Page 56 of Risk It All
As soon as she stepped into the waiting room, she was mobbed. Molly, Charlie, Norah, and Felicity all tried to hug her at the same time, squeezing the air out of her until she couldn’t even answer their barrage of questions.
“Are you okay?”
“What happened?”
“Are you hurt?”
“Who took you?”
“Was it that skip?”
Even Molly’s boyfriend, John Carmondy, was there, wrapping his arms around the entire group like a huge, muscled shield.
With a shaky laugh of sheer relief that all her sisters were unharmed, Cara gently extricated herself from their family huddle. “I promise to tell you everything, but can we go home first? And maybe hit up a drive-through for food?”
“Of course.” Molly swooped in and gave her one hard final hug. “Anything for you, Cara. It’s the rule—get kidnapped, and we’re nice to you for at least a day.”
“Well, a few hours, maybe.” Charlie’s teasing tone was belied by the tight grip she had on Cara’s hand. Her fearless sister was actually trembling. “Don’t get carried away here.”
Their laughter was mostly from relief, but it felt good. Cara had survived. Now she just had to make sure that Henry did, too.
* * *
“He didwhat?” Molly was the one who asked the question, but all of Cara’s sisters—along with her one honorary brother, John—were staring at her with wide eyes. She’d managed to put off the interrogation from the time they’d all descended on the Red Hawk police station until they got home, but now the entire family was gathered around their small kitchen table demanding answers.
“He just…blurted it out.” Cara’s hands flung from her mouth outward in a wide word-vomit gesture. She still couldn’t believe it. After all of his evasions and dodges, Henry had just turned himself in to a cop at a tiny police station who didn’t even know who he was. He could’ve gotten patched up at the hospital, given a fake name, and then disappeared again. Instead, he’d given up his freedom and any chance to exonerate himself, just so she could get the bond-recovery fee. It was…incomprehensible.
“What’d he say afterward?” Charlie asked. “Did he give any explanation?”
“He fell over and had to be taken to a Denver hospital in an ambulance. He’s under guard there, and I can’t get in to see him.” Cara felt a renewed surge of frustrated helplessness. She knew he was still alive, but she couldn’t get any more information about his condition. “I don’t get why he did it. How’re we supposed to track down the real killer now?”
“Um…you do realize thatheis the real killer, right?” Felicity asked tentatively.
Cara was shaking her head even before her sister finished her question. “He’s not, though.” When her sisters exchanged concerned looks, she gave a huff and leaned forward, fighting through her exhaustion. She’d dozed the hour it took to drive back to Langston, but she felt like she could sleep for days, maybe weeks. First, though, she had to fix this. Then she could rest. “I know most skips say that, but I believe him when he told me he didn’t kill those people. Why would he have stuck around Langston if he’d done it? If he was guilty, he would’ve disappeared right after he skipped—kind of like Mom did.”
“Lots of skips stick around,” Molly countered. “They don’t have money to leave, and they have friends and family members who hide them.”
“Henry has money.” Cara remembered the large pile of bills he’d so casually dropped on the counter of the cabin. “He wasn’t staying with friends, either. He was in a ratty motel. Besides, would a killer have risked his own life to save a near-stranger from kidnappers? Would he have turned himself in because he knew I needed the money? You saw those crime-scene photos. A bad person slaughtered those people, and everything Henry’s done has convinced me that he’s a good guy. Also, Abbott said that Henry was taking the fall for someone. I just don’t knowwho.”
There was another exchange of looks, and Cara braced herself for the next round of her sisters trying to convince her that Henry was a killer. There was no changing her mind, though. Even though she and Henry had been running from Abbott’s people for less than thirty-six hours, she felt like she truly knew who Henry Kavenski was—and that he was a good, moral man.
“Okay.” Molly looked at Cara expectantly. “What’s the plan?”
Cara blinked, taken off guard by the simple question. “The plan?”
Before Molly could answer, John gave a wide grin. “Does this mean we get to be PIs? Because that was my next career choice if bounty hunting had been a bust.”
“Wait.” Cara was still trying to process that her sisters weren’t trying to convince her of Henry’s guilt anymore. “You’re going to help me solve this and clear Henry?”
Molly gave a clap and stood. “Okay, Norah and Cara, you’re on research. Fifi and Charlie, find out everything you can on this Abbott guy. Carmondy, you’re with me. We’ll track down Stuart and squeeze the little weasel until he pops.”
John gave a whoop. Pushing off the counter he’d been leaning against, he wrapped Molly in a backward hug. “This is why I love you, Pax. We have the same idea of what makes a date fun.”
Cara considered protesting her research role, but since her first and last attempt at a simple skip retrieval had morphed into life-threatening kidnapping and attempted murder, she decided that she should stick to what she was good at. It was hard to watch her sisters make plans to actively search for the person—or people—who could exonerate Henry, though. He was hers to save.
Felicity interrupted her somewhat greedy thoughts with a hug from behind. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. “Plus bringing in not one but two skips…impressive.”
Patting Felicity’s encircling arms, Cara leaned her head back against her sister. “I’m pretty impressed with myself too. Seriously though, thank you for pushing us so hard during our workouts. I channeled you when I had to force Henry to run up a mountain after he’d just drowned,andI got to kick a mob boss in the face.”
