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Matt didn’t waste time thinking about how he could have avoided returning to the ranch. Looking back on what had happened thus far, returning had been inevitable. Gina wasn’t going to let him, or anyone else, stay behind when they might wind up dead.
Although going back to Nahua Springs after McCord had seen him and Gina murmuring and snuggling next to Lady Belle … probably not the best idea. Matt had intercepted no fewer than half a dozen “I’m gonna kill you” glares from the man already.
And if Matt was going to wind up dead or missing, he’d rather do it while he was hard at work in the place he’d spent a lifetime searching for. However, that was the problem with dead or missing—one rarely got to choose when and how it happened.
They arrived at the ranch as the sun fell from the sky. The place appeared deserted, and Matt experienced a tingle of unease, although considering Isaac and Fanny were the only ones here, he doubted it could appear anything but.
Then Matt glanced at Gina and caught her worried glance at McCord. The creepy, not-right feeling Teo had had … she was having it, too.
“Mom?” McCord yelled at the same time Gina sprinted for the house shouting, “Fanny?”
The front door opened, and Fanny stepped out. A collective sigh of relief swirled around the yard. The others dismounted and led their horses away, Tim and Derek quietly coaxing Melda and Amberleigh along.
Fanny’s dark gaze stayed on the guests until they’d disappeared into the barn; then she motioned for Jase and Gina to come inside. Matt decided to go inside, too.
He left Spike ground-tied with Jase’s and Gina’s horses. “Be right back,” he murmured.
Spike snorted his opinion of that, but right now Matt didn’t have the time. Something was up; he had to know what it was.
He slipped into the hall just as Fanny announced: “He was there, and then he was gone.”
“Whoosh?” Gina asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?” Matt hoped it wasn’t Isaac.
McCord whirled, a scowl already crinkling his face. “Get lost.”
“No.” Matt joined them. “Who’s gone?”
“Part-time worker.” Gina turned to Fanny. “Tell us exactly what happened.”
“They had just put away the horses. It was late, dark. Juan was headed to his car. Then there was a howl, the sound like a big wind, and the darkness took him away.”
“You saw this?” Matt asked.
Fanny shook her head. “This is what my father saw.”
Gina flicked Matt a glance. “Isaac is the least likely person to see something that isn’t on this earth. And since he didn’t know about what happened out there,” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, “he certainly couldn’t repeat the exact same occurrence back here.”
She was right, of course, but what did that mean?
“Did Granddad find Juan?” McCord asked.
Fanny’s lips tightened as she gave a sharp nod. “Dead. Throat torn out.”
Gina placed her hand on the older woman’s arm. “And then?”
Fanny removed her arm from Gina’s touch, hugging her elbows, swaying back and forth, as if she was cold or scared, maybe both. “Dead is dead. What else could happen?”
They all wa
ited, because from Fanny’s behavior, her expression, the shadows in her eyes, something else had happened.
“Father came to get a horse to carry the body. But when he returned it was no longer there.”
