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Chapter One
“He’s going to kill me.”
Charlie Sharp recognized the panicked voice on the other end of the burner phone. It was a VIP client. A woman who not only took classes with her but also was in the process of using some of Charlie’soff-the-booksservices.
“Slow down.” Cradling her cell phone between her ear and shoulder, she turned the key in the dead bolt and finished locking up for the night. “Did he find out you’re planning to leave him?” She adjusted the strap of her gym bag on her shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”
Haley groaned, as if in agonizing pain.
A fist of tension gathered in Charlie’s chest. She understood all too well the type of brutality her client—her friend—endured at the hands of her monstrous husband. Charlie tried not to get too close to any of the customers who came to Underground Self-Defense—USD—the school she’d built all on her own. There were hazards in getting emotionally attached, but she had a soft spot for survivors of domestic violence and invariably got sucked into their lives.
“Haley, talk to me.”
“There’s no time. He hurt me pretty bad.” Haley sobbed over the line. “You have to help me.” The terror in her voice was palpable, chilling Charlie’s blood. “Oh, God, he’s coming back.”
The call disconnected.
For a moment, Charlie stared at the screen, thinking. Should she call Haley back? If her husband heard the phone ringing, would it only make him angrier?
The same applied for a text message.
Charlie hopped in her Dodge Hellcat, tossing her bag in the passenger’s seat, and cranked the engine. Tearing out of the parking lot behind her USD school, she hit the side street, Garfield, and then at the stop sign made a right onto Third, the main road through town.
Once she cleared downtown, taking Highway 230, the Snowy Range Road, she gunned the accelerator, pushing the seven hundred horsepower supercharged V-8 of her leather-lined beast to the max.
Logic told her to call the police. That was what a reasonable person would do in a potentially life-threatening scenario.
But Charlie couldn’t, for the same reason Haley had called her instead of the cops.
Haley’s husband was a detective in the Laramie Police Department. His brothers in blue had protected him countless times. Looking the other way. Not filing reports. Her husband’s threats had always coerced Haley not to press charges against him no matter how badly he’d beaten her. The cycle of abuse simply continued.
Drawing in a deep breath, Charlie struggled to suppress her own childhood memories. Of her mother’s screams. The sight of her bruises. The endless excuses she had made to justify her husband’s violent nature.
The first six years of her life, Charlie had grown up in a constant state of fear.
Fear of what would set off her father the next time. The television tuned to the wrong show. Dinner not ready on time. Meat loaf served when he had a craving for fried chicken. Back talk from her mother. Charlie playing with her dolls too loudly. Sometimes it was just the weather. Too hot. Too muggy. Too much snow.
Sometimes there wasn’t any reason at all, except that her dad was a cruel man, who didn’t need one.
On and on it went until the summer she turned seven.
That was when her life changed forever.
She cut left, taking the turn for the dirt road that led out to the Olsen ranch. The twenty acres had been divided between the two brothers. Seth had Ranch B, eight acres with a lake large enough for fishing. The other brother, Abel, who had Down syndrome, had gotten Ranch A, with more acreage and the pig farm.
The road forked. She took the right path, headed for Seth’s place. Slowing down, she didn’t want to give the impression that she had been driving like a bat out of hell or skid as she navigated the ruts of the gravel road. The dread that had been gnawing at her since Haley’s desperate phone call took another bite.
Beyond the wrought-iron arches that had Olsen scrolled along the top, the modest house appeared in the moonlight. Charlie stared with apprehension at the small wooden cabin. It was so plain and simple. Anddark. Haley’s car, a white sedan, was parked in front of the attached garage. From the windows, nothing stirred inside the house.
Charlie brought her Dodge to a stop on the path before reaching the garage, far away from the house, and stuffed her cell phone in the pocket of her leggings.
Hopping out of the car, she hustled around to the trunk and popped it open. She fished around in the crate that she kept back there and found a flashlight. The big metal one, long and thick with hefty weight. In a pinch, she could use it as a weapon.
Closing the trunk, she scanned the area. There was nothing nearby. No other houses. No odd sounds. Only the trees swaying in the quiet, the croaking frogs and crickets, and the lake behind the house. She couldn’t even make out Ranch A in the distance.
The night air smelled of dying lake grass and still water, and held the heat of the day.
A breeze stirred the birch limbs overhanging the house. As she approached the sagging wooden porch, there were no sounds coming from inside the cabin. No yelling. No crying.
