Unshakeable Pursuit (Christian Romantic Suspense)

Chapter 10c

It was all his fault. Again.

Geoffrey dully answered the officer's questions about the attack. He'd already answered them earlier, but they were repeating the questions. Maybe to see if he remembered something different or changed his story.

The hole in his gut was familiar to him. It was the same feeling he'd had when he'd heard about the tsunami hitting the shores of Tōhoku. He'd been at his uncle's home in Yuzawa, sleeping off a late night of drinking with his cousins, when they'd felt the earthquake. Then had come the news about the tsunami heading toward the coast within the hour. One of the places affected would be Ōfunato, where Geoffrey's cousin, Noa, had gone early that morning to visit their grandmother.

Geoffrey hadn't gone with her as planned because he'd been too hammered to get up, so Noa went alone. And she died with his grandmother in the tsunami that destroyed the city.

He had failed her. She had died alone, trying to get their grandmother out of the city. If he'd been there, he surely could have helped her. They might have survived. But he'd been too sloshed and selfish.

So he'd stayed in Japan, trying to purge the demons from his soul. He'd joined a medical missions team and saw the devastation in the wake of the tsunami, tried to help patch up bodies where hearts were already rent apart.

The ache from that hole had faded, but now it came back, the wound ripped open again. He hadn't been able to save Noa or his grandmother. He had thought he'd changed, but he hadn't been able to keep Maylin safe.

After he'd come to, he'd called Detective Carter, who was still in the middle of the abduction case he was working on with Liam. But the detective had called the San Francisco police department and officers had met Geoffrey at the dance club within a few minutes. They were going over the area where the men had been, had even taken the cigarette the one man had been smoking, but Geoffrey knew DNA tests would take days if not weeks. Geoffrey hadn't seen the men's car. There weren't any banks along the street which had ATM cameras that could have caught the men on film.

She was lost to him.

Geoffrey had called his brother Chris, who was still at the Den with his mom, and asked him to drive to the cabin to tell Linc, but he was surprised when his brother arrived barely an hour later. Linc must have been speeding to get to San Francisco so quickly.

The policemen had finished talking to Geoffrey and were getting ready to leave, so he was sitting on the curb when Linc pulled up in Olivia's Suburban. He parked as Geoffrey got to his feet and dusted off his jeans.

"You okay?" Linc's eyes were intent as they studied Geoffrey's face.

"Yeah, the paramedics looked at me. I'm fine."

"Thank God." Linc pulled him into a fervent hug.

Geoffrey slapped his brother's back, surprised to find comfort in the embrace. His siblings tended to be more physically affectionate than he was, but right now, he needed his brother's shoulder to lean on. He found his hands were shaking—he hadn't noticed it before now.

"Tell me what happened," Linc said.

Geoffrey told him, reliving the frustration and horror in his mind at the sight of Maylin with the gun pressed to her side. Was she all right? She had to be.

"I don't know what to do." Geoffrey ran a hand through his short hair. "I want to be doing something, going somewhere, but I don't know where to go."

"Can you go to Chester?"

"They weren't his men. They wanted us because they overheard me saying that Chester wanted us dead."

"Enemies of Chester? I guess he's got a lot."