Free Landon: Justice Series ― Erotica Paranormal Romance by Kathi S. Barton Page A

small boy standing next to her.
    “Mrs. Phillips?” She nodded and smiled at him. Landon could see the neat little bullet hole in her forehead, and when a little boy peeked out from behind her, he could see that he too had been shot. Landon had to take several deep breaths before he could speak. “Mrs. Phillips, have you been told what happened to you?”
    “This nice young man was telling me that I don’t belong here.” Randall started screaming at her to shut up, and she backed from him. “I’m sorry. Randall hates it when I talk to other men. He gets so jealous. I tell him that there is nothing to worry about, but he has always been this way.”
    “Don’t be sorry, ma’am. But what Hugh here is telling you is the truth. You should know that your other children, Mac and Beth, they miss you terribly as well. Not so much their father, I’m afraid.” She looked at her husband, then at the little boy at her side. “He murdered you and the little one there with you. I know that you’ve not been told that in all this time, but you and your son have been gone for several years.”
    “Randall?” Randall tried to move to be near his wife enough to touch her, but she backed away from him. “What is he saying? You killed us? You said...you told me that I was hurt in an accident. And that this was limbo, and that I’d come out of it. You said that the only reason that Jacob was here with me is because I needed him, and he’s not really here.”
    “He’s lying to you to upset you. Get away from my wife.” But she cut him off, probably for the first time in all their married life. Landon had a feeling that for some time now, Mrs. Phillips had an idea that he’d been lying to her all along. “Darling, don’t be this way. You know that I have your best interest at heart when I do these things.”
    She backed from him again, this time hiding young Jacob behind her. “When did this happen? This murder?” Landon told her. “Eighteen years? I’ve been...my other two children, you say that they’re all right? That he didn’t...he didn’t kill them as well?”
    “They were living with your mother when this report was written. I think the paper said that they had been spending the night with her when this happened.” She nodded and held the little one to her closer. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Phillips. Sorrier than I can tell you.”
    “He really did this to us. He murdered his own son and wife without thought to what the other children might have....” Randall started to speak, but she cut him off once again. “You aren’t to speak to me again. Never. And don’t you dare come near young Jacob here either. I don’t know what I can do to you...how could you do this to us? How?”
    “It was necessary. You weren’t doing as I said to you all the time. What was I supposed to do when I’d go to work every day and you’d not have the laundry done the way I wanted it? And sometimes there was no supper on the table. I warned you about it. Over and over, I told you to keep the house up. What did you have to do all day anyway?” She didn’t say anything as Randall continued. “It was either kill you, which I blame completely on you, or have to continue to live with your sloppiness. Then after you were dead, I thought I’d have to raise the children. I’ve no time for that either. So I took care of that as well. Had your mother not been such a bitch and called the cops on me, I would have ended all their lives for my peace of mind as well. As it was, I had to leave things unfinished, and I hate myself for that daily.”
    “So you planned to kill us all so that you’d live in some comfort. How lovely for you. And what did I do all day? I will tell you, Randall. I worked. I went to my job every day; even on days that you’d beaten me so hard the night before that it hurt to breathe, I went.” He told her that it wasn’t a job. She was only a teacher who did nothing all day. “Well, this teacher was better than