A Bullet to the Heart by Kathy Wheeler (most read books of all time .TXT) 📕

She hated its location—so far out on the Point. She hated its unnerving mise en scène. It felt like a serpent’s point.

Her rubber-soled boots made squeaky sounds on the concrete flooring that was lost in the cavernous spaciousness. Her skin crawled in the frighteningly sinister ambience. There wasn’t a more sophisticated phrase to describe the disquieting effect of feeling spectral eyes about.

She paused to get her bearings, her breathing loud, her heart pounding, seeming to echo against the metal. A rasp sounded that set her nerve endings afire. “Jackson?” Though she spoke softly, her voice bounded all around her.

“Jose-phine.” The rasp was harsh and scratchy. “Get… out of… here.”

Despite her trepidation, Jo followed the voice to the underside of the stairs. It was so dark, she couldn’t see. “Jackson?” She hurried to his side and crouched down to her knees, ignoring the throb in her ankle. “Julius. Where’s Jackson?”

“I don’t know who...” He was slumped back against the wall. “Look…y-you nee-d…”

“Shush.” Jo put her hand on his shoulder. He gasped, and she jerked her hand away. Felt the warm wetness. “Oh, my God. You’re hurt. Were you shot?”

“It’s too late for me. Jo—get out of here.”

“But you’re hurt.”

His breathing grew hoarser. “No. Leave. The sheriff—”

“Wyn?”

“Hurry, there’s no… time. The sheriff. You… need to—” His head slumped to one side.

“Julius?” She tapped his face. “Julius.” Panic seized her. What did he mean about Wyn? She had to get out of there. She had to call someone. Her father. She’d call her father. That’s what fathers were for, weren’t they? God, how would she know? She’d never really had a father.

Jo pulled herself to her feet and limped to the door, her ankle throbbing profusely. By the time she reached it she could barely breathe for the claustrophobic sensation suffocating her. She clawed at the door, crying, her hand slipping due to the blood. “Let. Me. Out.” It took a moment for her to realize all she had to do was grasp the edge because it wasn’t shut all the way. She gave it a yank. Again, the metal scraped the floor, sending the screeching sound rebounding against her ears.

Sleeting cold air stung her face, but she welcomed it, inhaling in great gasps, falling to her knees just outside, tears streaming. A phone. She had to get to the manor house. She crawled to her feet, engulfed with great gulping sobs.

Jo made it to the path, her vision blurred by both the weather and her tears. The brutal wind made it difficult to keep her balance. She reached the bluffs where she could hear nothing but crashing of the waves and could hardly see the path beneath her feet, and bumped into a warm body.

“Josephine? What is it?”

She blinked her vision into focus. Her knees gave way and she slid to the ground, crying and trembling. She glanced up. “We need to help him. Julius. He’s in the lighthouse,” she panted.

Bobby Kingsley knelt to eye level. The desperation that filled his eyes warmed her through. Here he was. Her father. Right when she needed him. “Darling, are you all right?”

She huddled deeper within her cloak, teeth chattering, the stinging, biting sleet mixed with the salty tears already spilling down her face. “It’s not me that needs help.”

His normally pressed trousers were wrinkled beyond repair, his blond hair matted and unwashed.

“Come on, let’s get you out of this weather. We can make it to the lighthouse before all hell breaks loose.”

The lighthouse.

“No. No. We need to get help. Julius has been…” she gulped back a sob. “He’s… bleeding.”

“You were in the lighthouse? Alone?” He pulled her up and steadied her on her shaking legs. “We’ve got to get you out of this weather.”

“Let her go.” The dark, menacing voice sent a different sort of shiver up her spine.

Jo glanced over her shoulder. “Wyn?” she whispered.

“Where’s Jackson?” Wyn demanded.

Her teeth chattered. “I-I don’t know.”

“Come here, Jo.” He spoke gently. “Beside me.”

“No. She’ll stay with me,” her father said. He gripped her arm in a bruising hold, despite her heavy coat.

Wyn’s arm raised, and she almost fainted right then, stumbling back in her shock. “What-what are you doing? Put away the gun, Wyn.” She tried backing away and lost her balance, falling again to her knees.

Wyn raised the pistol higher with a steadiness Jo couldn’t fathom. Her heart thudded hard enough to pound from her chest and bounce over the bluff to crash onto the rocks below. “Step away from him, Jo. He’s not your father.”

In the blink of an eye, she was jerked to her feet and locked against Bobby’s chest, his unyielding arm banding her waist.

“What possible reason could you have to steal Jackson’s car and try to run Jo over with it?” The calm nature in which Wyn made his accusation stunned her. Frightened her.

“It was you at the asylum, wasn’t it?”

The asylum? Eleanor? Jo’s brain had frozen along with her fingers.

“You have no proof of anything, Smith.” Bobby’s voice grew shrill.

But Wyn didn’t relent. “You poisoned Mary Montgomery because she saw you. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“How would you know Eleanor?” Jo said through chattering teeth. His iron grip about her waist tightened.

He laughed, a maniacal sound that would haunt her for life. “High school sweethearts, my dear.”

“You a-aren’t my f-father?”

“I could have been, until that bastard Charles snuck in. Claudia Montgomery! What a harridan your grandmother was. The minute she got wind of my intentions, she accepted him over me.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“You’re as dimwitted as your mother, aren’t you?”

“Oh, God.” Her knees buckled beneath, her but he had her in a stronghold. “And, what of Julius?” she choked out.

“He was nothing but a stooge. Now, shut up.”

Jo gasped.

“Why shoot Victor?” Wyn said.

“Enough. Both of you just shut up.” Bobby crept to the cliff’s edge, and a terrifying premonition overcame her. Suddenly the weather didn’t mean a thing. She kicked, clawed, scratched, fighting him at every step. “Stop it. You’ll send us both to our deaths.” He screamed over the