Crimson River (The Edens)

Fuck, she was fast. She’d always been fast.

“Stop!” I shouted again, my boots pounding on the sidewalk.

She kept running.

So I gritted my teeth and found the next gear.

We crossed a side street, her red ponytail lashing across her face as she scanned for cars before darting across the asphalt. She risked a glance over her shoulder, and when she saw me, those eyes held sheer terror.

Of me.

She was scared of me. Why?

That question only made me push harder. My lungs were on fire. My legs were tired from the hike today, but I ran.

We raced through a residential neighborhood, the charming homes streaking by as we tore down the sidewalk.

She was fast. But not fast enough to outpace my longer stride. It took almost two blocks from Main for me to get within reach.

On the street ahead, a yellow school bus was stopped, its red lights flashing, as a line of children hopped out.

A mother came walking down the sidewalk from her house, probably to meet her kid. When she saw us running, her jaw dropped and she blinked, like she wasn’t sure what was happening.

Shit. I didn’t need a parent calling the cops. Not yet. Not until I had answers.

“Stop running,” I barked. “Goddamn it, Vera. Stop.”

Maybe it was me saying her name or maybe she was getting winded, but she slowed enough that I could wrap her up.

“No.” She struggled, throwing her elbows toward my ribs. The plastic bags she had clutched to her chest whipped against us but didn’t fall.

“Vera.” How was this possible? How was I saying her name? How was she in my arms?

“Let me go.”

“No.” I held her tighter, the world spinning beneath my feet.

Vera. This was Vera. She was alive. She was here in Montana.

A cry escaped her mouth but she kept throwing those elbows, something Cormac had taught her in their garage self-defense sessions. He’d always wanted his girls to be safe.

Before he’d killed them.

Except he hadn’t. Not Vera.

I clamped down harder, pinning her to me. “Stop. Please.”

“Vance,” Lyla panted, stopping at our side. Her eyes were wide and her chest heaved from chasing after us. Her gaze darted to Vera, who kept fighting me. Then she glanced around, no doubt taking in that mother who’d spotted us earlier.

Lyla held up her hand, signaling it was okay. The woman nodded, then steered her little boy toward their house.

The distraction gave Vera an opening. She picked up a foot and slammed her heel into my shin.

Pain spread through my leg, but I swallowed it down, my hold on her as strong as ever.

“Vera.” My voice was low. Steady. I pulled her even closer, my heart racing as I put my cheek on her hair. “Vera. It’s me.”

She stilled. Completely.

Then her entire body went limp. The grocery bags she’d been carrying fell to the ground. If not for my arms, she would have crumpled into a heap on the sidewalk beside them.

Her chest started to shake as she cried. “Y-you have to go! You can’t be here. You can’t see me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m dead.” She cried harder, whole-body sobs that wracked her shoulders and broke my heart. “Uncle Vance, I’m dead.”

Uncle Vance.

Words I hadn’t thought I’d hear Vera say ever again. Words that cracked me in two.

She spun in my arms and buried her face in my chest. “Uncle Vance.”

“Hey, kiddo,” I whispered, dropping my cheek to her hair as I held her tight, blinking away my own tears. “I’m here.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I got you.” This time, I wasn’t letting her go.

Vera collapsed against me, soaking the front of my coat with her tears. Like she’d held them back for four years.

And I just breathed her in, feeling her shoulders and ribs. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. Four years and she’d finished growing up. She was taller, lean, but strong.

“I missed you, Vera.”

She nodded, her hands fisting my coat as she kept crying.

Alive. She was alive.

This was why they hadn’t found her body in the lake. The divers had recovered the twins. I’d been the one to identify their bodies. But not Vera.

Her body had never been found. With the size and depth of Lake Coeur d’Alene, everyone had assumed she’d just been lost.

But there was no body to find. She was alive.

What did that mean? What was happening? I looked at Lyla. The shock written on her face probably matched my own.

“Vera,” she mouthed.

I nodded. Vera.

Cormac’s daughter.

The child he’d murdered.

Or not.