It Wasn't Me - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,70

husband wasn’t answering my calls.

Of course, something was wrong!

“If I let you go, you have to promise to stay still,” he said. “Stay right here and let me go investigate.”

My heart was pounding in my throat, and though I wanted very much to go looking, I knew my father was right.

Not only did I not have just myself to think about anymore, but I also knew that Jonah would be pissed if I’d come to investigate.

Like, I’m going to never let you forget it, pissed.

So, I nodded my head.

“I’ll stay.”

Dad looked at me once, then bent down and pulled a gun out of his walking cast—something that was a new fixture since he’d refused to stay off of his old cast. The doctor said that since he was going to walk on it with or without his approval, he would just go ahead and switch him over to the one he could safely walk with.

I blinked.

“What…”

He pressed the gun into my hand. “Turn that light off. Hide in the shadows right there. Don’t move until I come back for you or Jonah does, okay?”

I nodded once, then clicked the light off on my phone.

With that, the night was plunged into darkness around me, and my father slinked off into the shadows like he was made to be a part of them.

I didn’t even hear his walking boot creak as he moved, which was the scariest thing. I’d heard it throughout the entire drive as he’d shifted gears, and then when he’d been walking beside me through the long grass not even moments before.

I closed my eyes and strained my ears, hoping to hear something, anything.

But nothing, not even the sound of crickets or frogs, broke the silence.

***

Sam

I walked, feeling the twinge and protest of my ribs, keeping to the shadows as I made my way around the back of Jonah’s house.

“Look what you made me do!” I heard a woman shriek.

Jonah’s low, rumbled apology filled the air seconds later.

“I can’t believe…look what you made me do!” she cried out. “Follow me, we’re going to find the well.”

The well?

“What well?” Jonah asked, sounding worried.

I would be, too.

It sounded like the woman was psychotic.

Like she needed all of her screws tightened again because she was about to fall apart.

“The well where the baby fetus is.”

Oh, boy.

Now she didn’t just sound like she was psychotic. She was psychotic.

“I have no idea what you’re speaking of…and woman, get your shit together. You keep switching that gun from hand to hand like that with your finger on the trigger, and you’re going to accidentally shoot my head off,” Jonah grumbled.

“No, I can’t do that,” she whispered. “I’ll never find the well then.”

I paused when I finally rounded the house far enough to see the front porch.

The light was on, illuminating not just Jonah’s worried face, but also the woman’s. The woman was dressed in a red dress. It was long and flowy and looked like one of those salsa dresses that was made to swish and flash out. Her hair was done up with copious amounts of curls on top of her head, and she even had a red flower pinned to her hair.

She was beautiful.

If I hadn’t heard her crazy ramblings, I would’ve thought she was incapable of harm. Hell, the gun in her hand pointed at Jonah wouldn’t have even made me nervous.

But the crazy in her eyes, as well as the crazy pouring out of her mouth? Yeah, that I was scared about.

“Let’s go.” She shook the gun at Jonah.

Jonah sighed and began walking down the stairs, his hands up by his shoulders, and a look in his eyes that clearly said he’d rather snatch that gun out of her hand and shove it down her throat.

I was surprised he wasn’t losing his shit yet.

He didn’t strike me as the type to remain calm for long.

“I said go!” the woman ordered.

I took the gun out of the holster at the small of my back, and when the woman nearly was on top of me, I reached for the gun, twisted it, and disarmed her in all of three seconds.

Her outrage at being disarmed was written all over her face, and when she took a leaping step toward me to grab my gun, Jonah caught her in a hold, twisted her, and then threw her onto the ground.

“Piper okay?” Jonah asked, sounding pissed.

“Fine,” I answered. “She’s…”

“Right here,” Piper said softly. “I could hear what was going on. Everything okay?”

Jonah looked over at Piper,