SHATTERED (3 page)

“The police will want to talk to you,” he said, letting her go.

“So, I’ll come back.”

Sure she would. He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Is your phone working? Could I at least make a call?”

He dug his phone out of his jacket pocket. Maybe he could get a signal outside. The screen lit up with a swipe of his finger, and in that instant, a loud pop cracked the frigid air. His phone blew out of his hand and disintegrated into nothing. He grabbed his throbbing fingers with his free hand, dropping the flashlight in the process. Another shot came next and he actually felt the bullet whiz past his left ear. Without thinking, he grabbed Sarah and pulled her to the ground. The flashlight had landed a couple of feet away and sank into the fresh snow, where it now illuminated a small crater and pinpointed their location as clear as day.

“Are you hurt?” he whispered to Sarah.

“No,” she murmured. “Are you?”

His hand throbbed. “I’ll live. We have to move.”

“Your truck...”

“We’d be sitting ducks. The snow’s too deep and we can’t dig it out with a gunman taking shots at us.”

“Then my car.”

Another bullet came dangerously close. “Do you want to race across the yard in this snow with someone shooting at you? Besides, your rent-a-wreck is so low to the ground you couldn’t drive through the snow even if we did manage to get it out of the barn.”

As though privy to their conversation, a couple more shots and a nearby popping sound announced at least one of the truck tires had just bitten the dust.

“Then where?” she said.

“Back to the house. Stay in the shadows and stick close. Ready?”

He wasn’t positive, but he thought he detected a slight nod.

Chapter Three

Sarah’s head was filled with so many images and worries that for an instant, she almost couldn’t bring herself to move. What in the world was she going to do? A bullet hit the snow a couple of feet from her hand and that cleared her mind, at least for the moment. First things first.

She scrambled to follow in Nate’s wake, doing her best to keep her head and butt down. If this gunman was who she thought he was, he wouldn’t be firing to kill them but to capture them and force information. There would be no quick, clean death, not for her, anyway. The thought of torture created a layer of sweat on top of her icy skin.

She hadn’t known who or what to expect when the closet door opened, but it sure as heck hadn’t been a tall glowering cowboy, although now that she stopped to think, she should have realized he’d come. How would she get rid of him?

She’d read about Nate Matthews after the Labor Day shooting. She knew he was engaged, that he was respected down in Arizona and that he didn’t tolerate any nonsense. She knew his service record and the fact his parents had been photographed looking as proud as peacocks about their upstanding son. And she knew her father had trusted him and his friend Alex. Maybe they’d been the only people her father had trusted toward the end. She sure didn’t have a place on that short list.

Hopefully, Nate Matthews would figure out how to get out of this situation and go for help. That would give her the opportunity to finish what she’d started and try to escape.

There was a sincerity in his eyes that made her uneasy about this possibility, but it was clear he didn’t believe much of what she said, and that was good. Sooner or later, if they weren’t shot first, he’d grow weary of her behavior and cut his losses. All she had to do was wait him out.

Except that took time and time was something she had precious little of. And face it, she was whisper close to being his adversary, or at least he would see it that way, and he didn’t appear to be the kind of man you wanted to be on the bad side of. If he’d just let her leave when she’d tried to, then she’d be on her way back to Reno and none of this would have happened.

You’d be on your way empty-handed,
her racing mind reminded her,
driving a stolen truck with this killer on your heels. And don’t forget, empty-handed means by this time tomorrow, you’ll be an orphan.

“You still with me?” Nate hissed when he paused behind a row of arborvitae. A shot went off, but it hit several feet to their left, over by a planter that would be filled with wildflowers in three months if it survived the night.

“I’m here,” she whispered, bumping into him as she scooted to pull her foot into the shadow.

“Listen,” he said, his voice very soft, his lips right next to her ear. He’d grabbed her shoulder with one hand when she’d tumbled against him and he didn’t release it now. His strong grip was oddly reassuring and his warm breath against her frozen ear distracted her for a second. “I’m concerned this could be a trap.”

“What do you mean?”

“There could be another gunman waiting inside the house.”

A serious shiver ran up both her arms, made a U-turn and raced right back down to her fingertips. That was exactly what Bellows would plan—a trap where she’d be forced to spill her guts. But how did you spill your guts about something you didn’t know anything about?

“The back door is locked,” he added, as if to himself.

“Not if you know where the key is.”

“And you do?”

“I think so,” she said, hoping it was still where her father used to keep it. She hadn’t lived in this house for eleven years. By now the key could be lost, the lock might have been changed... Who knew? “There’s a fake brick next to the steps.”

“Let’s go,” he said as he tossed a rock several feet across to the other side of the porch. It hit a drainpipe or something else metallic. A round of deafening shots galvanized her as Nate grabbed her hand and tugged her in the other direction, around the corner of the house. From the sound of things, Nate’s truck had just lost a window and a couple more tires, or maybe the shots had hit her father’s old beater.

They crawled behind the row of camellias her mother had planted in the far past. The snow was deep, but not as deep as in the yard itself, thanks to the bushes and the overhanging eaves. As a child, she’d had to be bribed to come back here to turn on the water or hook up a hose because of the spiders that lurked in the leafy darkness. Tonight, spiders seemed like a distant threat from more innocent days.

“It should be right around here,” she said as they scooted into a small clearing by the back porch. The snow covered almost everything and they both dug like harried rabbits. “I got it,” she said, her voice raw from the cold. She picked up a brick that appeared slightly smaller than the others. Her fingers were so numb she couldn’t discern the texture of the stone, but it felt blessedly light, as though it wasn’t really made out of clay. She wiggled the bottom and a panel slid open to reveal something that twinkled in the indirect light seeping through the window above.

“Eureka,” Nate whispered as she shook the key out into his hand. She remained crouched while he slowly got to his feet. A second later, she heard the sound of the key in the lock. “You stay here. I’ll go check,” he said, his face surrounded by a veil of condensed breath.

She didn’t respond, just followed behind him through the back door, closing it quietly behind her, ignoring his disgruntled expression when he turned around and found her standing there. No way was she staying outside alone. Besides, it was at least a little warmer in here and she was frozen to the bone.

“Did your father own a gun?” he whispered.

“He used to. If he still has it, it would be in that locked cabinet in the back of his closet.”

“And the key?”

“I didn’t have time to look for it.” Truth was, she’d been searching for that key when she’d heard Nate arrive.

“I’ll find it,” Nate said. He stared down at her, his features visible for the first time in what seemed a long time. His skin was slightly tanned, as though he spent a fair amount of time outdoors. His hair was long for a lawman, thick and dark, his lashes luxuriant, his gray eyes wary. She hadn’t noticed his dark eyebrows before, how straight they were and how they framed his eyes. They currently furled inward as he studied her. “Can I trust you to stay by this door and yell like a banshee if anyone approaches it?”

“You mean as opposed to running outside and taking my chances with a gun?” His eyes narrowed now and she could sense the lingering distrust. “Sorry,” she said, relenting. “Okay, I’ll act as lookout. Just hurry.”

He nodded once, quick and decisive. Arming himself with a knife from the metallic strip mounted above the cooktop, he left the kitchen and headed toward the entry hall without making a sound, although he did leave a trail of dirty melting snow behind him.

The knife struck her as an excellent idea, so she grabbed one for herself and slid the deadbolt closed. This time when she glanced at her watch, her heart all but stopped beating. The night was being gobbled up like Christmas dinner and she felt like the main course. For a second she considered dimming the lights, but thought better of it. She could still hear the occasional shot coming from the yard and figured the gunman must be shooting at shadows. No need to alert him the game had moved indoors.

How could she even joke about this being a game? Her dad was dead and it might very well be her fault, no matter how unreasonable he’d been. If she didn’t get real clever or real lucky very soon, then her mother would pay the price as well. Nope, this wasn’t a game.

A flash of light out in the yard, barely visible now because of the falling snow, caught her attention and she involuntarily jerked. The window in the door exploded and she hit the floor along with a shower of safety glass. Yelling like crazy, she scrambled to her feet and dashed toward the front hall, sure the gunman was seconds away from crashing through the door.

She ran right into Nate, who had managed to find a rifle. He immediately caught her around the waist and swung her behind him, then continued on into the kitchen while she clung to the faux paneling, the knife gripped in her white-knuckled hand. Her gaze followed him as he ran to the door and started firing shots through the broken window.

He knelt to reload, his concentration so intent on the gun and the ammunition that he might have been in a different world. He stood again and aimed, letting off a few rounds, then waited. It had grown ominously quiet outside.

Up until that point, Sarah had thought of Nate as part obstacle and part protector, a leader, but standing there, his jeans wet from melting snow, his taut body ready for action, he came into sharper focus as a fellow human being who had walked into a mess not of his own making and was now stuck.

She lowered her gaze. She knew he would do everything in his power to safeguard her, whether he trusted her or not. That should have reassured her. Instead, along with everything else, it made her stomach roll.

After several very long moments, he turned to look at her and their gazes connected like two hot wires with a spark in the middle. She drew a small, quick breath, surprised by the tension between them that suddenly leaped with awareness. It was almost as if he could read her mind and knew darn well that she was determined to leave this ranch as soon as she could.

“You look scared,” he whispered.

“And you’re not?”

“Nerves of steel,” he said, but he said it with a self-deprecating smile and a soft shake of his head.

“There’s nobody else in the house?” she asked.

“Nope, we’re alone.”

She gestured with her head toward the broken window and the seeming emptiness of the backyard. “Do you think you hit him?”

“Either that or he’s circling around to the front.”

Sarah turned her head suddenly. “What’s that sound?”

He cocked his head and listened for a second, then strode toward her. “That’s a two-stroke engine,” he said. They both raced into the entry, where it was obvious the noise came from outside the house. They flanked the door and peered through the small inset piece of glass. At first there was nothing to see, then a light blazed on, wavering through the snow. “Headlight,” Nate said under his breath.

Sarah looked up at him. “Just one?”

“A damn snowmobile,” he said, lifting the rifle. “I should have guessed. How else would anyone get up here and away again? Okay, stay put, and this time I mean it!” He was out the front door and headed into the storm before Sarah could even react to his madness. Wrapping her arms around herself, she turned into the room and recoiled as her father’s bloody body met her gaze.

There was nothing she could do to help him—or Nate, either, for that matter. What she did have was an unforeseen few moments alone to try to finish what she’d come for. Otherwise, in less than twenty-four hours, her mother would be dead. Sarah desperately needed to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

No, that wasn’t true. She needed two rabbits.

All she had to do was find two hats. And the only place she could think to look that she hadn’t already was the safe.

* * *

K
EEPING
TO
THE
SHADOWS
and wishing like crazy he had a flashlight, Nate skirted the yard. The snow was falling so fast and furious it was hard to get his bearings. He could no longer see the dim house lights or a vehicle headlight, either, but he could hear the engine and so far it didn’t appear to be moving away. He just tried to follow the sound, but the wind roaring through the overhead branches made even that chore tricky.

Armed only with Mike’s six-shot Winchester saddle gun that was undoubtedly older than he was, Nate’s impromptu plan included tackling the gunman and subduing him. The bonus would be gaining control of the snowmobile, which could then be used to get to a place where they could summon help. Because it was obvious there was no way the truck could be fixed and driven in this weather. And that car of Sarah’s was a joke.

He wasn’t going to allow himself to think about Sarah and all the ways she confused him, at least not right now. There was something strange about her, but he needed to focus his attention on the matter at hand.

The engine pitch changed, and he knew his quarry was about to leave. The snow was too deep for him to run, but he slogged through as fast as he could, his plan seeming more naive by the moment. By luck, he bumped into what felt like a pile of rocks, and that at last gave him some semifirm footing. Using his numb hands and clutching the rifle with a death grip, he scrambled up on top in time to see the vehicle’s headlight passing to his left. He fired off a few shots, knowing this was a last hurrah, then threw caution to the wind and leaped toward the lights, reaching out to grab where he assumed the driver would be seated.

A sudden burning sensation flared in his left arm. His fingers brushed hot metal for a microsecond before he found himself facedown in the snow with a mouth full of exhaust. He still grasped the rifle and was kind of amazed he hadn’t shot himself, though his arm throbbed. As he sat up, the roar of the snowmobile sounded like evil laughter. The taillights had already disappeared. By the time he got to his feet, even the motor sound had been swallowed up by the night.

The gunman was gone.

He clutched his left biceps and wasn’t surprised when his hand came away bloody. He hadn’t wounded himself with his own rifle, but the gunman must have gotten off a parting shot.

So much for leaving the gun and badge back in Arizona. If he’d come armed with a decent weapon, this could all be over now, and once again, the inadequate feelings from being helpless during the mall shooting all but choked him. Why had he thought he could run away from being who he was?

He had to get back to the house, and that meant figuring out which way it lay, then getting there before hypothermia set in. This time when he questioned Sarah, she’d better say something worth listening to.