Page 177 of Capturing You

“Forbes Ballentine. I know.” She took Lenny’s hand and led him back toward the emergency vehicles that now filled the front yard. “He needs a paramedic.”

“Oh.” Lenny froze, looking behind him.

“Run and get somebody, would you? My ankle?—”

“Here, let me?—”

“Go, Lenny. He’s been shot.”

He looked conflicted, finally bolting toward an ambulance. She watched as he grabbed someone and pointed.

One person followed him back at a jog while two others carried a gurney.

A cop must’ve heard him, because a woman hurried their direction as well.

A coughing fit had Brooklynn wanting to lie down in the damp grass and rest. She hobbled to the edge of the forest to lean against a tree. When the paramedics reached her, she pointed to where she’d left Forbes and Rosie.

Praying Rosie was still there, though she half-expected the woman to disappear as mysteriously as she’d arrived.

The paramedics shouted, and Forbes’s sister responded.

Lenny followed the paramedics, but Brooklynn called his name.

He shifted. “I need to go help?—”

“Get someone else to do it.”

A tiny smile bloomed on his face. “I can stay with you.”

She hated,hated,that she had to do this. And the fact that he’d misunderstood why she didn’t want him to go into the woods only made it worse.

The other cop approached. “Are you Brooklynn Wright?”

“Yes.”

The woman moved closer, arm outstretched. “Lori Putnam. I’m sorry we were late to the party. Everybody okay?”

“Forbes and I are, and… Go on into the woods there. You’ll see. I’ll be here when you get out.”

The woman looked between Lenny and Brooklynn, then continued toward the light between the trees.

Lenny watched until she disappeared in the darkness. “Why did you call them? You should’ve called me.”

“I couldn’t.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m sorry, Lenny.”

“None of this is your fault. It was that Forbes?—”

“It wasn’t Forbes’s fault, either. His family was murdered here twenty-five years ago.”

“I know that, but he came back and stirred it all up. I wouldn’t care about that, except he got you involved.”

“Igot me involved.” She started hobbling toward an ambulance, sucking in oxygen and needing to get off her feet.

Men were shouting, running. They’d discovered Leo’s body, no doubt. But the way the man had fallen, the way he hadn’t moved at all…

He was dead.

A fireman ran up to her. “Anybody in the house?”