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A scream ripped through the air and Lachlan dropped the brush, his heart skipping a beat. His head snapped up in the direction of the scream, but the roaring wind soon swept it away.
“Bethenny?” he called out.
When she didn’t answer, he shouted her name again.
Silence.
He got to his feet and started walking as sheets of rain pelted down. He could barely see in front of him and had no sense of direction in these woods. He pulled out his phone, using the compass feature, praying he didn’t get lost.
He shouted her name again and paused, listening for any response cutting through the whistling wind, but he didn’t hear a thing.
He went to call her cell phone, immediately remembering he didn’t have any service.
Lachlan swore under his breath.
He continued walking, calling her name. He would walk until he found her, or until his voice was raw.
Panic began to seize him and he quickened his pace.
He squashed it down, refusing to let it muddle his thoughts, but it was a losing battle. He’d felt like this before, when—
The tension popped from his chest like a balloon exploding when he saw Bethenny running toward him, dripping wet, ducking between the trees for cover. His eyes swept the length of her; she appeared unharmed, but a shake of her head caused him to take a step back, closer to the tree.
She darted forward, making her way toward him.
She almost tripped but he grabbed her arm, keeping her upright and pulling her close to him. “A bullet hit the tree beside me. There’s someone else in these woods. I think I interrupted the killer. I don’t think he’d finished burying her—or the bottom half of her, at least.”
BETHENNY
“Are you okay?” Lachlan asked hurriedly, taking a step back to look over her. His voice was calmer than hers, but it held a hint of panic.
She grabbed his soggy sweater and pulled him back in behind the tree.
Her eyes furiously darted from tree to tree. She shivered as she looked around them, and it wasn’t due to the cold. They needed to move somewhere with more shelter. But they were deep in the forest and there was nowhere to hide. The sky clapped and the ground beneath her felt like it was shaking. She looked up at a sky that seemed impossibly dark given the time of the day. She knew the storm they were in now was the prelude—the real show was yet to come.
Lachlan’s gaze followed hers and he shook his head again. “We need to get out of here.”
Bethenny shook her head furiously. “No, if we leave now, he’ll move the body. We might never find her again. We need to find him.”
A second after the words left her mouth, the unmistakable sound of wood splitting rang through her ears.
“Down!” Lachlan yelled, pulling her to the ground, but she was already on her way there.
A fleeting look at him revealed his wide eyes.
Their eyes landed on a fallen tree log and they scrambled toward it. No communication needed.
The dirt beside her right hand flew up, splattering mud on her arm, and Bethenny gasped and scrambled forward, racing to the protection of the log. Lachlan was right beside her.
Bethenny drew her weapon, knowing they couldn’t outrun whoever was in the forest. While the trees provided cover, in this section they were too few and far between, and the shrubs were too wispy to protect them from the bullets.
Lachlan had pulled his weapon from his holster and had his finger on the trigger. He crouched behind the log and leaned around the edge, keeping his weapon low and out of sight.
“Do you have eyes on the shooter?” Bethenny asked, assuming they were using a long-range weapon based on the number of bullets fired and the timing between them.
Bethenny pulled a mirror from her forensics kit and leaned around the opposite end of the log to Lachlan, keeping her body as low as possible. Her heart thundered in her chest and she reminded herself to take a deep breath to calm it. She did a rapid assessment of the situation but couldn’t see any movement, which likely meant the shooter was sitting in cover, waiting for them to move.
“We need to move, we can’t stay here,” Lachlan said.
