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Craaack!
The sound was sharp.
Like glass splintering.
The images of the night of the attack faded.
Merlin shot to his feet, ears pointed forward, his gaze fixed on the window with the broken shade. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, his tail stiff. A low growl rumbled deep in his throat.
Heart clutching, Lucy searched the darkness.
“What’s wrong?” Renee asked, her eyes blinking open to stare at her mother, worry in her eyes.
Oh God, she hated what this was doing to her daughter. The toll Lucy’s paranoia was causing Renee. “Probably nothing,” Lucy said, not believing it for a second.
“Then why do you have that gun?”
She was freaking her kid out.
“Shhh.” She was on her feet, her eyes fixed on the window where the gathering darkness was a cloak and the glass panes reflected the interior with its soft golden light.
But who, if anyone, was outside?
No one.
But the dog was still on guard, every muscle tense, his eyes laser focused on the window.
Silently, Lucy slipped a shell into the rifle’s chamber.
* * *
The wipers were barely keeping up with the snowfall as Ian angled off the main road leading over Mount Hood, to what was little more than a lane that cut through the woods. Tire tracks had flattened the fresh snow, and every so often he caught a glimpse of a cabin through the stands of fir trees, but the predawn hours were quiet and still, the forest seemingly unoccupied. He drove across a single-lane bridge that spanned a creek that was nearly iced over, only a trickle of water visible.
Could Lucy have picked a more isolated spot?
Squinting, he scanned the darkness and nearly missed the opening in the trees, where a spur of this desolate lane angled upward. Twin ruts, covered with ice and snow, looked as if they’d been made by a single vehicle.
But not long ago.
His cell phone rang, again lighting up the interior.
Zhou.
His stomach dropped.
“Yeah?” he said, answering as he kept his eyes on the road.
Zhou’s voice came through the speakers. “Just giving you a head’s-up. I called Watkins’s parole officer and he checked on the sister’s house. No one was there.”
“No one.”
“Not his sister, not Watkins. But they did find blood.”
“Blood?”
“Yeah, enough that they don’t think it was a paper cut. Serious blood in an upper hallway. Enough that there were footprints in it, and the cat’s paw prints as well.”
“Watkins’s sister?”
