Desperate Rescue

Desperate Rescue

Barbara Phinney

MILLS & BOON

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To my husband, my daughter and my son.

We grow in faith together, and I will always thank our Lord for each of you.

You make my life special and blessed.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ONE

Fear had a way of heightening the senses.

A chill crawled down Kaylee Campbell’s spine as she neared the driveway of her rented home. Not from the cool autumn morning. No, this ominous shiver came from a foreboding sense of danger acquired after years of being watched and followed every waking moment.

Kaylee glanced around the quiet cul-de-sac in the central New Brunswick village chosen for its peace and security. It was too quiet.

Someone was watching her.

“Don’t worry,” she muttered, drawing in a deep, slow breath the way the counselor had taught her. “Go home. You’re safe. You’re free.”

Her Saturday-morning walk had failed to soothe her nerves and neither did these words. Her chest tightened.

A car inched along the adjacent street. Over her shoulder she caught a glimpse of an out-of-province license plate.

The chilling wash returned. Her senses heightened; awareness ripped into high gear.

The car turned down her street. She listened a moment, then threw another glance over her shoulder.

Blond hair. A sinister sense of familiarity. Her heartbeat accelerated and she stopped with the pretense of tying her shoelace to cast a desperate glance around. Maybe one of her elderly neighbors was out this early.

No one. The cold autumn wind rattled the dead beech leaves that clung stubbornly to the tree on her front lawn.

Lord, help me. Keep me safe.

Doubt trickled into her as she tried the prayer. It wouldn’t help. None of her prayers were heeded. Why should they be, after what she’d done?

She straightened, desperate to control the wild panic now racing through her like a torrent of spring rains.

Build a hedge of protection around me, Lord.

Nothing. She felt no safer now than a moment ago. And the car behind her was inching closer.

She pulled her control in sharply. Her fear was ridiculous. The nightmare of these past two years was over. There was not going to be the final confrontation Noah Nash had threatened.

She shut her eyes, screwing up the courage to take flight and race those last few yards to her house.

But her feet froze to the sidewalk beneath her. Her legs, stiff and beginning to ache, refused to obey.

She dared another peek over her shoulder. The car slowed behind her. It stopped. Its door opened. She gasped the choking kind of breath that seemed to lodge in her throat.

Noah Nash had come after her, just as he’d threatened.

In front of her and deadly close, stood the man she most feared and dreaded.

He’d come back to kill her.

Her world dissolved into darkness as her stiff legs melted to jelly.

Eli Nash let out a frustrated noise as he rushed toward Kaylee. This was his own fault. He’d been warned not to approach her. Even his own mother had firmly condemned his plan.

“You look too much like Noah. You two could have been twins,” she’d said. “And you act too much like him, too. You’ll end up scaring her half to death.”

Shoving aside the warning, he caught Kaylee before she crumpled to the sidewalk. She slumped against him and he shifted to support her head as it rolled back. The boneless feel of her body surprised him as he dropped to his knees. Her jaw slackened and he heard a soft breath escape.

He wanted to kick himself for his own impetuous stupidity in not calling first, but there would be time to berate himself for that later. Right now, the best thing would be for him to simply carry her to her house and set her on her front lawn until she revived.

He knew he should have waited, but it was too late now, he thought as he lifted her off the ground. He should have used the police as an intermediary. Or a local pastor. Riverline had a church.

But he couldn’t wait. Waiting could lead to more deaths, possibly even his own sister’s.

Noah wouldn’t think twice about killing a blood relative if it meant furthering his own plans.

A breeze drifted by, cool and sharp with the tang of autumn. In his arms, Kaylee Campbell shivered and awoke.

He peered down at her grimly, resisting the urge to sweep away the waves of black hair that fell across her cheek as her dark eyes fluttered open. Her skin looked so pale. Naturally pale, he hoped, not pale because the blood had drained from her delicate features at the sight of him.

She was lighter than she looked, not surprisingly. Noah had a habit of keeping tight control on his cult members, both the willing, such as his sister, and the unwilling, such as Kaylee, through malnourishment. It looked as if Kaylee hadn’t yet regained her strength and weight.

“It’s okay. You fainted.”

Her eyes widened. Eli tightened his jaw. He was scaring the daylights out of her, but if he set her down she’d probably collapse again.

“I won’t hurt you,” he told her softly as he walked. “Let me carry you to your house. Where are your keys?”

She threw a furtive glance down at her right jacket pocket and her right hand moved ever so slightly. But she didn’t offer them.

He considered helping himself to the keys, but any search, however modest, would scare her further. Instead, he leaned forward and set her down on her single, pitted cement step, waiting for her to produce her keys.

Keys in hand, she swiftly slid toward the door and he knew he had to say something fast or risk losing the chance to explain.

Too late. No sooner had he stepped closer when her leg swung up and her foot connected with his midriff in one nasty, fluid kick.

He toppled to the lawn.

Stunned for a moment, he watched as Kaylee scrambled to her feet, tore inside her house and locked her door.

Then he sagged. Oh, this was just great. Well, he was bringing this all on himself, so he better learn a bit of patience. But after years of searching for his sister, he was desperate.

With a grimace of pain, he stood and rubbed his stomach. Through the door’s small window Kaylee stared at him, wide-eyed. The expression wrenched his heart.

She was terrified. So scared she didn’t realize that she’d dropped her house keys. His mouth a thin line, his brows lifted, he scooped up the keys and dangled them from his fingers.

“Ms. Campbell. Kaylee. I’m not who you think I am.”

Her gaze darted around. Obviously, she was searching for some other way to defend herself, should he unlock her door. He had no intentions of doing that.

“I’m not Noah. Kaylee, listen! I’m his brother, Eli. Listen to me, please.”

She snapped her head to the front, enough for him to catch the shock.

Patience. Father, please help me. If You want me to be patient, help me now.

Maybe he should be praying for his sister’s life, instead. If she heard his prayer, she’d accuse him of being selfish, jealous, looking again to upstage Noah.

He took a step back. “Look at me. You can see I’m not Noah.”

Kaylee shook her head. “No, I can’t. You kept yourself hidden most of the time. You’ve cut your hair and shaved that beard. You won’t get away with kidnapping me. I won’t cooperate, Noah! There’s nothing to hold me there anymore, thanks to you! You didn’t fool me with Trisha’s death. I know you killed her!”

She drew in a shaky breath and battled on, “I won’t be blackmailed! You can kill the lot of those fools who follow you. I refuse to care!”

“Listen!”

“No! You threatened to kill me before, but you won’t get away with it this time!” She turned to move away from the door.

He raced to the door. “Wait! I’m not going to hurt you! Just listen! I only want to talk to you.”

Thankfully, she stopped. He fished his wallet out of his pocket. Then, from the battered slice of leather, he drew his driver’s license.

He plastered it on the windowpane. “Who’s this?”

She read it quickly but shook her head. “IDs can be forged.”

With a growl, he thrust it back into his pocket. Thinking a moment, he pushed his short hair away from his hairline and tilted his face to the ground, showing her a scar. “Does Noah have this?”

She fell silent. Thank You. He’d finally reached her.

A brittle moment later, she answered, “Noah didn’t cut his hair, so we didn’t see his forehead. He kept hidden, too, and when we did see him, the room was always half dark.”

Eli offered his left hand and the scattered islands of wrinkled skin, the remains of an old burn from when he and Noah had been playing with the wood-stove at their grandmother’s house, thirty years ago. “What about this?”

“I didn’t see his hands, either.”

Great. Back to square one. Just as he was trying to remember another childhood injury, she added with a soft whisper, “But you’re left-handed. Noah’s right-handed.”

Of course. Relief sluiced through him and he let out a long sigh. “I forgot about that.”

She met his stare, her expression soft as a deer’s, with watery eyes shimmering. She wet her lips. “Who did you say you were?”

“Eli, his brother.” He backed away from the door but she just stood there, staring at him, keeping the door firmly shut. “I need to talk to you.”

“You want to talk? Talk. This is the only way we’re going to communicate.”

He sighed. Better than nothing. “I need you,” he repeated. “You’re the only one who can help me.”

Kaylee blinked. So much had happened so quickly. This morning, she awoke and looked forward to her walk, anxious to put together her life after Trisha’s…

After all the awful things that had happened…and all the things she’d done.

“Kaylee? Will you listen to me? I need your help.”

Noah never begged. He had complete control over his followers.

Eli’s voice filtered in through the myriad images that always surrounded Kaylee’s thoughts of the cult. The compound, called The Farm by cult members, whisked through her brain. The gnawing hunger, the biting cold.

The tears at night, her sister begging for her compliance. At first. Then later, when she weakened—

Forget all that. “What do you want?”

He ran his fingers through his short hair, allowing her to study his face. Though she hadn’t seen much of Noah, she’d seen his sharp blue eyes enough times, and the piercing stare always unnerved her. Eli’s eyes were different. Softer.

Finally, he spoke. “My sister, Phoebe, lives with Noah. I need you to go back—”

“No!” Still focusing on Eli’s face, she shook her head. “Forget it! You don’t know what you’re asking. I’m never going back there!”

He captured her gaze and held it. His tanned face wore a driven and determined expression. “You’re the only one who can help me reach Phoebe. She won’t talk to me.”

“Then get your mother to. Everyone listens to their mother.”

“My mother has tried, but each time she’s written, the letters have been returned unopened. Both of my parents are getting old and can’t travel. Mom tried to call, when they had a phone, but she was always told Phoebe was busy or that Noah would take the message.”

That sounded about right. Noah owned a cell phone, but the few times it rang, only John or one of the men were allowed to answer it. She could still recall the one time it rang and there were no men. The women let it ring on and on, a creepy nonaction that still irritated her.

“We’ve all tried. I’m hoping that she’ll at least talk to another woman who lived with her. Can you go back—”

Her breath clouded the cool pane of glass between them, thankfully breaking the lock his stare had on her. “Are you nuts? We can’t help them! And I won’t go back to try. Phoebe knows I hated all of them.” She let out an incredulous laugh. “Trust me, you can’t help them. I spent two years there! They’re all beyond help.”

Eli bent closer to the door. His pale brows pressed together. “Did you say that when you went looking to save your sister? Did you believe that when you went searching for Noah’s compound? Remember how you got that info?”

She shrank away. “How do you know that?”

“You were on CNN, Kaylee. You paid a local to reveal the exact location of the compound.”

He’d done his homework. Yes, she’d paid for the information. More than five thousand dollars. But she’d been desperate to find her sister, willing to deplete her meager savings. And she’d found out where exactly in eastern Maine they were.

Like Eli was now, she’d been anxious, hurt by her sister’s actions.

She threw off the sympathy. “So why don’t you just go talk to Phoebe? You’re her brother, just as much as Noah is. Surely she’d see you? Can’t you say that your parents are worried about her, too?”

His nod of agreement was barely perceptible. “Yes, they are concerned. And at a loss of what to do. Phoebe had just turned eighteen when she left and they couldn’t force her to come back. But she was so innocent.”

Like Trisha. Young, naive, an idealist with visions of what the future was supposed to be like.

“Phoebe made her decision and she’s had plenty of opportunities to escape if she wanted to. She’s chosen to stay with Noah. As crazy as that is.”

He fell silent, his lips pressing tight and his expression looking as though he struggled with some inner pain. The pain of losing his sister to a cult?

Or maybe her words struck a nerve. What had she said exactly? What was it that led to this desperation?

Again, she ignored her growing empathy. “Go away. I’m tired and I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”

“Not even when it means saving someone else?”

She gave him a level stare. “If you think pushing guilt on me is going to crumble my resolve, think again. They want to be there. Besides, what are you hoping will happen? That she’ll just leave and walk into some counseling service just because you’ve asked her to?”

He blinked, swallowed. “I don’t know what to do. I’m at the end of my rope. If I weren’t so desperate, I wouldn’t have come here to ask you for help. I was hoping you could talk to her.”

Her heart tightened, but she gritted her teeth. “I had hoped the same thing.” She’d done more than hoped. She’d considered kidnapping, as dangerous and traumatic as it could be. Now Trisha was dead. “Leave your sister alone. She wants to be there.”

With that, she walked away from the door and into the living room.

With rattled nerves, she sank down onto her secondhand couch. Why, Lord? Why did You drop him into my life? He’ll bring nothing but grief. Why do You want me to suffer so much? It’s not fair.

Lois Smith, her right-side neighbor, had told her to pray, but her gritty prayers had a petulant edge. And God never answered her, anyway.

The outside fell quiet. She liked the stillness, the peace it could bring. But today? No.

Abruptly, the phone rang and she let out a short cry.

Eli? Did he have a cell phone and was now calling her from her front door? Shaking, she listened to the insistent rings. Four, five…She snatched the receiver. “Leave me alone!”

“Kaylee, dear? What’s wrong? Who was that man at your door?”

She sank against the wall. Lois. With their homes being so close, Lois’s wisdom, along with her hugs and a hot cup of tea, were barely ten feet away. All that stood between them were some dying pansies and a chipped, cracked walkway.

No. Today, Eli Nash stood between them.

Kaylee fought back tears and after a swallow whispered, “That was Noah Nash’s brother.”

She heard Lois’s little gasp. “Call the police, dear!”

“No. I think he left.”

“I’ll check.” She could hear the older woman walk to her front window. “Yes, he’s gone. Kaylee, dear, do you need some company?”

She wasn’t the kind to grab company when it was offered, unlike so many of the friendly people here in New Brunswick. But Lois would provide a hug and a sympathetic ear, make the tea and offer advice if asked.

And if asked, the sweet old lady would suggest she help Eli. The Christian thing to do. Not what she wanted to hear right now.

Kaylee bit her lip, not wanting to snub her neighbor, and not sure she wanted to be alone.

“I’ll be right over,” Lois decided after the pause. “Let me put the dog out first. He hasn’t been out yet today.”

Minutes later, sympathy crinkling the skin between her sparse, graying eyebrows, Lois arrived. She held Kaylee’s keys in her thin, arthritic hands. “I found this in the lock. Look at you! You’ve had a fright! You could use some hot tea.” She bustled into the kitchen. Kaylee shuffled in behind and dropped into the nearest chair.

“What did that man want?” Lois asked.

She rubbed her forehead. “His sister’s in the cult and he wants me to go back in to talk to her.”

“Oh, my! What did you tell him?”

“I refused. I can’t go back there.” She watched Lois pour the tea, thinking of all those times she’d been monitored by the women in the compound. And ogled by some of the men. Never having a moment to herself.

It had pushed her, a natural introvert, to the point of desperation. Noah had known what would grate at her. She hadn’t fallen under his spell as quickly as Trisha, but the months of poor food, cold nights and raw nerves had lowered her resistance. Then the unthinkable happened.

Noah had begun to make sense.

Lois squeezed her hand. “You’ll get over this. Trust the Lord. He’ll do what’s right. He knows where you are in your life journey and will meet you right there, if you ask Him.”

“He’s not moving fast enough,” she muttered, disliking the words even as she said them.

“The pain of loss never goes away fast enough. You know, I lost a baby and my mother the same month, a long time ago. It took me years to get over the loss.”

With a furtive glance over her mug, Kaylee sipped her tea. Lois always knew the right thing to say. Had her counselor subcontracted her work out to Lois? It sure seemed so.

The old woman smiled sadly. “But I had a wonderful husband, even if I had to share him with the army. He went to Korea, you know?”

“It must have been hard for him to leave.” Harder than me leaving Trisha that day, three weeks ago. A knot of tears choked her as she remembered when Trisha had accidentally left her, and the back door, unattended. A split-second decision later, Kaylee slipped outside and then out through a gap in the chain-link fence. She went straight to the police.

Oblivious to Kaylee’s memories, Lois chuckled. “I had a friend whose husband was going to Korea on the same ship as Walter. We were supposed to say our goodbyes at the train station, but my friend devised this plan to drive down to Halifax where their ship was waiting.”

Looking conspiratorial, Lois leaned over. “Two women traveling all that way alone? There was no highway and her car was held together with rubber bands and a fast prayer.”

Despite herself, Kaylee smiled. “What happened?”

“We broke down as soon as we reached Nova Scotia.”

“So you missed your husband?”

“No! An elderly man stopped to help. He drove us straight to the dockyard! Oh, he was as nervous as we were, not knowing who we were or what would happen.” She finished with a teary laugh. “We wouldn’t have made it to Halifax without that man!”

Kaylee’s lips thinned. “You’d have found a way.”

“No. The Lord sent us that man. God wanted him to help us, even if we did scare him. He was so sweet and a good Christian man to trust the Lord.”

Eli and his desperate situation filtered back to Kaylee. Phoebe could easily end up like Trisha. Her heart clenched. God may have been showing her that she was supposed to help Eli, but it was too late now.

Eli was long gone.

TWO

Kaylee struggled through work that next Monday. Eli’s plea dogged her steps. Since she’d returned to normal society, she’d been fortunate enough to get a job in the town’s recreation center. It paid minimum wage, but she hoped to find a better position soon.

She assisted the rec coordinator with everything from sorting well-worn sports equipment to brushing the autumn leaves off the basketball courts.

But working proved futile. On Mondays, she should be tidying up after the weekend’s activities, but all she could manage was leaning heavily on her broom.

“You’re in another world. What’s wrong?”

She looked up at Jenn, her supervisor. “Bad weekend.”

Jenn strode across the gym floor. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. Stress, maybe?” Together they looked around the small gym. Kaylee hadn’t done too much. “Sorry, I’ll try to get the sweeping done before noon. I’m not lazy, you know.”

“I know you’re not. Don’t worry about me thinking that.”

Kaylee returned to her sweeping, holding back a sneeze when a stray draft threw some dust up at her face.

Jenn flicked her head toward the door through which she’d just come. “There’s someone in the office looking for you. Why don’t you take an early lunch? No hurry in here.” With that, she turned.

Cold dread doused Kaylee as she watched the older woman leave. Someone was looking for her? Today?

No. Please not him.

She’d spent yesterday morning at church, having given in to Lois’s gentle but persistent invitations. When she first came to Riverline, Lois had asked her to her Sunday services. She’d declined, even though the counselor she was seeing had thought it a good idea.

She’d had enough religion to last a lifetime.

But Lois had needed help bringing things to church and, feeling that she owed her kindly neighbor, she agreed.

Then Sunday afternoon she and Lois helped one of the seniors make some meals for the coming week. Throughout the day, Kaylee had even managed to keep away the guilt she’d felt whenever she thought of Eli. And she’d almost completely managed to keep thoughts of him far from her.

But now—

The door at the far end swung open. In walked Eli.

He had the same confident swagger as his brother. But where Noah preferred long hair, a thick beard and an air of mystery, Eli kept his hair short, almost a crew cut, and his smooth, square jaw gleamed, a handsome addition to a tanned and fit frame.

There was no mystery about what Eli wanted. He wanted Kaylee to help him. Period.

Their gazes locked. Natural light from the high windows proved complimentary to him. Despite the knocking of her heart, she tried her best to look unmoved.

She was not going to get caught up in a fascination of this man. Even if he was a law-abiding citizen wanting only to find his sister, Eli was still Noah Nash’s brother. And Noah Nash had threatened her and forced her to do and say things that she still struggled with today.