Page 52 of Once Silenced

Gwen’s heart hammered against her ribs, the reality of her situation settling in.This was no random kidnapping; this was retribution for a past that Gwen had exposed to the world.She’d been captured by a man she’d assumed was long since dead—Timothy Lancaster.The grave before her was a monument to revenge, and Gwen, bound and helpless, was an unwilling participant in some kind of twisted memorial.

Gwen felt a primal fear, but she was not a woman who succumbed to fear easily.She had faced down corrupt politicians and exposed scandals over her long career.

She fought back terror, and began to feel something else —a fierce resolve not to bend to Timothy Lancaster’s will.Staring at the gravestone, she knew Timothy's intentions were as cold and unyielding as the stone itself.He would never let her leave this place alive.

With her life on the line, she realized that perhaps provocation was her only means of escape—if she could throw him off balance, even for a moment.If death was staring her in the face, she would confront it head on, with the same tenacity that had defined her career and life.

“Timothy,” she began, “you expect me to beg forgiveness from a gravestone?You expect me to apologize to the silence of the night?”

She took a measured breath, willing her bound hands not to shake.“Your mother made her choices, Timothy,” Gwen continued.“One of them was to plagiarize someone else’s work.The other was to end her own life.”

She could sense Timothy’s growing agitation, but she pushed forward, fueled by a mixture of desperation and defiance.

“Those were her decisions to make, not mine.I reported the facts, did my job as a journalist.That’s all.I have nothing to apologize for.”

Gwen turned and met Timothy’s gaze, her own eyes reflecting the conviction of her words.

“Your mother’s actions are not my burden to bear.I cannot repent for sins that are not mine.”

In that moment, Gwen Beck was more than a retired journalist or a college teacher—she was the embodiment of every story she had ever chased.She would not bend to the will of a man consumed by the shadows of the past.

Gwen’s breath hitched as she saw Timothy’s jaw clench, his eyes ablaze with fury that threatened to erupt.But then, a sound somewhere off in the distance—perhaps the closing of a car door or just the wind playing tricks—snatched his attention away from her for a split second.

It was all the opening she needed.

Summoning every ounce of adrenaline-fueled strength, Gwen surged to her feet, the layers of tape binding her wrists turning into an improvised weapon.With a swift and desperate arc, she swung her arms, the impact resounding with a thud as Timothy staggered backward.His body met the cold marble of his mother’s headstone with a sickening crack, and he crumpled to the ground, momentarily stunned.

Gwen didn’t pause to see if he would rise again.Her survival instincts screamed at her to move, to use this reprieve to put as much distance between herself and Timothy Lancaster as humanly possible.

As she broke into a staggering run for safety, she felt a raw, primal urge to scream for help, to call out into the night.But Gwen believed any such sound would be futile.The cemetery was a desolate place at night.No one would hear her cries here.No one could save her but herself.No, the best choice was to make as little noise as possible, to disappear among the graves.

She darted between the tombstones, her bound hands a hindrance, but not enough to stop her determined escape.A labyrinth of graves stretched out before her, and she wove through them with the agility of a hunted animal fleeing its predator.She knew that if she didn’t escape now, she would never have another chance.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Pain pulsed through Timothy Lancaster’s skull, a pounding echo of the blow when he’d fallen against the headstone.It felt to him like a rebuke for letting his captive escape.He spat out blood, the crimson stain disappearing into the earth near his mother’s grave.

“Damn it,” Timothy muttered as he pushed himself up from the cold, damp grass.How could he have forgotten that Gwen Beck was not as defenseless as her age suggested, that she’d fought back when he’d first taken her from her own driveway?The sting of self-reproach was bitterer than the blood in his mouth.

Even so, he told himself, she’d been nearly unconscious when he dragged her here.Surely she couldn’t get away from him in the end.Surely, her movements would be clumsy with fear and desperation.His eyes moved methodically from one dark shadow to another, searching for any hint of movement.Although the moonlight was strong, he saw nothing.The old journalist had outmaneuvered him, for now.

Timothy pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, checking the soil around the grave.His lips curled into a grim smile.

Heel marks scored the soft earth—a trail leading away from the grave.Gwen Beck could run, but she could not hide—not from justice, not from him.He was younger, and he had agility on his side.The woman’s hands were bound.She was disadvantaged, vulnerable—how long could she even stay on her feet?

Timothy began to follow the trail.

Only a few strides along, an unexpected sight caught Timothy’s attention—a pair of shoes discarded on the path as if their owner had vanished into thin air.Gwen’s shoes.The heels were only medium-high, but they had been marking her escape route with gouges in the soil.But from that point on, the trail vanished.

A pang of frustration knotted his gut.But he couldn’t let her get the best of him.She was smart, and her determination to escape was clear, but so was his determination to capture her, and she was running barefoot now.

Timothy moved forward with a predator’s grace, his mother’s voice in his mind guiding him through the darkness.The cemetery stretched out before him, a seemingly endless expanse of stone and sorrow.Gravestones seemed to Timothy like jagged teeth as he wove between them.

He felt the statues on tombstones watching.One with an angel’s wings seemed to wave him on.

*

Riley’s boots crunched softly as she landed beyond the wrought-iron fence of Kirkwood Hill Cemetery.She had vaulted over fairly easily, her ongoing work on the FBI obstacle course maintaining her agility despite the months in a classroom.

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