Chapter 8

At the sound of the voice, all three of us look up. Several people in gear start climbing down the drop off to us. The first runs over to Alyson and hugs her.

"I'm here Alyson," he says.

"Thank you, Uncle," she says as she looks down at Tyler, "He needs help. He's barely holding on."

"We've got him," another officer says, putting a hand on Alyson's shoulder. "Eddy, you want us to go ahead and bring him up?"

"Yeah," Eddy says, gently guiding Alyson away from Tyler, "get him to hospital as quick as you can. I'll take care of the girls."

"I want to go with him," Alyson says, looking up at Eddy.

"Aly, they need as much room in that ambulance as possible to help him," he says, putting his forehead against hers. "We'll follow right behind them and go straight there." Alyson hesitates but finally nods. Eddy hugs her before looking over at Avi and me. "Who are these two?" he asks.

"This is Avi and Chloe," Alyson says. "They're my cousins that I met in Oregon. They came with me to help find Tyler."

"It's a pleasure to meet both of you," Eddy says as he extends his hand and shakes mine then Avi's. "I'm Chief Brown to everyone else but you both can call me Eddy. And thank you for coming out here. I know Alyson needed it and I'm glad she had someone to help keep her safe."

"I'm glad we could be here for her," I say, giving Alyson a small smile.

"Let's go get back my truck and get to the hospital," Eddy says. "Tell me what you know on the way." He leads the way back up the slope and to his truck parked further away from the road than Alyson did. We pile in and Eddy starts the truck and heads toward the main road. After some silence, he finally asks, "Was Tyler able to say what happened?"

"He said it was Tom," Alyson growls.

"Tom Vecchi?" Eddy asks, sounding surprised.

Alyson nods, "Tyler went out there to talk to him because he thought he was the one who wrote the article about Mary Ann's death."

"Why would he think that?" Eddy asks.

"Tom is our father," Alyson says numbly. "When we were trying to clean out the house the first time, we found some clues about who our father was and figured out it was him. We called him out to the house to talk about it and he admitted to being our father."

"You're kidding," Eddy says, his voice sounding shocked. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Alyson lets out a sigh as she hangs her head, "It was right around his campaign. He didn't want anyone to know that we were his kids so he threatened to tell the same story in that article. He said he was there that night and Tyler said he saw someone when he ran away from Mary Ann."

"What?!" Eddy says, his eyes widening as he glances at Alyson. His eyes return to the road as he sits in silence for a few moments; processing what Alyson said. Finally, he asks, "Is any of his story true?"

Alyson pauses, hanging her head and clenching her fists, "I completely believe that Mary Ann was threatening Tyler. She said she was going to kill him. I wouldn't have done what I did otherwise."

"What do you mean?" Eddy asks in a concerned tone.

Alyson grips her fists tighter as she sniffs, "Uncle…it was me. I was the one who had the scissors. She was threatening Tyler and I just tried to stop her…I didn't mean to kill her." Alyson curls into herself and sobs, cupping her face in her hands.

Eddy's face falls as he slams on his brakes and pulls off for a moment. "But Tyler confessed," he starts, running his hands through his hair. "He went to Fireweed."

"We lied," Alyson sobs. "We lied to everyone."

Eddy grips at his hair, staring blankly out the windshield. He finally turns to Alyson and asks, "How did you let him take the blame?"

"I know I shouldn't have," Alyson whimpers, "but we were in shock and he asked to take the blame so I let him."

Eddy wraps an arm around Alyson and says, "I'm proud of you, Little Moose. This wasn't easy to admit and I know it's been hurting you all these years. I'm sorry I didn't see this sooner."

Alyson sniffs, "Thank you, Uncle." She pauses before asking, "What are you going to do about Tom?"

"Let's focus on seeing if Tyler is okay," Eddy says. "After that I'll start an investigation and see if Tom is at fault and what I can do to fix this for you and Tyler." Alyson nods as Eddy kisses the top of her head. He sits back up in his seat and turns back onto the main road.

Alyson pulls out her phone and stares at it. "I have to call Michael," she whispers.

"He needs to know," Eddy says gently. "Do you want me to call?"

Alyson shakes her head, "No, I need to." She takes a deep breath before dialing Michael and putting it on speaker phone. "Hey, it's me," Alyson says into the phone.

"Hey Aly," Michael answers. "Any news?"

Alyson pauses and starts to tremble. Avi notices and puts a hand on her shoulder. "We found him," Alyson says shakily. "We found Tyler."

"Is he okay?" Michael asks nervously. "What's going on?"

Alyson shakes her head, "He was stabbed. He was in a pretty bad way when we found him…he…he lost a lot of blood."

There is silence on the other end. Michael's shaky voice finally comes through, "…Is he alive?"

"He was when rescue took him," Alyson answers. "He's on his way to the hospital now. We are too…we're riding with Eddy."

"I'll meet you there," Michael says. "If you hear any news, call me."

"I will," Alyson says. "Please be careful." The line goes dead as she lets out a sob, "What if Tyler doesn't make it? What am I going to do?"

"Hey, don't think that," Avi says as she leans forward and wraps her arms around Alyson's shoulders. "You can't let your mind dwell on that. Just focus on the fact that we have him and he's on his way to get help. We don't need to cross any other bridge until we get there." Alyson grips Avi's arms and buries her face in them. I put a hand on her shoulder and rub it as Alyson sobs.