by Dana Mentink
“Thank you,” he said. He’d never meant the words as much as he did then.
John shrugged and grabbed a rifle. He sent his officer to call for more units before he and Keegan raced toward the smoking barn.
* * *
Tracy crouched low and pulled Regina down next to her. Mitch’s diversion could work to their advantage. “Keep under the smoke. We’ll get out the front, and the cops or the Thorn brothers will help us.”
Regina gripped her hand and together they crept toward the door. Tracy could not see Mitch, but she figured they had a few minutes while he climbed down from the hayloft.
The door was only a few feet away when Regina fell over a rusted rake. She went down with a shriek that gave away their location. Tracy pulled her up and shoved her toward the big sliding door. Half tripping, they moved closer until Tracy could feel the cool night air. Only a little farther...
“This is the police.” The announcement broke the silence like a gunshot. “Mitch Arnold, come out of the barn slowly, with your hands up.”
Regina looked at Tracy. “Will they shoot us by mistake?”
Tracy texted John. “I just told him we’re coming out.”
Suddenly, Mitch loomed up behind them and gave Regina a mighty shove, which sent her reeling out into the night. Tracy tried to scramble after her, but Mitch grabbed her by the arms and hauled her back into the barn.
“We’re going out another way,” he said. “You and I have unfinished business.”
She tried to drag her feet, tried to scream, but he was so much stronger that her boots scuffled ineffectually across the wood floor. Smoke swirled all around her, and she could not see where Mitch meant to take her until he’d pulled her out a gaping hole in the wall of the barn.
Again she tried to twist free, to scratch at him, to claw with her fingers, but he yanked her firmly away. The Thorn brothers had likely not seen the hole, and John would be distracted by Regina’s appearance out the front.
“Let go of me,” she said, fighting for all she was worth. He tried to clamp a hand over her mouth but she bit down hard. Grumbling an oath, he pinned her to his side and fished for something in his pocket.
It was her moment, maybe her only moment, and she jerked hard, loosening his grip. Elation surged through her until he hooked a boot around her ankle and brought her to the ground. A needle stabbed into her neck. Her cry was muffled by the forest debris as the injected drug began to dim her senses.
“Horse tranquilizer,” he said into her ear. “See how you like that, honey.” With rough fingers, he felt around her waist and yanked free the transmitter that had been taped there. Then he snatched the papers from her back pocket: Nan Ridley’s proof, the facts and figures that had signed Nan’s death warrant. As Tracy’s vision went black, she wondered if the papers would prove to be her death warrant, too.
* * *
Keegan reached Regina first, in spite of John calling him off. “Where’s Tracy?”
“He’s got her.” Regina panted. “Mitch.”
Keegan ran into the barn, searching through the smoke, but there was no sign of Tracy. Jack and Owen charged in with John.
Jack shook his head. “They didn’t come out the back. We had that covered.”
Keegan prowled the whole space again, heart whamming against his ribs until the smoke dissipated enough for him to make out the hole. “He took her that way.”
Tracy’s grandfather hobbled into the barn. “Where is she?”
Keegan desperately did not want to tell him, but he would not lie to the man Tracy held dearest in the world.
“Mitch has her.”
“Mitch Arnold? He’s the one who killed the veterinarian?”
“It looks that way,” John said. He spoke to his partner. “Get Mr. Wilson and Miss Parker back to the car and keep them there.”
“What are you going to do?” the old man asked. John might have assumed the question was meant for him, but Grandpa Stew’s eyes were fastened on Keegan. He understood the man’s unspoken thoughts as he grabbed Keegan’s wrist with shaking fingers, squeezing hard.
You are responsible. If she dies, it’s on your head.
It would be on his head, and in his heart forever, if anything happened to Tracy Wilson.
Without a word, he leaped through the hole and charged out into the woods to find her.
TWENTY-FOUR
Tracy’s arms and legs were limp and useless. She was barely clinging to consciousness enough to know that Mitch had her over his shoulder and they were deep in the trees, far from the barn. Branches swung dizzyingly around her, grabbing at her hair, stabbing at her back.
Whatever drug he’d injected her with did nothing to dull her terror. He’d killed Nan and now he would murder her, also. She tried to kick, to wriggle, but it was as if she were buried deep underground, immobilized. The forest floor became muddy, sticking to Mitch’s boots as he carried her.
Finally the trees thinned and she realized with a sickening lurch that they had come to the edge of a rocky ridge that looked down into a wide expanse of lake. The water was probably no more than fifteen feet across and she didn’t know how deep, but it didn’t really matter anyway. There was enough to drown her, and that was exactly what Mitch intended to do.
He slid her to the ground and knelt next to her.
“You stuck your nose into my business, just like Nan. Two busybody women, all right. And Regina, too, but I think she’s gonna have the good sense to get out of town the minute she can after your body is found. Almost worked, that plan.”
“They...they know...” was all she could get out.
“Got me a little nest egg put away, Miss Wilson. I don’t want to leave this place, it was a real good gig here, but I’ll get started somewhere else.” He laughed. “Different name, different town, different women, same racket. Still, though, a man’s gotta settle his debt, and you did me wrong by butting in and ruining things for me, so in you go, Miss Wilson. Drown quickly or slowly. I don’t really care.”
He grabbed her under the shoulders and heaved her to the edge of the water. She clutched at the branches, rocks, anything, but she could not stop the terrible progress.
Slowly, inexorably, he moved her toward the edge.
“Get a good look,” he breathed in her ear. “Drowning must be a real bad way to go. Helpless while the water fills your lungs, but your brain works right up to the end, I hear. Your brain knows you’re dying but your body can’t do a thing about it.”
Frantic now, she kicked out, managed to get one of her legs to move, but not enough.
She thought of her grandfather, the dream they’d had that would never be realized. An image of Keegan rose in her mind. Another dream, one she had not even known she’d wanted, ended before it began. And her mother and sister—why hadn’t the Lord helped her reconcile with them in time? Tears threatened but she blinked them back. She would not give Mitch her tears. If that was the only thing she could do to resist, then she’d bottle up those tears tight where he could not see.
Once more, she dug her feet into the ground and prayed.
* * *
Keegan had gone hunting with his adopted granddad countless times. He’d become a skilled tracker, but it was dark and his nerves were firing a mile a minute.
Jack and Owen had each ridden off on different search routes, one toward the logging road and the other looking for Mitch’s vehicle, which must be hidden somewhere close. Grandpa Stew and the deputy had gone with Regina back to the safety of the squad car, though Stew had protested angrily.
John had brought two flashlights and handed one to Keegan.
“There,” Keegan said, stabbing a finger at the broken branches. “He took her this way.”
They plunged into the thick branches, Keegan beaming the flashlight at the ground and bushes.
“Left,” he directed,
moving them onto a faint scratch of a trail.
“I called in backup,” John murmured. “They’re en route.”
They’d be too late. Tracy’s only chance at life would be gone in the next few minutes if they didn’t find her.
They came to a spot where the trail branched into two.
“Which way?” John asked.
Keegan scanned frantically. Wrong choice and she died. Sweat stung his eyes. “I can’t tell.” He got on his knees, examining the ground as John played his flashlight over the earth. No broken twigs, no bruised branches, no marks at all. “I don’t know.”
“We’ll split up,” John said.
Keegan was getting to his feet when he saw it, the partial print of a boot heel in the damp earth.
“This way.” His throat seized up as realization hit him. “He’s taking her to the lake.”
They ran now, heedless of the noise they made until they pulled up, panting, behind a thick hedge. Peering from the cover of the tangled branches, Keegan saw Mitch pushing something toward the edge. His gut clenched. Tracy. He jerked forward but John stopped him.
“Give me thirty seconds to get a bead on him.”
“No, I...” With everything in him, he wanted to go right at Mitch and run him down like a wild stallion, but something inside, something new, told him to listen to his brother.
“Thirty seconds,” John repeated.
Keegan nodded and John whirled away into the foliage.
Thirty...twenty...fifteen...
Keegan could hardly keep his body in place. Tracy...was she alive? Had he taken too long to find her?
Ten...five...
When he hit one, he exploded from the bushes with a roar, just as Mitch pushed Tracy into the water. Mitch jerked to a standing position and took off. Keegan desperately wanted to go after him, but he careened down the slope and plunged into the frigid water, fingers scrambling to find Tracy.
The wind teased movement into the lake and so much mud had stirred from the bottom that he could not see her. Tossing off his hat, he went under, hands outstretched as the seconds ticked by. The cold water sapped the breath from him. No Tracy.
Breaking the surface, he looked again for a sign of where she’d gone in, but the darkness worked against him.
“Tracy!” he shouted.
He heard it, the tiniest splash, from her foot or maybe her hand, but it was enough for him to make a grab, his fingers finding the sleeve of her jacket. Elated, he pulled her out of the water. She was coughing, sputtering, and he thanked God for the weak noises as he cradled her to his chest.
She was crying and he held her tight.
“You’re all right, Pockets,” he said, hardly able to breathe himself. “You’re gonna be all right.”
* * *
Keegan had carried Tracy back to the clearing, where they’d met up with a waiting ambulance. The medics had whisked her away immediately, and he’d yearned to follow, but John had not yet returned, nor had Jack. Grandpa Stew departed for the hospital after the medics had given them some assurance that Tracy’s vitals were good.
Owen threw a blanket around Keegan’s shoulders and gripped his arm.
“Thanks,” Keegan said. “I—”
Owen squeezed, cutting off words he must have known would be an apology. “Save it. Soon as John’s back, we’ll take you to the hospital to be with her.”
The other apology he needed to make would not go as well. He’d been wrong about his father. Dead wrong. Bryce Larraby was innocent.
A second ambulance arrived and Keegan was further relieved when John appeared in the clearing, unharmed, followed by Jack, with his rifle over his shoulder.
“I shot Mitch,” John said flatly. “He gave me no choice. Jack cut him off from getting to his vehicle, and he refused to surrender. My men are with him. He’s alive, so far.”
Keegan nodded. “You were right, about your plan to save Tracy.”
John raised an eyebrow. “That’s twice you’ve told me I’m right recently. I’m beginning to suspect a head injury.”
Keegan chuckled. John’s phone rang and he answered, listening intently before he clicked off. “They found Nan Ridley’s body in the woods about a mile from the center. She was concealed under a pile of logs. Mitch must have transported her by car, which threw off the dogs. The coroner won’t have an official time of death for a while, but he guesses she’s been dead since last Wednesday.”
Keegan blew out a breath. “The day Tracy saw Mitch murder her at the center.”
“Yeah,” John said. “I should have believed her.”
A car slammed to a halt and Bryce got out. He hastened over. “What happened? I heard sirens. Fire department said the barn was smoking but not burning. What is going on?”
John explained as Bryce’s eyes widened.
“So Mitch murdered Nan and hid her body?”
“Yes.” John blew out a breath. “I shot him as he tried to escape.”
“Is he...dead?”
“Not yet, but he’s in bad shape. Lost a lot of blood.”
Bryce scrubbed a hand over his face. “Well,” he said after a moment, “at least it’s over.” He glared at Keegan. “And all this time you’ve been trying to insinuate I was a murderer.”
Keegan sucked in the biggest breath of his life. “I was wrong.”
“You were more than just wrong,” he snapped, cheeks flushing. “You’ve slandered my name and my business. It was all out of spite because I wouldn’t claim you as my own.”
Keegan silently took the ire he knew he had coming.
John shifted uncomfortably.
“That was the best decision of my life,” Bryce said.
Keegan swallowed. Hard.
“The accusations, the rumors you’ve spread.” Bryce shook his head, triumph in his eyes. “You might have had the whole world believing I killed Nan and hid her body under a woodpile.”
Keegan frowned as Bryce went on.
“The horse show is going to be a success in spite of you. At least I can hang on to that. I put everything I had into the center. I’m glad to know it was worth the gamble. You didn’t win, Keegan. How does it feel?”
John, too, was staring at Bryce now.
“What?” Bryce said. “What’s the matter with you two? Why are you staring?”
“Dad...” John began. “I just now got the call about Nan’s body. No one could know that it was found underneath a woodpile except...”
“For the person who put it there,” Keegan finished.
Bryce stopped, mouth open, all the vitality draining from his expression. “I...I didn’t...”
“The truth, Dad,” John said. “Because I’m going to have my cops all over your house, your center, your car inside an hour.”
Bryce’s round-eyed gaze drifted back and forth between Keegan and John. “I...I was at the horse center to meet Tracy on that Wednesday night. I heard a scuffle and saw Mitch take off after her. In the office I found...” He swallowed. “I found Nan’s body. It would have ruined everything, you see. Ruined the show, a thing like that.”
“What did you do?” John said, voice low and throbbing with emotion.
“I...” Bryce looked helplessly from Keegan to John. “It would have ruined everything,” he repeated.
Keegan felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “So you hid Nan’s body in the crate and told Mitch to keep his mouth shut. You arranged to clean up the scene, even the broken ornament.”
“I didn’t kill her. I’m not a murderer.”
“No,” John said, hurt hardening the lines around his mouth. “But you obstructed justice and protected a killer. Did you know about Mitch’s plans to kill Tracy? Maybe even helped him?”
Bryce’s voice came out as a whisper. “I knew...but I didn’t help. That was all him.” He swallow
ed again. “I couldn’t let her ruin everything.”
Keegan’s brain could not believe what his ears were hearing. “You helped Mitch get away with killing Nan and you would have let him do the same to Tracy?”
Bryce went still, looking from Keegan to John. “I think I won’t say anything else until I talk to a lawyer.”
John took a pair of cuffs from his belt. “You can call one from jail.”
Keegan watched John read Bryce his rights and load him into the back seat of the car.
Before his half brother slid into the driver’s seat, Keegan gripped John’s forearm.
“I’m sorry. I thought this is what I wanted...but it isn’t. I’m sorry.”
John bowed his head and let out a long breath. When he looked up again, there was no longer bitterness between them, only a shared sadness. “Me, too.”
Maybe, thought Keegan as John drove away, Bryce had helped build a fragile bridge between him and his brother in spite of himself. Keegan resolved to do his part to keep it standing.
Bone-tired and flesh-weary, he trudged toward his brothers who stood ready to get him to the hospital.
* * *
Tracy hoped she would never again set foot in a hospital. Her Saturday—Christmas Eve—homecoming had been filled with warm hugs from her grandfather and licks from Cyclone, who seemed to have taken up permanent residence at the property. There were no lingering effects from the horse sedative Mitch had administered except fatigue and a nagging headache.
Keegan had been there at the hospital through it all, smuggling in cookies for her and stroking her hair, drying her tears, until she’d finally been discharged. Why? Guilt, probably. She still wasn’t sure where things stood with Keegan, but she did not have the energy to try to muddle through it. She was alive and Nan could be laid to rest, and that was enough to hold on to.
She was surprised to see Buttons and Ducky both sporting Christmas bandannas, and some fresh pine decorating the fence. Her grandfather beamed. “Cute little rascals, aren’t they?”