Except she was involved. If there was a connection to the people who had been after her, she needed to figure out who they were and why they were pursuing her.
Once they were over the ridge and back to the beach, the helicopter was waiting for them. She turned to the woman, knowing this might be her last chance to talk to her.
“I need to know who was after you.”
For a long moment, Noelle said nothing. Elsie waited.
“I think... This is going to sound paranoid. But I worked with someone...” She hesitated. “Travis Cattleman.”
Elsie frowned. Why did that sound familiar?
“The senator?” Wyatt asked, and that pinged Elsie’s memory.
“Yes,” Noelle confirmed, looking uneasy. “He’s the one who suggested this place to me. He said he’d hiked it.”
“Did you see him here on the island?”
Noelle shook her head. “No. The person who attacked me wore a ski mask, but...he didn’t seem familiar.”
Elsie could feel Wyatt’s eyes on her and she could imagine the kinds of questions he had.
“You’ll probably have to tell all this to the police, too.” Wyatt spoke up.
Noelle frowned. “Can’t you just pass it on to them?”
“We aren’t law enforcement,” Elsie explained.
“Then why did you want to know all of that? Why the concern about who had been after me? Isn’t that something the police should be asking?”
“Hopefully they will,” Elsie said. “But we are looking into things, too...trying to get a picture of what’s going on.”
“Why?”
Elsie wondered how to say this. When she finally spoke, it was with confidence. “We’re looking for another missing person, too.”
“Someone tied to this case?” She frowned and Elsie nodded slowly. “Who?”
Elsie took a deep breath. “Me.”
They’d climbed into the helicopter just after Elsie’s revelation to Noelle. None of them said anything the entire ride back to Destruction Point. They’d no sooner gotten out of the airplane than police met them.
“Thank you for finding her,” one of the Destruction Point police officers said to Elsie.
“I’m glad we could.”
“You’re definitely a one-of-a-kind team.” A trooper spoke up. “Not many people would have walked into that kind of danger. Usually we prefer to send a trooper with the K-9 team as backup. I’m sorry we weren’t able to today, but you did fantastic.”
Elsie’s smile was thin and watery. Wyatt could tell the praise made her uncomfortable but wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t like to be singled out and given accolades, or if it was because she didn’t feel like she’d earned the praise and felt guilty because she’d concealed her possible connection to the case.
“Thank you.”
“At least the senator can’t try to hurt her again, if he really was behind this,” one of them said as they started to walk away, ready to take Noelle back to the city to continue hearing her testimony of what had happened and to return her to her home.
Elsie frowned. “How can you be sure?”
The trooper pulled out his smartphone and thumbed at it before showing her a newspaper headline. “Didn’t you hear? His plane went down. He died this morning.”
Wyatt and Elsie shared startled looks.
“Where?” Wyatt asked, not surprised a plane had had trouble, given the bad weather that morning, but somewhat surprised that it could really all be wrapped up this easily.
“Not far from here, near Fisherman’s Cove, during that foggy period of time this morning. That’s why manpower was low today.”
He was more thankful than ever that Elsie had listened to him and not insisted on flying out in weather that wasn’t appropriate for someone who was not instrument rated to fly in.
Elsie seemed to understand what he was thinking, because she turned to him and offered a smile.
“I’m glad she will be safe now,” Elsie said.
The trooper nodded. “We are, too.”
And Wyatt? He was glad that if the same person was after Elsie, then she would be safe as well. The rest was just icing on the cake.
After watching law enforcement fly away, Elsie and Wyatt started walking back toward town, to the docks, like they’d both agreed on it.
“You don’t have to follow me there anymore,” Elsie said with a small smile. “I think it’s safe now.”
Safe. That word had never sounded quite so incredible as it did to him now. That was what he wanted Elsie to be for the rest of her life. Safe.
