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“Oh, shut the fuck up. Let’s go.”
“What about her?” another voice asked.
My breathing picked up.
“Fuck her. Come back later and get this filthy whore out of my house. Burn her body, bury it somewhere. I don’t give a fuck what you do, just get it out of here.”
“We should do this now,” said yet another voice.
Fuck, how many were out there?
“What did I say, huh?” a slap rang through the room. “I said later. Now take me to the spot.” Sniff. “This bitch ruined my high.”
Heavy footsteps retreated, and it wasn’t until I heard the door slam in the distance before I breathed out again. However, I didn’t move. I stayed in the closet for at least five minutes before I slowly opened the door. The sight before me caused a cry to fall from my lips. I dropped to my knees and crawled to Ansley’s lifeless and bruised body. Her face was…unrecognizable. If I didn’t know it was her, I couldn’t identify her at all.I fumbled for my phone in my back pocket and dialed 9-1-1.
I closed my eyes after I was done explaining everything to Lock. Quiet tears fell from my eyes, and I let them. I didn’t wipe them away or try to hide them.
“I’m such a coward,” I mumbled to myself quietly, but as Lock stepped into my space, tilted my head up to meet his, I guess it wasn’t quiet enough.
“You’re not a coward, Phoebe.”
I leaned away from his touch, not ready to accept the sympathy in his eyes. I didn’t deserve it. “Yes, I am, Lock. I hid in the closet while my friend was getting beaten to death. What do you call it?”
“Hey…” he called out, trying to gain my eyes again, but I wouldn’t look at him. “Hey, look at me,” he ordered, and I just wouldn’t, couldn’t. He cupped my chin, turned my face back to him, but I still didn’t look at him. No matter how intense his gaze was, I refused.
Seeing he wasn’t getting my eyes, he said, “If you came out of that closet, you would’ve been lying right next to her. Do you understand that?”
“Yeah, but I had a gun. I could have shot…”
“Phoebe, the moment you stepped out of that closet, you would have been dead. You wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to find your target to fire. Think about it.”
I didn’t want to think about it. Thinking about it made all of this, all of what happened real, and I didn’t want to deal.
The gentle caress of his knuckles along my cheek finally caused my eyes to lock on him. He floored me in that moment. The gentleness flowing from his touch made my heart skip a beat. I became mesmerized, unable to look away, to speak. He stared at me for a few moments before he spoke, his voice surprisingly tender, despite the heated look in his gray eyes.
“Baby, this was a fucked-up situation all around. Your friend took the heat for you because she knew if Miguel would have seen you, there was no telling what he would have done to you.”
“But he killed her. She’s dead because of me.”
“No, not because of you.” Lock clasped my cheeks again, his brows creasing, voice filling with grit. “It’s because of him. He’s the one that killed her. He didn’t have to do that shit. He made that choice. He’s sick, fucked up in the head and deserves to be put down for what he did. Don’t you dare blame yourself for his actions.”
I fought back an eye roll and just dropped my chin to my chest. No matter what Lock said, I still felt responsible. I kept running everything in my head, from the time I entered the house to heading straight to the bedroom and the safe. We weren’t even in there that long. If she turned off the alarm, how did they…
I glanced up at Lock and asked, “How did he get here so fast?”
“What do you mean?”
“Ansley said she disabled the alarm. Claimed that she knew where he was and that she could be in and out before he came back.”
“How did she know where he was?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know. She said he was always predicable. She knew his schedule hands down. That’s how she slowly moved out of the house without him being the wiser. He had cameras everywhere in the house, but she said she knew how to shut them off using her phone.”
“He could have changed the codes, had a backup security camera.”
“I guess you could be right, but if that was the case, do you think they saw me?”
