Christmas Extras by Lani Lynn Vale

Author:Lani Lynn Vale [Vale, Lani Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lani Lynn Vale
Published: 2021-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 2

JAMES

“You’re not going.” I flat out refused. “You’re not. You’re…”

“I’m twenty-fucking-three, Dad!” Janie, my daughter who was indeed twenty-three, screamed. “You can’t stop me!”

“It’s fucking night time.” I snapped. “You’re not going to find a goddamn thing at night. There are animals in those woods. You’ll be all alone, and likely by day break I’ll have to search for you, too.”

Janie was shaking in anger as she stared at me with a look I’d never seen cross her face before right then. “He was shot. He could have drowned. I can’t leave him out there. I have to know.”

My daughter’s best friend, which happened to be a forty-one-year-old man named Rafe, was missing.

Earlier in the day, he’d been in an altercation. Earlier in the day, he’d been shot. Earlier in the day, he’d then gone to help a woman who was drowning in her car—which had been purposefully pushed over a bridge with her child inside.

Then, somewhere after the woman and her child were saved, Rafe went under. Rafe, for all intents and purposes, died.

At least in the eyes of all the other search crew.

We’d arrived from our hometown of Kilgore, Texas to help in the search. But, after hearing of Rafe’s gunshot wound—which, according to the man that had helped save the woman right alongside Rafe, had been fairly substantial—it was determined that Rafe had passed out in the water and had died.

The banks had been searched. The immediate area dragged by boats. The area surrounding the river had been searched.

Literally, the only thing left was for the remaining part of the river to be dragged.

There was nowhere else he could be.

They’d searched twenty miles of river and bank. There was no way he was alive.

None.

And Janie knew it.

“Daddy…”

My heart broke, and I wrapped my arms around her shoulder, pulling her into my chest as I’d done a hundred thousand times over the course of her young life.

“I’m sorry, baby.”

But, as if the universe was laughing at me, the doors of the hospital opened, and in came Rafe.

He was wet. He had blood running down his face and pooling in the collar of his shirt, and he looked about ready to pass out.

He did pass out.

He hit the ground about two steps outside of the elevator.

“Rafe!” Janie cried. “Oh, my God! Rafe!”

And, as I watched my daughter land on her knees beside the man that I always knew wasn’t just a friend, I realized a few things.

One, my daughter was in love with a man that was almost twenty years older than her.

Two, Rafe was going to die—by my hand.

And Three, this could go nowhere good.

Especially, I realized, hours later when we found out that Rafe didn’t remember any of the last six months. Meaning, when my daughter had gotten closest to him.

Janie was devastated.

I had a feeling I didn’t have the entire story.

***

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