It was enough to make her move.
Willa hurried into the attached bathroom. She shut the door and turned out the light. Not even a second later, the door to the other room banged open.
She placed her hands over her mouth, hoping to hear Billings or, even better, Kenneth.
Instead the only voice she heard belonged to a stranger.
He was loud and quick.
“Sorry.”
It took everything Willa had not to scream as one last gunshot went off.
Chapter Sixteen
The bathroom was dark but the light from the room poured inside and surrounded the woman.
Kenneth could have cried in relief.
“Willa?” He dropped his gun to his side and flipped on the light. Her wide, worried eyes took him in as his did the same to her.
She didn’t appear to be hurt.
“There was a man...” she started. “I heard him say sorry and—” She placed a hand over her mouth. “Oh God, he shot Billings and Leonard, didn’t he? They’re dead, aren’t they?”
One day he wished the only news he would give Willa was good. He couldn’t control that now.
“Yes. They are.”
Willa’s eyes welled with tears. Kenneth could hear security and responding deputies running through the halls. It had been over ten minutes since the fire in the stairwell had been set, the man downstairs had attacked a nurse and a patient, and the barrage of bullets could be heard exploding overhead. When Kenneth realized his error, his grave mistake of leaving Willa’s side despite promising not to, it had felt like his feet hadn’t even had time to touch the ground with how fast he ran up the stairs that weren’t blocked.
His stomach had fallen to his feet when he’d seen Billings on the ground outside the open door.
Then Leonard, motionless in his bed.
Kenneth didn’t know what he would have done had he opened the bathroom door and Willa not been there.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, reaching out to take her hand.
Willa shook her head. Those tears began to spill over her cheeks.
“No but I... I’d very much like to leave here,” she stammered out. “If...if we can.”
Kenneth hated to keep the bad news coming.
“We can, but not yet. The hospital is on lockdown until the man who did this is found. So I’m going to need you to stay in here for a little bit longer. Okay?”
Willa shook her head but repeated his last word.
“Oh...okay.”
Kenneth dropped her hand and positioned himself in the open doorway of the bathroom. Out of his periphery he saw Willa move against the wall behind the door, blocking any and all sight into Leonard’s room. Thankfully, from their angle, the blood from both Leonard and Billings couldn’t be seen.
The hospital was in lockdown but it started to fill up with law enforcement. Even reserve deputies came out and each floor was swept from top to bottom for the mystery man. Detective Lovett had been one of the first to show and had called Kenneth after reviewing the security footage.
“He knew where to walk to avoid being seen head-on by the cameras,” Lovett had said, his words heated. “I can’t see his face for anything, just like I can’t see how he got in or if he got out.”
After that call, Kenneth had made several others. All while keeping his spot in the doorway and his hand on his gun.
He didn’t move an inch when the sheriff or his other colleagues arrived to work the scene. By the time the county coroner and friend to the department, Dr. Amanda Alvarez, appeared, the search within the hospital was done.
“It would be better to take her out now and have her close her eyes than wait,” she told Kenneth in a low voice. “Things will get messier before they get cleaner.”
“Thank you,” he replied, taking the thoughtfulness for Willa to heart.
He also took the advice.
“We’re going to leave, but I need you to close your eyes, Willa.”
The woman had no objections. In fact, she didn’t say a word as Kenneth decided picking her up and carrying her past Leonard and over Billings’s body would be the best way to keep her from having to deal with haunting images.
“We’re in the elevator now, so I’m going to put you down, okay?”
Willa nodded but didn’t open her eyes until her feet were against the floor. Kenneth pushed the button for the lobby. Willa stayed against him, silent.
“Are we going home?” Her voice was so small, so soft.
Kenneth found himself nodding.
“Yes. I’ve already cleared it with the sheriff. We can go.”
The car ride was, he suspected, much like the one the night before. This time, however, their situations were reversed. Willa kept quiet while Kenneth worried mindlessly for her until he was able to take her into his house and set her down on the couch.
There her silence broke into a flood of tears.
“He...he told me to hide in the bathroom after the first shot.”
Kenneth pulled her against him, cradling her much like she had him after LeAnne’s death.
“Who? Leonard?”
She nodded, her hair brushing up against the bottom of his chin.
“He...he told me not to make a sound. I don’t understand. Why did...why did he do that?”
Kenneth stroked the back of her hair and held her tight.
He admitted he didn’t know.
She continued to cry until her sobs slowed into deep breaths. Then into a quiet that managed to fill up the room.
Every tear, every gasp, and every breath, Kenneth felt in his bones.
“I want you to stay here tonight,” he said with nothing but honesty.
It wasn’t a question but Willa still gave him an answer.
“Okay.”
After that their world sped up a little. Willa excused herself to the bathroom and then called her sister while Kenneth made several calls of his own. The witnesses who had seen the fight told their descriptions of the gunman but it didn’t sound like anyone they recognized. It was only luck that Kenneth saw two bandages on the man’s right arm in the security footage from where his sleeve had slipped down. That was enough to make them suspect that he was, in fact, the man in the hockey mask who had killed LeAnne, his bandages hiding cuts he’d gotten from his and Kenneth’s tussle. There was an all-points-bulletin out on him and a sketch artist from the next county was coming over to work with them to see if they couldn’t put his face out there since he’d avoided the hospital’s security cameras.
Everything else on the technical side of what had happened was being handled by the sheriff. He’d been the one to suggest taking Willa somewhere else and keeping an eye on her.
Regardless, even if he hadn’t, that’s exactly what Kenneth would have done.
Because, as much as he hated to admit it, it felt like two things were happening at once and neither of them was good.
Someone was cleaning up loose ends and someone considered Willa part of that mess.
* * *
THAT NIGHT CAME to find Willa in better spirits.
Though better was starting to become a relative term.
She wasn’t better compared to her life before she’d found the box, but she was a lot better than she had been before two people near her had been shot dead while she’d hid in the bathroom.
The worst part about finding the box was the constant death it seemed to bring with it.
The best part about finding the box was the man who woke her from her nap to offer her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner.
“I almost let you keep sleeping but realized I couldn’t remember if you’d eaten anything for lunch,” he said. “Also, not trying to push, but your sister has already called me twice. I think she wants to talk to you and not hear from me that you’re okay.”
Willa smiled, not an ounce embarrassed.
“Good of you to wake me. Though I barely convinced her to go stay at Kimball’s parents’ place. I’m not sure she’ll believe I’m okay.”
Kenneth slid her the phone and excused himself to give her some privacy. She ate her sandwich and spoke to Martha until it was gone.
“You should be with me,” Martha insisted one last time before the call ended.
Not if I’m a target, Willa thought, and not for the first time. She skirted repeating that and took a more judicious route.
“This is only temporary, Martha. I’m good here, and you know that.”
Martha didn’t respond with anything cheerful but did let Willa off of the phone without any more pushback. Then it was time to finally return the several texts from Ebony, though Willa did so with a call. Guilt at keeping what was happening from her faded away as she gave the Cliff’s Notes version of everything that had gone on since she’d found the box.
Ebony had, understandably, freaked out.
Then she’d reverted to nothing but concern. She’d asked Willa what she’d needed and accepted her answer of time alone to process.
Or, at least, time alone with the only person who she felt safe being with.
Willa ended the call with promises of checking in later and took her plate to the kitchen. Kenneth was finishing off his sandwich over the sink. He grinned and took the dish from her.
“I hope you don’t mind my lack of chef’s excellence,” he said. “As you probably saw this morning, I need to go grocery shopping something fierce.”
Willa situated herself leaning against the counter so she was facing him. He made quick work of cleaning the plate, despite the dishwasher being close by.
“You won’t find me complaining,” she assured him, weirdly warmed by his show of domestic gumption. “I was hungry and that was a great sandwich.”
Kenneth chuckled. He dried off his hands.
The conversation hit a small lull.
Delilah, dropped off by Kimball along with a bag of Willa’s things packed by Martha right after lunch, decided to break it with some pointed licks to her hand. It made Willa laugh.
“You know, for a moment, I think Kimball was thinking about asking if Delilah could stay with them a bit longer.” Willa scratched behind Delilah’s ear. Something she seemed to be very fond of. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, when this is all over, he talks Martha into getting their own puppy.”
“Can you blame him? Look at this stunner.”
Kenneth surprised her by heading to the living room and dropping down into a crouch. Delilah became hyper at the movement and followed, as did Willa. Delilah lapped at his face while he rubbed down her sides, exciting her even more. She gave a few barks and then was pure speed as she ran out of the room in a wild gallop. It made the humans in the house laugh.
“And that’s what you call the zoomies,” Kenneth explained. “She’s about to treat this place like an Indy 500 track, slow down long enough to need to go outside, and then she’ll pass out shortly after.”
“Ah, such a simple life sounds fantastic right about now.”
True to his word, Delilah zoomed around the house. She managed to get both of them to chase her, extending the fun until, sure enough, she ran to the back door and barked.
“Coming through,” Kenneth called, running from his spot behind the couch where he’d been playing hide-and-seek with her. Willa laughed from her spot behind a chair opposite. She went to the back door and watched as the fully grown man resembled a carefree kid, running around in the backyard. It was only after Delilah did her business that he slowed.
And it was only when he led the dog inside the house that the carefree kid turned back into an adult.
The one with bills and fears and pain.
But maybe Willa was projecting her mood again.
Because, for all of the smiles and laughter she’d taken part in, there was a growing weight that couldn’t be ignored.
It must have showed on her face.
When Delilah went to lap up some water from the kitchen, Willa admitted that she was still tired. And that there was a good chance some of that was from a collection of bad days and not just what had happened at the hospital.
“It just feels like we’ve been trying to walk up a hill while it storms,” she said. “Every step we take up, we slide back two.”
Kenneth sighed. It was an impressive sight from how close she was standing next to him. He was in an undershirt since being home and it was tight enough that the movement showed a hint of lean, muscled chest. Though she’d already seen his upper body when she’d made him change at the hospital the day before, there was something different about seeing even a tease of it now.
Or maybe she was just getting caught up in more and more details about the man.
His shirt, his cleaning habits, how his eyes crinkled at the sides when he laughed while playing with his dog. How he’d handed her a napkin with her plated sandwich.
How he’d let her into his home to protect her.
How he was looking at her now, making her feel like she was the only person in the world.
Those eyes of his, filled with depth and a storm-clouded sky, empathized with her.
“Believe it or not, I know how that feels.”
He motioned her to follow him and was soon giving her a rundown on his bathroom and the shower, if she wanted to take a spin, as he called it.
“All my bath soap and shampoo smells like cologne, but it’ll at least get the job done cleaning-wise if Martha didn’t pack yours,” he said, showing her the various bottles lining the shelf in the shower. “There’re also clean towels in that closet and, if you’re feeling fancy, a robe I may or may not have accidentally stolen from a hotel in Kipsy, Alabama, when I went to visit a friend last year. Don’t worry, it’s clean, too.”
“I have to say, Mr. Gray, you’re very accommodating,” she said.
The man smirked, more playful than usual. “Something all men love to hear from a beautiful woman.”
That made Willa’s cheeks burn up in an instant. Luckily, Kenneth had excused himself to give her some privacy. But that didn’t stop her from thinking about the comment as she showered and readied for bed.
When she was finished and dressed in her flannel pajama set that looked like it belonged in a family Christmas movie, Willa hoped the blush that was lying low beneath the surface would stay there.
No such luck when she saw that Kenneth had changed, too.
Instead of jeans, he was wearing a pair of nearly matching flannel sleep pants.
“Well, great minds, I guess?” she said, pointing to the obvious.
Kenneth chuckled. “I have to say I think you wear them better.”
That blush lifted itself to her face again. She had no choice but to fight through it, especially when she saw a bandage peeking out of his shirtsleeve.
It was like cold water to her face.
Another two steps back on the hill.
Kenneth didn’t notice at first. He was moving around the bed, adding a new blanket.
“I’m going to give you the bed, and don’t try to talk me out of it because that’s a fight you’ll lose. I’ll take the couch downstairs,” he said, unaware that the mere mention of him being somewhere else made Willa’s anxiety rise. “As for Delilah, you’re going to have to keep the door shut to keep her out. She’s gotten used to sleeping on the bed because someone has let her do it almost every night of her life.”
He cracked a grin and finally faced her with full attention.
“What’s wrong?” He was all serious in a second flat.
Willa averted her gaze. Then thought, Who cares?
They’d already been through a lot together as it was. She looked him in the eye.
What would this hurt?
It sounded like a simple request—and maybe it really was simple—but Willa felt her heartbeat speed up as the questions came out.
Never mind when Kenneth didn’t even blink before he answered.
“I won’t say no to that.”
Chapter Seventeen
Willa slipped beneath the cool sheets, taking extreme care not to touch Kenneth as she did so. It wasn’t for lack of want—hadn’t she struggled with the fact that she knew she wanted the detective for the last week?—but out of respect.
And...well, fear.
Not the sickening kind that had gone through her several times recently.
No.
This fear had everything to do with her feelings. Her desires.
The fact that she didn’t know if they were reciprocated by the detective.
Or, to be truthful, deserved.
That thought rattled her more than she’d meant it to and, no sooner had the man been laid out on his side of the bed, than Willa finally give voice to a thought that had been growing unchecked within her.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “It’s all my fault.”
Kenneth was on his back but readjusted to look at her, his hands behind his head and elbows against the pillow. If she had thought he was a big man when standing, he somehow seemed to command a bigger presence in the bed. Willa felt tiny in comparison.
“Because you found the box and didn’t let it go.”
Willa nodded because he was exactly right.
“Three people have died and, why? Because I wanted to solve a mystery? And what if there’s nothing really there to begin with? What if it was just a box of random things like you first said?” Willa rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. The only light in the room was on the nightstand next to Kenneth. It was small and cast shadows against the popcorn ceiling. “What if everything that’s happened could have been avoided had I just kept my mouth shut and my curiosity at bay?”
Willa thought of LeAnne, Billings, and even Leonard.
They would all be alive had she done things differently.
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