Page 125 of Lost in the Moonlight

The reality of what I was seeing sent my blood thumping in a cadence that left me breathless. She was a ghost. A figment of imagination and yet standing before me. My twin wearing a black lace dress. I knew instantly who she was. What she was. But I couldn’t stop to analyze it. Not when Lincoln needed help!

I raced toward the door, and when she didn’t move, I slid through her. It was like stepping into a cold shower. Shivers crawled up my spine as I eased open the door.

A man was standing right in front of me with his back to me and a gun in his hand. He had it pointed across the landing at Lincoln. I screamed, “No,” just as Lincoln plowed toward him. A quiet huff sounded, jerking Lincoln’s body as if he’d been hit.

In desperation and horror, I rushed forward, intending to bring the lamp down on top of the gunman’s head. But Lincoln’s momentum propelled him into the man, forcing them both into me, and we all tumbled to the floor, landing with me on the bottom and knocking the breath from my lungs. I couldn’t shove the man off me, couldn’t do anything with their combined weight holding me down.

“Drop the gun, or I’ll slice your throat open.” I hardly recognized Lincoln’s voice. It was darker than I’d ever heard it. Deadly and cold.

The man fought against Lincoln’s hold, elbows nailing me in my stomach. I shoved at the gunman using every muscle I had, but it was useless until they rolled off me, consumed with their own struggle.

Blood trailed on the wood planks, and when I saw it staining Lincoln’s shirt, a tortured wail escaped me.

I stretched my hands out, frantically searching the floor for the makeshift weapon I’d lost in the fall.

The blare of sirens broke through the sound of their fight and the pounding of the opera music.

Help was here and yet too far away. I watched in horror as the gun tipped toward Lincoln once more. Lincoln jabbed at the man’s neck with a pocketknife. The gunman stilled as blood oozed from the wound, and eyes full of hate landed on me. Eyes and hate I knew. That I’d encountered once upon a time in a courtroom. Ones that matched the hate his brother had revealed as he’d shot my father.

“The bitch doesn’t deserve to live,” Aaron gasped. He shifted the gun so it pointed at me, and as his finger pressed onto the trigger, Lincoln dragged the knife across his throat. A mixed sound of strangled pain and disbelief escaped him, his blood spraying across Lincoln.

I finally found my feet, stumbling toward them and kicking at the gun so it went flying across the hall.

The front door slammed against a wall as Aaron’s body went limp.

Even in death, his eyes still glared, still shot out evil and hate.

I shuddered, falling to my knees next to Lincoln where he’d rolled off Aaron. I used my hands to push against the blood soaking his shirt. “You’re hit. God, you’re hit. Don’t die, Lincoln. Please, don’t die.”

I increased the pressure on the wound, and he grunted in pain. His free hand circled my wrist. “Alive, Sweetness. I’m alive.”

Boots stormed the stairs.

“He’s wounded!” I shouted as my gaze first met Axel’s and then, close on his heels, Deputy James’s.

“We need an ambulance,” Axel spoke into his two-way. “Two down inside. One more out back.”

James went to Aaron, checked his pulse, and shook her head.

Axel tried to pull me away from Lincoln.

“The blood. I have to stop the blood,” I told him through tears.

“You’ve done a great job, Willow. A really great job. Now, let me see him.”

Lincoln squeezed my wrist again. “Let him in, Willow. Let him in.”

Sirens grew closer. More feet pounded up the stairs. More bodies emerged.

As I fell back and to the side, my eyes landed on the blood on my hands. Too much of it was the same again. Too much like that awful night. When I looked up, my gaze landed on the woman who’d come into the guest room, slipping through walls. She was pacing at the end of the hall, glancing back and forth between Lincoln and me. Her eyes were so real I could feel the weight of them on me. And yet no one else even registered she was there.

I looked down at Lincoln to see he was watching her pace just as I’d been.

And I suddenly knew.

It was Sienna he’d been seeing all along.

Chills raced up my spine.

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