EDGE

EDGE

Tiffinie Helmer

C
OPYRIGHT
I
NFORMATION

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For more information, please direct your correspondence to:

The Story Vault

c/o Marketing Department

P.O. Box 11826

Charleston, WV 25339-1826

http://www.the-story-vault.com

EDGE

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2013 by Tiffinie Helmer

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

This book is dedicated to Mikelynn, my first born. May you always soar higher than you ever thought possible. Love you, babe.

P
ROLOGUE

Twenty years ago

The knife reflected the setting sun on its upward arc, resembling a torch as well as the instrument that would end her young life of twelve years. Amelia struggled against the ropes tying her down until her skin tore and bled, slickening the rough stones of the altar she lay on.

All the while Jedidiah Dawson, leader of the Ascension, quoted bible verses.

Methodically, he sliced a length of her long, golden hair, and turned toward one of the nine homemade beeswax candles placed at strategic points around her body. Like a sick nursery rhyme the candles marked head, shoulders, knees, and toes, and so forth. The solstice sun highlighted his handsome, strong features, his smooth shaven face, adding shots of fire to his groomed maple-colored hair. Tonight he had donned a coal-black robe, embroidered with white and blue threads, over his simple cotton, button-down shirt and pants.

Praying for her deliverance, he brushed the burning locks of hair over her nude body. Sparks flared from the blaze, burning her skin where they fell.

Her hoarse screams went unanswered.

“D-don’t,” she cried. “Please, don’t do this. Please.” She’d done what they’d wanted. Stopped fighting them months ago, resigned to her fate from being a kidnapped victim to the prophesied daughter and wife to Jedidiah.

The knife trembled in his hand, and he tightened his grip. “You failed to conceive and therefore must be cleansed.” He brushed tears from her face with gentle fingers. “Now, hush. It’s time.” The knife rose above her and he closed his eyes, his voice ringing throughout the lush forest. “‘
Kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. Numbers 31:17
’
.
”

Like that had been her choice.

He bestowed a look of caring patience upon her. “My child, I will make you sacred in order that you may ascend into the Kingdom of our Lord.”

“I don’t want to ascend. Let me go home. Please. I just want to g-go h-home.” Sobs shook her emaciated frame.

“I am sending you home, my daughter, my wife. Soon you will be with our Lord.” Tears filled his dark eyes. “‘
O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Psalms 137:8
’.”

He kept repeating chapter and verse as though still teaching her. He brushed his lips across her forehead. “Know that I will miss and pray for you often as you prepare a place for me and our brothers and sisters in our Lord’s Kingdom.” The hand holding the knife rose above her again. The blade didn’t tremble as it sliced downward.

The thick forest embraced her screams, and the rich earth swallowed her blood.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow.

~ JOB 8:9

Present day

“Cache, I know you’re in there. Open up!”

Cache Calder hobbled to his front door, a crutch under his left arm. He was going to kill the son of a bitch on the other side. Why was it so much to ask to be left the hell alone?

He yanked open the door to find his poodle of an editor, Tom Passey. “What do you want?”

Tom pushed his way into the apartment. “If you’d answer your blasted phone, I wouldn’t have had to trek all the way across Manhattan to tell you.” Tom looked around the dim and dirty apartment. “Wow. I’d heard you’d gone into cave-mode, but this…is disturbing.” He kicked an empty pizza box out of his way and continued toward the drape-shrouded windows.

“Get the hell out of here, Tom.” Cache held the door open, using the doorknob to keep himself upright.

Tom flung the curtains wide and turned with a dramatic flair. Cache averted his eyes as the sun sliced like fire through his brain.

“Fell off the wagon, huh?” Tom surveyed the sea of Chinese takeout containers rivaling the discarded pizza boxes. He wrinkled his nose and fingered the edge of a Styrofoam box containing leftover petrified chili cheese fries. “What happened to your health nut regime?”

“Can’t find a health food store that delivers,” Cache grumbled. Obviously Tom wasn’t going to leave until he had his say. Cache pushed the door shut. Pain radiated up his leg, and he shook with the effort it took to stay on his feet. He limped to the recliner, sank into the cushions, and tossed the crutch to the floor, feeling every tense and aching muscle in his forty-two year old body sigh with relief.

“Cache, I know that the last few months have been tough, but it’s time you got back to work.
World Events
needs you.”

Cache glared at Tom standing there without any effort, dressed in a navy Versace pinstriped suit, his dark hair slicked back, the top buttons of his paisley silk shirt left purposely undone. What did this pompous piece of leftover runway model know about how tough the last few months had been? Tom hadn’t been in the Middle East when the insurgent’s bomb had exploded. He hadn’t watched helplessly as his friends had been blown to pieces.

He hadn’t been cursed with surviving.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the magazine.” Cache gestured to his leg still wrapped in a brace. “I can’t work with this.” His leg was a raw jigsaw puzzle stitched back together. He had more steel pins and screws holding it together than a Frank Lloyd Wright house. He was lucky to still have it. Though there had been times when the pain had been so intense he’d wished the doctors had cut it off. Guilt drowned him. What right did he have to bitch and moan over a little thing like pain, when Hank and Sarah were dead?

“I have the perfect assignment for you. One that will give you time to recuperate and help you rediscover your ‘edge’.” Tom’s face lit as the passion for the sell stole over him. The man would have made a killer used car salesman. As it was, he was making a fine name for himself as an editor for
World Events.

“What possible assignment would allow me time to heal?” He was a photojournalist. His job required that he be ready at any moment to chase down the story. Capture the soul of his subject with a single snapshot. How was he going to accomplish that with a bum leg? Besides, scary as the thought was, he didn’t think he had it in him anymore. The spark which usually fired his “shutter bug muse” was snuffed out, extinguished with the force of the blast that wiped out the lives of so many people in the Middle East.

“Remember Amelia Bennett? The magazine wants to do an exposé.” Tom held his hands up wide, his fingers simulating quotes. “Twenty years later. ‘
Where Is She Now’
?” His eyes glowed with excitement. “What do you think?”

Amelia Bennett.

His breath caught in his throat. He swiveled in his chair and studied the award-winning photograph, framed and hanging on the wall in the prized spot. His walls were covered—a gallery of his work—with pictures depicting people and places. All told their own story of life, and death, and hope.

But Amelia…

Amelia was special. The image he’d captured just following her rescue—after being kidnapped and held for nine months by the cult leader of the Ascension—had jump-started his career.

Made him who he was today.

Tom moved into his line of vision, breaking Cache’s journey into the past. “I knew you would remember.” He shrugged. “I mean, how could you not?” He pointed to the little girl that the media had labeled
Shattered Innocence.
“Don’t you want to know how she’s doing now? The rest of the world does.
You’re
the one who captured the essence of her broken soul. Aren’t you curious to know what kind of life she’s made for herself?” Tom’s voice picked up speed, moving in for the kill. “You have to be the one who does this story, Cache. I know how much she got to you. Her story affected the world. The world needs to know the little girl we all looked for and hoped would be returned to her grieving family was not only found, but survived—and let’s be optimistic here—triumphed over her ordeal.”

Cache’s gaze returned to Amelia’s picture. Long, white-gold hair framed a too thin face of smooth alabaster skin. She’d been twelve. Just a kid. Her wide blue eyes, as pure in color as forget-me-nots, spoke of the horrors she’d suffered. They filled her face. Drew you in and refused to let you go.

Damn. Why now? Why now, when he was so broken?

Could he let someone else tell Amelia’s story in his place? He studied her photograph again.
She was his story.

What would his camera lens tell him now?

Ah, hell.
Cache raked fingers through his uncombed hair and sighed. “Give me the details.”

Tom smiled, rubbed his hands together and shoved aside a stack of unopened mail, taking a seat on the couch. “It turns out Amelia Bennett is part owner of a lodge in Alaska. So—” Tom reached into his breast pocket and produced two airplane tickets “—we’re leaving for a two-week Alaskan adventure.”