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“Dunc, you okay?” his father asked.
He looked up from his phone. “I don’t know. There’s some kind of trouble at the ranch, but none of these have any info.”
“Something she can’t share in a text?” Dad asked.
For just a second, Duncan’s head went entirely blank as adrenaline flooded through him. Vin and Margot were frantically trying to reach him and not telling him why. Phoebe, however, was not trying to reach him. Something bad had happened to her. Something they didn’t want to tell him in any kind of message.
Shit, she was hurt. Or worse. Holy fuck!
“It’s Vin and Margot, her roommates, trying to get me,” he said when his brain worked again, “not Phoebe.” Because it was the one on his screen, he hit Vin’s number at once. Dad looked almost as worried as Duncan felt.
“Something wrong?” Dex asked, coming up alongside Dad.
Duncan let his father handle that because Vin was picking up.
“Dunc!” Vin shouted.
“Vin, what’s wrong? Where’s Phoebe?”
“Is your phone secure?”
Duncan took the phone from his ear for a second to stare at it, because that question had derailed him. Looking at the screen of his personal gave him no information he didn’t already have, of course, so he put the phone to his ear again and said, “I’ll call you back on a secure line. I’m calling right now, so pick up.”
He dropped his personal on the table and dialed from his burner. As soon as Vin picked up, Duncan repeated, “What’s wrong?”
Vin told him what was wrong.
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~oOo~
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Less than an hour later, Duncan pulled through the gate of the Ragamuffin Ranch. Riding with him were his father, Dex, and Eight Ball. The entire top of the Bulls’ food chain.
Vin had explained the trouble—that Lydia Copperman had shown up out of the blue, that now Phoebe and Vin were hurt and Copperman was fucking dead, that Phoebe had gone catatonic or something, and they didn’t know what to do. Duncan had told him to hang tight and he’d be there as soon as he could.
By the time the call was over, most of the Bulls were clustered around him, wondering what was wrong. Duncan had focused on his father as he’d explained, and then he’d asked for help.
He’d been talking to his father specifically, but Dex had piped in at once, asking pointed questions about the situation, Phoebe’s condition, who Lydia Copperman was, for most of which Duncan had had no answer. Then he’d announced he was coming along.
And then Eight had thrown in as well, muttering about wanting to be there this time when half the table ran off to deal with a civilian problem.
Duncan was glad for any help. The details about what had happened were so thin they were practically invisible, but it was clear that, at least, they had a body to deal with.
The ranch looked completely peaceful. Sun shining, spring breeze blowing, the animals wandering lazily in the pastures. The little windmill near the well spun gently.
Except for the unfamiliar Land Rover parked by Phoebe’s truck, nothing seemed out of sync. The contrast of appearance and reality was so jarring Duncan had to shake his head straight.
As they approached the house, Margot ran from the front of the stable, waving her arms, so Duncan passed the house and led the others to the stable. He dismounted almost before he got the stand down.
“Where is she?”
“In there. No change. She’s just gone, and I want to call 911, but we have to ... come on, come on, I’ll show you.”
With his father and the others at his back, Duncan followed Margot into the stable.
As was typical for this time of day, the stalls were empty and the stable was a little dim. Phoebe didn’t use the overhead lights unless it was dark or heavily overcast.
