Page 85 of In Too Deep
A man stood obscured by the beam of a powerful flashlight—bright enough to make her squint.
Rescue.
It had to be rescue.
Relief flooded through Meg so quickly it made her dizzy and almost laugh with the sudden release of tension.Made her want to cry and scream and collapse all at once.
We’re saved.Oh thank God, we’re saved.
But then he stepped forward.
This was no ranger.
Head-to-toe black like he’d been birthed from the shadows.Tactical pants.Dark jacket.Not the tan and green of the park service.Not the bright colors of search and rescue.
Noah had gone rigid beside her, every muscle in his body tense and coiled.When she looked at him, his face had drained of color with his eyes wide.
“Jeremy?”His voice was uncertain.
The man stepped forward into the combined glow of their headlamps, and Meg’s relief curdled into something cold and sick—a twisting in her gut.A primal warning screamed through every nerve ending.
The face was similar to Jeremy’s—she could see the echo of features Noah must have recognized.But this version was older and harder.The boyish features had sharpened into something that looked like it had been carved from the same unforgiving stone as the cave walls.Deep lines bracketed his mouth—not laugh lines but the kind carved by bitterness and rage.And his eyes?—
His eyes were dead.
Flat and empty and wrong.Like looking into a doll’s eyes.
“Close.Jeremy and Lydia’s dad.”The man’s voice was flat and emotionless.“Ryan Bradley.And I’ve been looking for you, Dr.Lewis.”
That’s when Meg saw it.
The gun, pointed directly at her chest.Black metal catching the light from their headlamps.The barrel looked impossibly large from this angle.
Her breath stopped.Every muscle in her body locked in a way that had nothing to do with panic attacks and everything to do with pure, primal fear—the kind that lived in bones and blood and the base of the brain.
“You—” The man’s voice cracked, then steadied into something harder and colder.“You need to be held responsible for the death of my daughter.”
Twelve
Everything in Noah went cold the moment the light glinted off the gun pointed at Meg.
Not fear—not yet.That would come later.
Right now, there was only a crystalline clarity, sharp and absolute.The kind that came in moments when time slowed down and every decision mattered more than breathing.
“Put the gun down, Mr.Bradley.”His voice came out measured.The voice he used for terrified hikers standing too close to cliff edges.
The man’s eyes—familiar in a way that made Noah’s stomach twist—didn’t waver.The gun didn’t lower.Just stayed there, rock steady.
“Get out of the way.This is between me and her.”
“Not happening.”
Noah kept his hands visible with his palms out.The universal gesture of peace.Every instinct screamed at him to rush the man, to tackle him, to do something other than stand here talking while a loaded weapon was pointed at the woman he loved.
But a gun changed everything.Changed all the rules.
One wrong move and Meg?—
