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an advantage. Elise fought like an animal, teeth snapping, nails gouging. She felt hot pain on her throat, a spurt and trickle of blood as they rolled over the rocky ground toward the edge of the cliffs.
     
    Ryan shouted her name as he ran into the house, shouting it again and again as he pounded up the stairs. When he found Andrew terror squeezed his heart into a hot ball.
    He heard the crash of thunder, then the echoing blast of gunshots. With fear drenching his skin, he shoved through the terrace doors.
    There, silhouetted by the fire flash of lightning, he saw two figures tangled on the cliffs. Even as he offered up the first prayer, as he climbed over the rail to leap down, he saw them go off.
    • • •

    Her breath was sobbing, burning her throat. There was pain everywhere, the stench of blood and fear. She gripped the slippery butt of the gun, tried to twist it away. It bucked in her hand, once, twice, and the fury of sound punched pain in her ears.
    Someone was screaming, screaming, screaming. She tried to dig her heels in for purchase and found her legs dangling in space. In the blasts and jolts of light, she could see Elise’s face over hers, contorted, mouth wide, teeth bared, eyes blind with madness. In them, for one horrified second, she saw herself.
    From somewhere she heard her name, a desperate call. As if in answer, she twisted, shoved viciously. With Elise clawing at her, they tumbled over the edge.
    She could hear a woman laughing, or perhaps it was weeping as she tore at rock and dirt with her fingers, felt herself dragged down.
    A thousand prayers babbled in her mind, a thousand jumbled images. Rock bit at her skin as her body fought to cling to the wall of the cliff. Panting, wild with fear, she looked over her shoulder, saw Elise’s white face, dark eyes, saw her even now release her hold on rock to aim the gun—and then she fell.
    Trembling, sobbing, Miranda pressed her cheek against the cold face of the cliff. Her muscles were screaming, her fingers burning. Below her, the sea she had always loved crashed impatiently and waited.
    Her stomach shuddered, spewing a dizzying nausea into her throat. Fighting it back, she lifted her face to the pounding rain again, stared at the edge just a foot above her head, watched the shaft of light from the old tower slice through the dark as if to guide her.
    She would not die this way. She would not lose this way. She kept her eyes focused on the goal and fought to find some small purchase with her feet. She clawed her way up one sweaty inch, then another before her feet slid free.
    She was dangling by bloody fingertips when Ryan bellied over the edge.

    “Jesus. Sweet Jesus, Miranda, hang on. Look at me. Miranda, look at me, take my hand.”
    “I’m slipping.”
    “Take my hand. You have to reach up, just a little.” He braced himself on the slick rocks and held both hands down to her.
    “I can’t let go. My fingers are frozen. I can’t let go. I’ll fall.”
    “No you won’t.” Sweat slid down his face along with the rain. “Take my hand, Miranda.” While his head screamed with panic, he grinned at her. “Come on, Dr. Jones. Trust me.”
    Her breath came out on a wild, broken sob. She pried her numb fingers from the rock and reached for his. For a gut-wrenching instant, she felt herself hang, a fingertip away from death. Then his hand clamped firm over hers.
    “Now the other one. I need both your hands.”
    “Oh God, Ryan.” Blind now, she let go.
    When her full weight locked his arms, he thought they might both go over. He inched back, cursing the rain that made their hands slip, that seemed to turn the rock into sheer glass. But she was helping him, boosting herself with her feet, her breath hissing with the effort as they worked.
    She used her elbows on the ledge, pressing down, scraping them raw as he dragged her the last few inches over the top.
    When she collapsed on him, he wrapped her in his arms, cradled her on his lap and rocked them both in the rain.
    “I saw you go over. I thought you were dead.”
    “I would have been.” Her face was buried against his chest where his heart beat in hard, jerky pulses. From somewhere in the distance came the high pitched whine of sirens. “If you hadn’t come. I couldn’t have held on much longer.”
    “You’d have held on.” He tipped her head back, looked into her eyes. There was blood on her face. “You’d have held on,” he repeated. “Now you can hold on to me.”