“You think I don’t know that?” His voice was agony wrapped in fury. “He has a gun. What am I to do, exactly?”

“The two of you should have run.”

“So he could shoot the two of you?” Apparently satisfied that her footing was firm, Oliver pulled his arm from her grasp. “Don’t be an idiot. She was inside and dropping down to the rocks before he finished speaking. You’re her friend, Benna, whether you realize it or not.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Casek pulled himself out of the water behind her. “Could you two save the bickering until later? Who is that in there? What’s this about? He thinks she’s Beth?”

“We don’t know who it is.” Oliver clambered up the ledge and reached a hand to Mabena. But his eyes were on Libby, and he looked as though he might rush to her side with just a breath of wind to nudge him. “But yes.”

Casek snorted and reached for a bag he must have stowed in the shadows. “Leave it to the Tremaynes to bring a mad gunman to our shores.”

17

Oliver gritted his teeth and turned his head, ready to sneer, snap, or punch at Casek Wearne as he shoved past him and strode out of the cave. But the moment he turned, he saw movement on the path they’d run up, and his chest tightened even more, somehow.

“The constable’s men.” He kept his voice so low that he could barely hear it himself and aimed so that the wind and rock and water couldn’t carry it inside the cave. “Wearne, I need you to go and intercept them. Tell them not to come this way, or he’ll just shoot her.”

Casek raised his chin. “You go and tell them.”

“I’m not leaving Libby in there alone!” he whispered furiously.

“And I’m not leaving Benna here with you.”

Mabena should have been bristling at the implication that she needed a protector, but her eyes looked too dull with pain to allow for any bristling. “I’ll go with you.”

At least one of them had sense. Oliver motioned them onward. “Good. You’re out of his view now. He won’t see you leaving.”

Casek relented with a huff, muttering something about fetching the doctor. Oliver stiffened at that—what had happened to Mabena to require a physician? But he couldn’t ask. They’d already taken a few steps away, Casek’s arm supporting her frame, which meant something must be seriously wrong.

But she was on her feet and moving, so he simply said a prayer and turned back to the cave. Edged, a few inches at a time, more fully into it. Then lowered himself to his stomach so he could see below the ledge.