What thefuck?
Rafe drew his weapon and raced over, scanning the screen of trees where the shot must have come from.Reaching the vehicle, he ducked behind the back end, stared in disbelief as he took in the damage.
Lassiter lay slumped against his window, and it was coated in blood.There was a bullet hole in the opposite one.
Swearing to himself, he wrenched open the back door and reached in to feel for a pulse.Wasn’t surprised not to find one, given the damage to Lassiter’s skull.
He reared back, kept behind the body of the vehicle as he scanned the trees for any sign of movement.His skin crawled with the certainty that he was standing in someone’s crosshairs right now.
A sniper with a rifle.A skilled one.Because that had been a precise shot on a moving target, fired from a narrow sightline somewhere in the forest.
They were dealing with a pro.
“Get everyone up here,” he ordered the deputy.“Now.”
Someone had wanted to make sure Lassiter didn’t talk.Another militia member?
Rafe didn’t know what the hell was happening here, but he was going to find out.And whatever it was, it was bigger and more sinister than anyone had imagined.
FIFTY-FOUR
B
y the time Willow finally stepped out of her bathroom, freshly showered, moisturized and wrapped up in her thickest, cuddliest robe, the numbness she had been battling on and off for the past six hours was gone.In its place was a level of exhaustion she hadn’t felt since the day she’d found out Peyton had been killed.
Back then she hadn’t realized the extent of Tripp’s involvement.Now she wanted to know it all.
After the sheer terror of being trapped in her car and nearly falling to her death, followed by being hunted in the woods, her epically shitty day had been capped off with a sniper taking out Lassiter before he’d been questioned.
Not that she was sad about him dying.Far from it.But it was upsetting that he didn’t have to answer for what he’d done or why, or confess to his other crimes that Rafe was now tasked with unraveling.
Tripp was certain a sniper had taken him out.Why?And who was the shooter?
On the heels of all that, they’d spent hours more at the scene with Rafe and the two-person forensics team he’d called in, then gone to the sheriff’s station to make their formal statements.She’d called her parents on the way home, and Mae had been waiting for them here when they’d finally come back.
Tripp was still here.And while part of her couldn’t bear the thought of going through anything more right now, they still had to talk about Peyton.
