Page 47 of The Jade Stone Sleuth

Then he pushed to his feet. He ran three steps and jumped, launching off the fallen boulder. He grabbed handholds in the jagged cliff side and scrambled up it like a mountain goat. What was he doing? What if he fell or was pushed back down the cliff?

That jade colored stone blinked at her and made her stomach convulse.

Brex.

Broken, lifeless, dead just like Harrison, Kyle, and Malik.

“Brex!”

Clara couldn’t lose him.

He’d betrayed her and hurt her, but she still loved him.

Please protect him, she begged their Father above.

Chapter

Fifteen

Brex launchedhimself off the downed boulder and flew up the side of the cliff, using whatever crack or jagged out-hanging he could find for hand and foot holds. He was too angry at himself and the attempted murderer to be afraid of falling or feel any fear of a person that would send a boulder down to split his head open.

He was spurred on by so many emotions—anger at himself and the perp, thirst to know who’d just tried to kill him and who’d killed three other men, fear that Clara would never forgive him, longing to be accepted and loved by Clara and his Savior.

Reaching the top, he saw a flicker of a blue shirt on a slight build, a baseball hat. The person was moving fast along the slick rock.

“Stop!” he hollered.

The person glanced back. He couldn’t tell, but he could swear it was a woman.

He raced after the person. They were heading back toward the trail that he and Clara had come down earlier this morning from this very outlook. If he didn’t reach the murderer first, he or she could hurt Clara. But if it was the person who’d killed herother boyfriends, they hadn’t hurt Clara yet. She had never been the target.

The person disappeared around a large boulder. He raced toward it. Suddenly a body lurched out at him, a small person’s head connected with his chest, and he stumbled backward. He would’ve gone off the fifty-foot ledge behind him, but he spun out of the woman’s grasp, pivoted, and landed on his chest with a hard thump. His head and shoulders hung over the ledge.

“No!” the woman screamed as her legs sling-shot over the drop off. She grabbed Brex’s outstretched hand before she fell and he yanked her to a stop. His shoulder screamed at the abrupt pull of muscle and ligaments.

“Hold on,” Brex grunted, wrapping his other hand around her forearm. “I’ve got you.” He lay face down, arms, shoulders, and chest over the edge of the cliff. Her weight and momentum inched his upper body the wrong direction. He tried to dig in with his feet, but the sand and the slick rock gave him nothing to dig into.

“Please,” she begged.

He looked down into her face. “Jane?”

Jane’s blue eyes were wild.

Brex slipped farther, his feet not gaining any purchase.

“I’m sorry,” she screamed. “It was for Weston. I’m so sorry.”

He’d known Weston was the perp. He’d known it. The guy had forced the innocent, guileless Jane to do his dirty work. What a scum.

“Jane! We’re both going to go over if we don’t change the trajectory.” He was sliding slowly, but still sliding. Unless he released her, he couldn’t stop the movement. “On three, I’m going to swing you to my left, your right. Swing your body that way. I’ll lift you up here.” He didn’t know if it would work, but he wasn’t letting her go and he wasn’t going over that edge. Fifty feet down and headfirst, he’d definitely be dead.

“One … two … three!”

He swung her to the left, and her legs flung up toward the safe space. He realized he had to release her, and as he did, he lobbed her up onto the safety of the ledge. Thankfully she was light enough that it worked.

The momentum shoved his body toward the ledge. He scrambled with his hands and feet, trying to push backward.

He was able to get on an angle but it didn’t stop the momentum. He was going to go over.

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