Haunted Hex (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 10) by Sara Bourgeois (best value ebook reader txt) 📗

hall to join Meri. My instincts were to put myself between whatever had set him off and my daughter.

As soon as I was in the hall, Meri took off down the steps. “What is going on?” I asked as I rushed down the stairs behind him.

“Something’s out front,” he said and then hissed.

I could only explain my action as being under the haze of sleepiness added to a huge spike of adrenaline. Because once again, instead of getting Thorn, I threw the front door open and rushed outside.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. The scene in front of me couldn’t possibly be real, and I convinced myself I was having a nightmare.

My thoughts felt like they were swimming through mud, and I just stood there stunned until Meri shouted my name. “Kinsley!”

And it all came into horrible focus.

There was a woman in a black dress lying face down on my front lawn underneath the old hanging tree. Another woman in a white nightgown paced up and down the street in front of the house with a large knife in her hand.

I ran down my steps and across the grass to get to the woman on the ground. My hope was that I could still save her.

But, she was long gone. As soon as it hit me that the woman had already passed, the danger I was in smacked me in the face.

I looked up at the woman walking towards me with a knife and let out a strangled cry as my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach.

“Lilith!” Meri screamed as he ran past me.

Auntie Lilith looked at us as if she were seeing us for the first time and dropped the knife. It hit the street with a clatter.

“Kinsley,” Thorn called from behind me.

I turned to see him running out of the house in his pajamas with his gun trained on Lilith. “Don’t,” I screamed. “She’s confused.”

He lowered his weapon but put himself between me and my aunt. “I need to call this in,” he said but seemed reluctant to move.

“I’ll call 911,” I said.

“Make sure they send an ambulance too,” he commanded.

“The woman’s dead,” I said as I turned to go back into the house.

“Not for her,” Thorn said. “Go call. Now, Kinsley.”

My eyes flicked over to Lilith one last time, and I saw what Thorn saw for the first time. Lilith was so pale. Her lips were blue too. Something was very wrong.

I called 911 and told them to send the deputies and an ambulance. The dispatcher wanted me to stay on the line, but I told her I was married to the town sheriff right before I clicked off the call.

On my way back out of the house, I instinctively grabbed the blanket off the back of the sofa and a pair of slippers that I’d kicked off over by the door.

By the time I got out of the house, Thorn was standing next to Lilith with one arm around her shoulders. She was sobbing nearly uncontrollably, and it twisted my guts. I’d never seen her like that before, and it was terrifying.

“She’s hypothermic,” Thorn said as I handed him the blanket. “This is good.”

I helped him put the slippers on her feet. “We should get her into the house,” I said.

“Kinsley,” he said cautiously.

“What?” I barked back. “Help me get her into the house.”

“She’s…”

“She’s what?” I demanded.

He looked over at the dead woman, and I understood. She was a suspect, and possibly dangerous. Thorn didn’t want to let her into the house.

“She’s my Auntie,” I said. “We can’t just let her stay out here, Thorn. Who knows how long she’s been out here.”

“But your baby is in the house,” Thorn said. “Our baby is in there, and if she’s a suspect, I don’t know what it will do to the investigation if we take her inside our house.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I mean, I care about Laney, but Lilith isn’t a threat to anyone. You can feel how frail she is. She did not do anything to that woman.”

“You don’t…”

“Don’t say it, Thorn Wilson. I do know. I know how this looks, but I don’t believe for a second that she hurt that woman, and I’m taking her into the house.”

But it was a moot point because the ambulance turned onto our street before I even got her up the front steps. They loaded Lilith onto a stretcher and started an IV of warm fluids after covering her with a mylar sheet and a thick wool blanket.

I couldn’t leave Laney to go with her to the hospital, and Thorn couldn’t leave the scene because of the dead woman. So, I called my mom and told her briefly what had happened. She was in shock because she and Dad were sleeping in on of the guest rooms at Lilith’s house. She’d managed to sneak out past them.

“You have to meet them at the hospital,” I said.

“I will,” Mom said. “Dad and I will get dressed and go right now. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

After I hung up, Thorn and I went back into the house. He just went in for a pair of shoes and his jacket.

“Stay inside,” he said. “It’s too chilly for you to be hanging around out there anyway.”

I was going to protest, but Laney started to cry. Guilt twisted my gut. It felt like I’d forgotten her for a second. Add another thing to the pile of stuff I’d beat myself up over when I was trying to fall asleep at night.

“I’m coming, baby,” I called up the stairs.

She quieted at the sound of my voice, and while I found her awake when I got upstairs, Laney wasn’t fussy. I scooped her out of the cradle and went to one of the second-floor windows that overlooked the front yard.

When I opened the curtain to look out, I jumped back and nearly fell on my butt. For the narrowest portion of a second, it