Her father moved toward the door. “Let’s go inside.”
She stiffened. “Not in there.”
She would go inside Cabin Seven again, of course. She wouldn’t let Landon’s actions make her permanently afraid in this place that had always been part of her home. But she wasn’t ready quite ye
t.
“I’ve called an ambulance,” Maggie said.
“I don’t need an ambulance!”
“Shelby, there’s blood on the back of your head, your hands are so swollen you can hardly move your fingers, there’s no color in your face and your eyes look funny. We’ll let the EMTs decide whether you need to be transported,” Maggie said flatly, the strain of the ordeal showing in the lines around her firm mouth.
“We’ll go to my cabin to wait,” Aaron offered. “I’ll carry you.”
“No.” Drawing on every ounce of remaining strength, she straightened away from him, her chin high. “I’ll walk.”
Aaron nodded and took her hand. “We’ll all go together.”
Followed closely by her father, uncle and cousin, and knowing that the rest of the family would surely arrive soon, Shelby limped at Aaron’s side toward his cabin.
* * *
Two hours later, Aaron sat in a chair in a hospital room, watching Shelby as she slept. There was no need to sit guard now, of course. Terrence Landon—or Russell King, as Andrew had discovered, calling after all the excitement was over to report his findings—had been hauled away. He was being charged with assault, kidnapping, fencing stolen goods and probably a few other crimes thrown in for good measure. Charles Lowell was also in custody, having been detained with a trunkful of stolen jewelry, silver and other items of value. More arrests were pending.
For some reason those wannabe criminal geniuses had decided that a busy fishing resort was an ideal, anonymous place for a temporary fencing operation after they’d been forced to leave Austin when authorities had gotten too close to catching them. In another few days, they’d have moved on to another equally random location. Had Shelby not sensed that something was wrong and been so determined to protect the reputation of her family’s once-bitten business, they might actually have pulled it off this time. As Landon had hoped, everyone else had been too preoccupied with either running the resort or enjoying it to pay much attention to the odd occupant of Cabin Seven.
Aaron wasn’t the only one in the room with Shelby now. Her parents and sister sat on the other side of the bed, talking in low voices as Sarah filled in Lori, who had arrived only a short while before, on the morning’s events. The tension between Lori and her parents had been set aside for now as they’d come together in support of Shelby. Steven was at home seething with frustration that his injuries had prevented him from participating in the search for Shelby. He was probably even more determined now to recuperate fully and train for a career that would allow him to be an active first responder.
Shelby’s grandparents, aunt and uncle had all gathered in Aaron’s cabin to wait with the rest of them for the ambulance to arrive, and to support her as she’d talked to the police. They had hovered around Shelby until she’d looked close to snapping. Aaron understood how scared they’d all been, and how relieved they were that she had been relatively unharmed. He knew both feelings all too well.
Her grandparents, especially, had been very vocal about their emotions.
“I can’t handle much more of this,” Mimi had announced, furiously fanning her face with one hand. “Between Steven getting hurt and then giving his notice and Hannah in trouble and now criminals staying in our own cabin, kidnapping our granddaughter from right under our noses—what is the world coming to?”
“It’s okay, Mimi,” Maggie said soothingly, one hand on her grandmother’s shoulder. “Shelby’s going to be fine. Aaron rescued her.”
“Hmm. You’re sure you’re not Andrew?” Pop had demanded, peering hard at Aaron. “The way you handled that situation looked a lot like a professional P.I.—like the man who already rescued this family once before.”
Aaron had chuckled shortly, as had several of the others, enjoying the lighter moment in the otherwise grim morning. “I’m still Aaron, Pop.”
“Humph. Well, I guess you’ve got more in common with your brother than a nice face,” the older man had conceded, slapping Aaron on the shoulder hard enough almost to make him stagger forward.
Shelby and her parents had convinced everyone else to stay behind and take care of the resort when the EMTs had determined that she should probably be scanned for concussion. No one had attempted to convince Aaron to stay behind, not that they would have succeeded if they’d tried.
“I’ll help you finish the roof later,” he’d said to Bryan on his way out. “I just have to know Shelby’s okay first.”
Bryan had nodded in understanding. “The roof can wait. Take care of my niece. I’ll need to run the marina until C.J. gets back, anyway.”
Shelby had a mild concussion and a sprained wrist, but other than needing three stitches at the back of her head, a stretch bandage on her left wrist, fluids and rest, she required no further treatment. She would be free to leave in an hour or so, after she’d received a full IV bag of fluids.
“I still don’t know how you figured out she was in that cabin,” C.J. said in a low voice, leaving his wife and younger daughter talking on the other side of the room as he joined Aaron.
Aaron shrugged. “When we couldn’t find her anywhere else, that was the first possibility that occurred to me. Finding her phone on the road implied to me that she’d been startled, taken against her will. Though there were other possibilities, I kept thinking of the tension between her and Landon—er, the guy that called himself Landon. I wanted to get a look at his face when we canvassed the resort. I knew the minute I saw him that he was hiding something. When I heard the crash from the storage closet, I was even more convinced, though his accomplice tried to explain away the noise by saying he’d caused it.”
“But you didn’t try to rush inside then?”
“I needed a chance to form a plan,” Aaron admitted. “Maggie kept watch while I went around to the back and looked in through a crack in the blinds Shelby and I had discovered last night. I saw Lowell leave, then watched Landon pull Shelby out of the closet.”