by Willow Rose
Chapter 100
My eyes were still closed when the door slammed open. Liam’s finger was still on the trigger, but the shock of the sound made him ease up. As the SWAT team burst into the room, they fired one shot, one that hit Liam in the shoulder, causing him to drop the gun. Boots and men in heavy body armor surrounded him. There was a lot of yelling, and Liam screamed in pain.
Meanwhile, I finally let go and dozed off into the unknown, letting the stars guide my way. I didn’t feel the hands on my body as they freed me and carried me off on a stretcher. I think I heard Isabella’s voice in the distance as I was rushed off to the hospital, but that’s all I remember.
Until the next day, late in the afternoon, when I woke up in a hospital bed. I blinked and reached for something to drink, feeling overwhelmed with thirst.
A hand made sure to guide mine to a glass and helped as I pulled it to my mouth and drank. Slowly as the liquid did its work in me, I woke up completely, only to see Matt’s gentle eyes looking down at me.
“Matt? Are you here?”
“Isabella called me right after they had taken you to the hospital. I took the first flight here early in the morning.”
I grabbed his arm and pulled it forcefully.
“Elijah,” I said. “What about Elijah?”
Matt’s expression changed. Tears welled up in his eyes, and my heart began to break.
Oh, no, please, no.
“It was all an unfortunate accident…” he said, “I know it wasn’t the guy’s fault, but…”
“What happened to Elijah, Matt?”
He lifted his glance and looked me in the eyes. I couldn’t stand seeing him tormented like this.
“He was shot in the right arm. They had to amputate it from the elbow down. Something about too many fractures and shattered bones. They said it…they tried, but they couldn’t save it.”
“But…he’s going to be all right?”
Matt nodded. “Except for the arm, yes.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I started to cry, now with joy. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that. You have no idea, Matt.”
Matt reached out and hugged me, holding me very tight. He was crying too now and sniffling.
“I was so scared, Eva Rae. Within less than twelve hours, I almost lost both of the people I love the most.”
I swallowed and looked at him, then chuckled. “You still love me?”
“Of course, you silly,” he said, wiping his nose with his hand. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I haven’t exactly treated you well,” I said. “I haven’t appreciated you enough. I know I could have been better; I shouldn’t have been…I just felt so bad about Chad and what happened to him—about losing the only man who’d understand if I bragged about my kids, you know? I felt so guilty, and then I blamed it all on you, I guess. It was just easier, you know? And you were so right. I have been running. But it’s over now…I mean, I think I’m finally done running now.”
“Easy there, Eva Rae. I’m not blaming you. Not anymore. It was just as much my fault. I moved too fast,” he said. “I was so scared of losing you that I wanted to move faster than you were ready for. Elijah and I will move back in with my mom until you’re truly ready for us. It’s what’s best for all of us.”
“So, we’re good?” I asked.
He smiled and kissed me. As our lips parted, he whispered: “We’re very good, Eva Rae. We’re more than that. We’re perfect. Right now, in this moment, everything is just perfect.”
I kissed him again and closed my eyes when I heard loud voices coming from the hallway. Voices I knew a little too well. Matt chuckled, and I held his face between my hands.
“At least it was perfect,” he mumbled, “for a few seconds.”
“You brought the kids with you, didn’t you?”
“Of course. They insisted. I didn’t really have a choice.”
“You never do with them,” I said with a wry smile and let go of him as my youngest stormed inside the room.
“Mo-o-o-om!” Alex shrieked and ran to me. He jumped onto the bed and sat on top of me. “You got hurt again, Mommy.”
“That’s because she caught a very dangerous domestic terrorist, you doofus,” Olivia said, coming up behind him. “Don’t you watch the news? It’s all they talk about. Now, be careful with her. She’s in a lot of pain.”
“Well, actually, I think I’m on a lot of pain medication right now,” I said. “But as soon as that wears off, I’m sure to be.”
“The doctor said you’ll be fine,” Matt said. “Two broken ribs and a lot of bruises, but other than that, you should be all right.”
“I feel great,” I said as Christine grabbed my hand in hers. I sent her a smile and took a deep breath, enjoying this rare moment, feeling more blessed than ever. For just a second, I wished this moment would last forever and that there would never be any more evil in this world that I needed to protect my loved ones from.
Maybe one day. In a perfect world.
THE END
Afterword
Dear Reader,
Thank you for purchasing Let me Go (Eva Rae Thomas #5). The idea for this story came from an article I read about a woman who had been swatted as a form of harassment. Her teenage son was home alone when it happened, and she was terrified that he might be killed by the police entering her home, thinking he might be armed. He wasn’t, but the thought of it stirred up something inside of me, and I began researching the phenomenon. I found a lot written about it and found out it was very common in the gaming world. Some YouTubers are being swatted regularly while doing their videos. Luckily, it’s rare that it ends in fatalities or even people getting hurt. But I did find one story where it went terribly wrong. That was the story I used as the inspiration for the “Then” story. Tyler Barriss was actually a serial swatter, and he called in bomb threats regularly and was making money off of people wanting him to swat someone for them. He bragged about it online, and one day, he and someone else decided to swat a guy that they had a dispute with in a Call of Duty game. They called in a hostage situation to an address, and when the police arrived, the man living in the house at the address they had given walked out on the porch and was shot because the police thought he was armed and reaching for a gun. The man died. But that’s not all of it. It turned out it was the wrong address. It wasn’t even the guy they wanted to harass; it was some complete stranger, a 28-year-old man and a father of two who lost his life that day. The guy who made the call was later found, and he got twenty years in jail. His friend got fifteen months.
Now, the story about a mother holding down a kid so her child could beat someone up is also taken from real life, incredible as it sounds. It is quite insane. You can read more here and also see the video that was recorded of the attack at a bus stop. The woman was later arrested.
https://www.wsmv.com/news/police-mother-and-daughter-beat-girl-waiting-for-school-bus/article_325cd646-dee9-11e9-a4c2-67c2f3877b6c.html
I will end this with a couple of fun facts that surprised me when researching for this book. I can tell you that there are more than twenty-three million YouTube channels, and more than eight-thousand of them have more than a million subscribers. They estimate that two out of five of these are gaming related. The live streaming platform Twitch has more than two million broadcasters and fifteen million daily viewers.
It makes sense that there is a lot of money involved in this world.
Thank you for all your support. Don’t forget to leave a review if you can; it means so much to me.
Take care,
Willow
IT’S NOT OVER
Eva Rae Thomas Mystery #6
Prologue
Marathon Key,
Key West,
Florida
Prologue
He noticed them because they were having fun—not that they stood out otherwise. They were a nice core family of four: a mom, a dad, and their two children: a boy and a girl. The children looked so muc
h alike that he assumed they had to be twins.
This day, they were playing in the resort’s pool. The girl screamed with joy as the boy jumped in, making a huge water bomb. In the next second, she was crying loudly because he splashed water all over her. Her mom ran to her instantly and grabbed her in her arms, then comforted her, while the dad told the boy to be more careful next time. A few seconds later, the girl and the boy were both taking turns jumping in and swimming about, with their orange wings floating on the surface.
Yesterday, he had watched them at the tennis court as the parents played together, and the kids chased the runaway balls and handed them back to their parents, who patted them lovingly on their blond heads as a thank you. The day before, he had watched while they were enjoying the beach. He had especially taken pleasure in listening to the happy squeals as they looked at fish while snorkeling, splashing their little arms and feet on the surface of the water. He had watched them closely from behind his dark sunglasses as they built a sandcastle, his cap pushed down over his forehead, making it look like he was sleeping.
He noticed their happiness because he hated it—just like he hated Key West and its sticky air. He hated the water and the scorching sun. Yet, he returned every year just to catch a glimpse of the children at the resort.
He moved restlessly in the lounge chair. It was still early in the day. Only couples with children were at the pool at this hour. They were the only ones who’d get up this early on their vacation.
It was the perfect hour for scouting.
He grabbed his sunscreen and applied a layer, rubbing his arms and legs, hoping to get rid of that itch growing inside him. It was getting harder and harder to keep it at bay, and he realized that, as much as he enjoyed looking at the children, it was time for him to leave.
He sat up straight and grabbed his flipflops and the bottle of sun lotion when he heard a small voice talking next to him. The sound of it startled him.
With a gasp, he glared at the small girl who had snuck up on him and was now standing right beside him. It was one of the twins, the girl. She was obviously already too aware of her cuteness and prettiness, even at the age of only five years old. Her big blue eyes gleamed up at him and almost made him lose it. He stared at her throat, the small piece right underneath her chin, and he wanted badly to touch it. He wanted to caress her skin and put his arms around her. He panted heavier as he imagined all the things he wanted to do to her.
Not now. Not here.
“What do you want?” he hissed at the child, hoping to get rid of her. He didn’t think anyone had noticed he was even there. Her talking to him would attract attention. It was the last thing he needed right now.
Of course, the child stayed where she was.
“What’s your name?” she asked with a small sweet voice. Her breath even smelled like sugar from the snack she had just eaten.
He forced a smile, taking a deep breath to calm himself while clenching his fists so hard with excitement that it almost hurt. This girl had a sweetness about her, unlike any little girl he had met or observed.
He leaned forward, then whispered in her ear: “It’s a secret.”
Her eyes grew even wider, and her mouth gaped. Then, she placed her hands on her hips.
“Hey, mister, are you a spy?”
That made him laugh.
“You might say that.”
“Woah,” the girl said, mouth still gaping.
Her parents had, by now, realized she was gone and spotted her talking to him. This was his cue to leave. They called her name, and the girl was about to leave when she stopped herself and turned to face him again.
“I’m Maggie, by the way. And your secret is safe with me.”
He smiled and felt his heart melt as Maggie ran to her parents and brother. Her mom lifted her hand and waved at him, and he waved back, smiling. He stared after them, and couldn’t stop thinking about the girl and her small soft neck as she disappeared with her parents, holding her mother’s hand.
His heart pounded in his throat as he mumbled to himself: “You are my secret, Maggie. You are my sweet and delightful secret.”
Prologue
She hadn’t recognized herself in a while. But now, for the first time in months, she felt like herself again. Mary Marshall stared at her children in the bathroom, where they were brushing their teeth for bed. Maggie and Blake were both in their PJs. His were blue and had airplanes on them, while hers were pink and had Rapunzel from her favorite movie Tangled on them.
Maggie and Blake, the twins, had been inseparable since birth, yet they could drive their mother nuts with all their fighting and screaming. They had just turned five years old and, finally, things were getting a little easier, their mother had to admit. There was more now that they could do on their own, and her workload had eased up slightly.
It was Peter’s idea to come to Key West for the summer. “A couple of weeks at a resort will do you good,” he said. “You won’t have to cook or clean—just hang out in a lounge chair by the pool or on the beach. Get some sun on that pale nose of yours.”
He had said the last thing with a smile and a kiss on the tip of her nose. Peter was a good husband. He was a dentist and had his own clinic, and provided well for them without ever complaining. Even if it meant he had to work long hours and go away for dental conferences regularly.
It was never Mary’s plan to be a stay at home mom. She had liked working at the local newspaper. She had loved her colleagues and, once she got pregnant, she hadn’t assumed she would stay home as long as she did. But having twins turned out to be quite the challenge, and if she was perfectly honest, they had become her entire life. And as they grew, she found that she quite enjoyed being at home with them. She hadn’t wanted to go back to work, not even when the twins had started voluntary pre-Kindergarten when they were four. After the summer, they would start Kindergarten, and Peter was talking about getting her a halftime position at the clinic, but for some reason, it didn’t interest Mary. She found that she hated the thought of having to be apart from her children. She enjoyed being with them all day, even on the long days when Peter came home late. They filled her with so much joy, and she didn’t think any job would ever be able to live up to that. She had never expected to feel this way, and it took her quite by surprise. Growing up, Mary hadn’t even been sure she wanted children one day. When her friends talked about it, she’d been the one to say she’d rather travel and see the world or live alone in an apartment in New York, working for a big publishing house, attending cocktail parties and book launch parties on the weekends. And she had done those things…well, almost. She had traveled for three months through Central America after college, and she had lived in NY for a year, alone while applying for jobs at publishing houses, but never getting one. When the money ran out, she had ended up going back to Lexington, Kentucky, where she had sworn she’d never come back except to visit. Her mother had died in a house fire, and suddenly, she was left all alone in the world, and so she decided it was time to settle down. She got a job at the local newspaper, and a few years later, she met Peter at the grocery store of all places. He had just come back to town and opened his own dental clinic in Lexington. He remembered her from when she was a child, he said. She never told him, but she didn’t remember him at all…maybe because he was older than her. He did seem familiar to her, and she felt very comfortable with him for some reason. He was the first guy she didn’t feel like she had to pretend to be someone other than who she was. She could be herself completely, and that felt nice. He had asked her out on that day at the store, and, well, the rest was history. Not as interesting a story as she would have liked it to have been, but far better than what she had imagined. She had no idea that her happiness was to be found at a dental clinic in Lexington, and a small house in a cookie-cutter suburb neighborhood. It was the life she had sworn she never wanted, and yet today, she wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
“You should get ready,” Peter said, co
ming up behind her, kissing her neck. The kids rinsed their mouths and put their toothbrushes in the cup, then ran to their bedroom.
“Are you sure it’ll be fine leaving them in the hotel room while we go to dinner?” she asked anxiously.
Tonight was their anniversary, and they had planned to eat at the hotel’s restaurant—alone for once.
“Of course,” Peter said. “The door will be locked, and the kids will be sound asleep. We’ll be right downstairs. This is a resort. It’s safe; believe me. Besides, I can’t wait to have a few hours alone with my beautiful wife. I feel like we haven’t been alone for years.”
He was right. They hadn’t been good at prioritizing being just the two of them. Other couples had date nights once a month or even once a week, where they went out just the two of them. Mary didn’t like leaving her babies with some babysitter, and to be honest, she wasn’t that interested in being without them. She loved Peter, but why couldn’t it be all four of them?
“What if they wake up and want their mother?” she asked, biting her lip. She felt odd about this dinner and wasn’t sure she wanted to go.
“We’ll leave my phone by their bedside. They know how to use that and can call us on your phone. Plus, we can check on them every hour if you like.”
“Let’s make that every thirty minutes, and you have a deal,” she said, smiling at him in the mirror in front of her.
