
The
branch the woman had her fingers wrapped around didn't look very stable.
 
He carefully made his way down current from
her,
then
slid a hand under her waist.
 
"Easy there, I've got you," he
murmured when she jerked.
 
Good, she was
alert enough to feel him.
 
That meant she
would be easier to get out of the water than a dead weight.

He concentrated
on slinging his extra safety harness around her, but when she turned her face
up, he froze for a split-second, training deserting him.
 
"Lily?" he whispered, horrified.

Her eyes
fluttered open.

"Oh my
God," he said, working frantically to get her secure.
 
"Lily, Jesus
. "

"Matt,"
her lips said, but she wasn't making any sound.

"Hang on,
Lily.
 
I'll have you out of here in a
moment.
" Her
eyes weren't focusing correctly.
 
What the hell had happened? His heart was
going a million miles an hour, but he forced himself to concentrate.
 
When he got her into the harness, he hooked it
to his and grabbed her with his free hand, carefully keeping her face out of
the water.

"I knew
you would come," she murmured.
 
She
sounded like someone had run sandpaper over her vocal cords.

"Shh.
 
Don't try to talk.
 
You're safe now.
" Matt
looked up, thankful that Alex had made it to the tree where he'd anchored the
rope.
 
He breathed a sigh of relief when
his brother began to haul them back onto solid ground.

Lily struggled
in his grasp, and he tightened his hold.
 
"Lily—"

"No, you
don't understand
. "
She coughed.

Matt was happy
to see her becoming more awake, but he was worried about getting them out of
the water.
 
"Lily, hang on.
 
We're almost there.
"
He
could feel the current easing as he kept walking them out of the dark
water.

Lily cleared
her throat, eyes growing more lucid.
 
"Matt, you have to be careful.
 
He's still out there. "

Matt almost
stumbled.
 
"Someone did this to
you?" Belatedly he realized that her wrists were bruised.
 
So was her face, but he'd assumed that she'd
fallen and hurt herself.

She nodded,
then
winced.
 
"My cousin.
 
Two other men.
 
They
pushed me in
. "

Matt's heart
seized up.
 
"Someone tried to kill
you," he said flatly.

She closed her
eyes, seemingly relieved that he understood.
 
"Yes
. "

"Fuck,"
he muttered under his breath, hardly able to take it all in, and then his
brother was there.

"Matt,
holy shit," Alex said, taking her from his arms.

Matt didn't
want to let go, but he knew she was in good hands.
 
"I think she hit her head.
 
Or was hit," he said in a low voice.

Alex gave him a
startled look,
then
nodded grimly as he saw the marks
on her wrists.
 
"I won't leave her
alone.
 
You get dry and meet us at the
hospital. "

Matt nodded,
already unclipping himself.
 
"Five
minutes," he said tersely.
 
When
Alex went to carry put her on the stretcher, Matt stopped him, leaning over and
kissing her gently on the forehead.
 
"Hang in there, Lily
. "

She smiled, but
didn't open her eyes.

Three hours
later, Matt sat in a chair next to her hospital bed, hand threaded with hers.
 
His back was killing him leaning over like
this, but he didn't give a shit.
 
Someone
had tried to kill Lily, the love of his life.
 
He'd just found her, and here she was, nearly
lost.
 
His fingers tightened, and then he
took a deep breath and stuffed the rage back down into a hot little ball in his
gut.
 
He had to be patient.
 
He vowed to protect Lily at all costs if it
came to it.
 
He knew he would kill the
person responsible for hurting her if whoever it was tried again.

After Alex and
Matt had gone with her to the hospital, Alex had gone home to get dry clothes
for Matt, only to find that his place had been broken into.
 
Nothing had been stolen, so they were forced
to conclude that whoever was responsible had come there for Lily.
 
Even the sheriff's long-standing hatred of
Matt had been put aside in light of the evidence.

"Matt?"
Lily stirred for the first time since passing out near the river.