Page 87 of Lethal Weakness

“I got you covered.”

I raise my head, looking straight up the hill, and to the man in a mask, holding a rifle against my back fence.

I drop my forehead to Linden’s. Thank Christ.

“Are you okay?”

She nods against me. “I dropped your gun.”

“It’s okay. We don’t need it.”

She nods again, stiffly.

“Almost there.” I rise to my feet with a little less apprehension now that I know someone has my six, and pick Linden up this time by cradling her to my chest.

The remaining incline levels out just before my backyard, and I heave a sigh of relief. I did it.

I got her home safe.

Her entire body jerks in my arms as I walk through the backyard, and I see what she’s seeing.

The man who covered us is standing by the back door. All black clothes. White mask.

Another Ghost.

And, behind him, just inside the kitchen, is another.

Chapter Thirty-One

Linden

Everything that I know about my life feels like it’s been turned sideways and upside down in a matter of hours. My in-laws wanted to kill me.

My neighbor killed everyone who tried to kill me.

And now the man in a mask that I thought I knew is only one of many.

I’m too scared to blink as we pass by the man standing by the back door. His black clothes are different than the ones that I’m used to. And his mask is solid white, and plastic like a hockey mask but without any holes. Besides his eyes.

Those aren’t eyes that I know.

My arms tighten around Jack’s neck instinctively.

The other man in the kitchen steps back to give us space as we enter, and Jack sets me on a chair.

He’s dressed in recognizable tactical clothes, but that’s as far as the similarities go. His mask is terrifying. It’s a depiction of the devil that you might see in a Japanese museum, nothing like the masked man I know.

Jack kneels in front of me, and someone sets something down on the table beside him. It’s a black balaclava. He glances at it, grabbing it reluctantly, but he doesn’t put it on. He looks up at me slowly with guilt-ridden eyes.

“I fucking knew it.” I exhale so much pain and disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

He nods in surrender. “Linden, I–”

“Where’s my daughter?”