Page 101 of Is Anyone Listening?
Somewhere, I found the strength to push him off me and roll out from under him. I scrambled to my feet, gasping for air, my vision swimming. My face throbbed where he'd hit me. My palms were bleeding. Everything hurt.
But I was alive.
And the table behind me had tools, a screwdriver and a wrench. I grabbed the wrench and when Jeff came at me again, I swung the wrench at his head as hard as I could. He stumbled back in shock. "You bitch!"
I took advantage of his weakened state to hit him again, and this time he went down and stayed down. I stared at him in shock as I heard banging upstairs, then a crash, and someone running down the steps. I really hoped it wasn't Tom, because he would probably accuse me of trying to kill his brother.
I raised the wrench, tried to prepare myself for another fight, but my head was spinning, my vision blurring…
"Cassidy!"
Finn rushed down the stairs, his eyes taking in the scene—Jeff unconscious on the floor, me holding a bloody wrench in my hand with more blood dripping down my face.
"I—Jeff," I stuttered. "He was going to kill me. Like he killed Natalie."
"Oh, my God," he said as he came toward me and put his arms around my stiff body. "You're okay now. You're safe."
I was afraid to trust his words, but I was too weak to do anything but sink into his embrace. After a moment, he pulled slightly away to call 911. As he was doing that, I glanced back at Jeff, who was still unconscious, his forehead bloody from my last strike.
"I've never been in a fight before," I murmured. "Never hurt anyone. And definitely never tried to kill anyone." I glanced back at Finn's grim expression. "It was him or me. I couldn't disappear like the others. I couldn't let him win."
"You're saying Jeff killed Natalie?"
"Her locket is…" My voice trailed away as I realized I'd dropped the locket during our fight, then I saw it on the ground. "It's there. And in that other box are other pieces of jewelry and women's clothing. There's even some dark hair in an envelope. He said there were others… I don't know how many. But he killed them."
As I started to shake, Finn put his arms around me again. "You don't have to say everything now."
"If Tom comes here, he's going to try to spin this. He'll say I hurt Jeff. He'll hide the evidence. We have to do something." I felt panicked and desperate again. I'd escaped from Jeff, but Tom might be even more dangerous with the weight of the law behind him.
"I agree," Finn said. "I'm going to call the mayor. We need investigators here who aren't related to the suspect."
As Finn got on the phone with the mayor's office, I heard sirens, the second time this week they'd come for me. But I was still alive, still breathing, and that felt like a miracle.
Several minutes later, two officers came down the stairs who I didn't recognize, but Finn greeted them by name, telling them that Jeff had attacked me, and that he'd admitted to killing at least one of the women who'd disappeared from the inn.
That seemed to surprise both of them, and they exchanged a look of concern, as if they weren't sure what to do with the sheriff's brother being accused of murder. One dropped to his knees to check on Jeff, while the other turned to me.
"An ambulance is on the way. I'm Deputy Mendez," he said. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"Jeff Holloway tried to kill me because I found his stash of trophies that he'd taken from the women he killed, including Natalie Warren."
The deputy cleared his throat. "That's quite an accusation."
"It's not an accusation; it's the truth. Jeff told me everything because he didn't plan on my being able to tell anyone else. That locket on the ground over there belonged to Natalie Warren. Her initials are on it. In that open box you'll find items that belonged to other women, including a bloody scarf and some thick strands of brown hair."
The second deputy left Jeff's side to check on my claims. He looked in the box, then back at his partner. "It's just what she said?—"
His words were interrupted by more sirens, followed by more voices, and then a trail of people came down the stairs, including the sheriff and two EMTs.
The first one to reach the bottom was Tom Holloway, his face red, his eyes burning with anger and what might have been fear.
"What the hell is going on—" He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Jeff on the floor. The color drained from his face. "My God! What did you do to my brother?" He turned to the EMTs. "Help him."
The two men rushed to Jeff's side.
"Jeff attacked Cassidy," Finn said, waving his hand toward my bloodied face. "As you can see, she had to defend herself."
Tom looked at me, then at his brother's unconscious form. "I don't understand," he said with a shake of his head.
