Fatal Threat

by Valerie Hansen

  Passing the open door to the room he was currently sharing with his brother, Sara noticed that although one of the beds looked slept in, there was nobody there now. She paused. “Kurt?”

  One of the upstairs bathrooms was directly across the hall. That door stood open as well. “Kurt? Where are you?”

  No one answered. Sara started to get antsy. Kurt should have been in the house. If he, too, was in the barn Adam would meet up with him and everything would be fine. If not? If not, Adam needed to be warned.

  Remembering the way he’d lectured her for phoning him when he’d been searching for trespassers she hesitated momentarily. Don’t be ridiculous. Finding Kurt and keeping Adam safe is far more important, she told herself.

  She patted the pocket of her scrub smock and was relieved to find her cell had not fallen out during the crash. If it had been in her purse, it, too, would have melted in the car fire.

  The phone was showing only 21 percent charge so she hurriedly tapped the screen to contact Adam. His phone rang. And rang. Could he have left it in his truck? She ended that call and repeated it. Nothing but ringing. “Come on, Adam. Answer me.”

  Fine hairs on the back of Sara’s neck prickled. The old house creaked as if sympathizing with its absent owners. Wind penetrated invisible cracks, whistling, softly moaning. She didn’t believe in ghosts but she was in tune with her intuition and that was telling her something was very wrong.

  “It might be nothing,” she murmured, trying to convince herself she was getting uptight for no reason.

  “Yeah, and it might be another sneak attack,” she said more firmly. She didn’t know where Adam and Kurt kept their firearms but she had seen sports equipment in the closet of the room she was occupying. Surely something in there would do for defense.

  Armed with an aluminum baseball bat that was so dirty and scarred up it had probably belonged to the Kane boys when they were kids, Sara held it as if she were anticipating a pitch and started back down the stairway.

  Should she call out to either brother again? Kurt obviously wasn’t upstairs and, given her lack of information about the current situation, she decided against making her presence known any more than she already had.

  Her fingers were gripping the bat so tightly they hurt. Perspiration dotted her forehead and trickled down her temples. Sweaty palms didn’t help her grip. The unfamiliar shadows in the house didn’t subdue her vivid imagination, either. It was all she could do to settle herself enough to make it through the kitchen to the back door.

  Once she ventured outside she’d be in the open, she realized. There were lights dimly shining out the wide doorway of the barn, though, so Adam must be close by. All she had to do was get to him and they could search for Kurt together.

  A tear joined the drops slipping from her forehead. She blotted them against her shoulder. My fault. My fault, her mind kept insisting. The one person she cared most about in the whole world was in jeopardy because she’d accepted his assistance instead of standing on her own two feet.

  Joining that thought was the remembrance of her dear cousin Vicki. She had been dauntless. Courageous enough to face both a flood and thieves. And she was quite dead.

  When Adam first entered the barn he braced the loose door back to stop it from swinging closed and banging in the wind. Nothing seemed amiss.

  As he progressed, keen senses heightened his awareness. Horses who usually greeted his arrival with soft snorts and nickers seemed unduly uneasy. Some pawed the floors of their stalls. Others tossed their heads, ears back, as if preparing to face a pack of ravenous wolves. Were they reacting to the approaching storm? Or did their fear have a different cause? And where were the usually omnipresent farm dogs?

  Adam hefted a pitchfork. It would be useless against a gun but was enough to make him feel armed. To send his memories of foreign battlegrounds whirling like an Ozark tornado. His body reacted instinctively. He dropped into a crouch and proceeded with caution, keeping his back to the wall where bales of alfalfa hay were stacked.

  A door slammed outside. Car? House? Was Sara up to her usual escapades? He dearly hoped not, because the hair on the nape of his neck was prickling the way it had when he and his unit had been ordered to enter a supposedly deserted village where every structure might hide an enemy. Every unidentified shadow be lethal.

  He froze, listening. What was that? A moan? Were his ears playing tricks on him?

  The head and shoulders of a small person appeared at the outer edge of the wide open doorway. Her long, silky hair was lifted and fanned by the wind. Sara! Adam wanted to shout at her, to run and grab her to keep her from entering. Circumstances recommended neither. At this point, the best move was to show himself and draw attention his way, just in case the horses were right.

  Adam straightened. “Stop!” He saw her falter, retreat a bit, then come forward again. “Stop, I said.”

  “Adam?”

  “Stay out there.” His jaw clenched, as did his fists enclosing the handle of the makeshift weapon.

  “Is Kurt with you?”

  What kind of a question was that? He shivered. “Why?”

  “Because I can’t find him.”

  “Get back in the house!” Adam hoped he didn’t sound as frantic as he felt.

  “By myself?”

  She had a good point, one he couldn’t ignore. “All right. Stay right there. I’m coming to you.”

  She disappeared back around the corner. He reached the door in five long strides and whipped around the edge.

  Sara was waiting with an old baseball bat poised over her shoulder. She halted her swing just as he ducked. “Adam!”

  Relieving her of the bat he drew her close with one arm, keeping their backs to the wall. “Are you sure Kurt isn’t in the house?”

  “I looked all over upstairs. And I hollered for him. He didn’t answer.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’re out here.” Tense before, every muscle was now as taut as a lasso around the neck of a fighting, frenzied bull.

  Sara was clinging to his side. “I had to tell you. Why didn’t you answer your phone? I tried to call before I came outside.”

  “I’d turned the ringer off. Didn’t feel it vibrate.”

  “Have you seen your brother out here?”

  “No. But I did think I heard a funny noise before you showed up.” He pivoted. “Get behind me and stay there. I can’t leave you out here, exposed.”

  “Do you think it was Kurt you heard?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Something sure has the horses wound up tonight. And I don’t see any of the dogs.”

  He started forward, feeling Sara’s presence and trying to keep from paying too much attention to her. His focus must be on whoever or whatever was lurking in the barn or they’d be in worse danger than before.

  Truth to tell, Adam would rather have escorted Sara back to the house but if his brother wasn’t at home he felt he had no choice but to proceed.

  The strength of the wind had increased and begun to lift and spin loose straw from the dirt floor and the tops of the stored hay bales. It didn’t decrease visibility much but it was a distraction.

  Soothing each horse in turn, Adam led Sara along the bank of stalls. Several on the end were empty. Those, he approached with added caution.

  Suddenly there was a sharp cry from the last stall. The air was filled with movement, bodies, screeching, flying bits of straw and talons.

  Adam staggered back, startled.

  Sara screamed, threw her arms in front of her face and ducked low.

  Adam lost his footing and tumbled over her arched back. She screamed again. And again.

  * * *

  Hardly able to think, let alone reason, Sara was finally able to regain functional self-control. It was recognizing the reddish colors of their attackers and the flying bunches of ruffled feathers that br
ought comprehension.

  She began to laugh hysterically. They had just been assaulted by a flock of roosting chickens!

  A quick glance at Adam quieted her. “What? That was funny, okay?”

  “Not if your stalkers are what spooked them,” he grumbled, getting to his feet and cautiously approaching the closed half door to the stall. “Back off.”

  She complied. Her body was trembling and her agitated thoughts reminded her of a load of clothes in a washing machine. Adam. Kurt. Stalkers. Night. Darkness. A wreck. A burning car. Back to Adam. And Kurt.

  The crazy actions of that bunch of misguided chickens had nothing on her brain. Her gaze tracked Adam’s every step. Watched his hand release the catch on the stall’s lower door. Saw him slowly pull it open.

  Adam shouted and disappeared through the opening. Sara almost turned and ran. Instead, she hefted the pitchfork he’d dropped and tiptoed closer. Could she actually stab someone with it if she had to?

  Praying silently she crept closer and saw Adam. He was hunched over something on the floor in the loose straw. It was his missing brother!

  “Is—is he okay?” she managed to stutter.

  “Yes. He’s tied up but otherwise fine.”

  The sound of ripping tape proved that conclusion as Kurt’s mouth was freed.

  “Did you see who grabbed you?” Adam asked.

  Kurt continued to shout until Sara interrupted. “Hi.”

  “Sorry,” the younger man said. He got to his feet with Adam’s help. “No, I didn’t see who it was. There were at least two, maybe three.”

  “How long ago?” Sara asked.

  “Felt like hours. What time is it now?”

  “Almost dawn.” She huffed. “It could have happened before my wreck.”

  Kurt was rubbing his wrists. “What wreck?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, bracing with her back to the inside of the stall. “Did you hear the people who grabbed you leave or are they still around?”

  “Long gone.” Kurt brushed himself off. “Can we talk about this in the kitchen? I missed my supper.”

  Words of agreement were not necessary. All Sara had to do was make eye contact with Adam and she had the okay.

  “What about the dogs?” Kurt asked as they left the barn together. “Did you see them?”

  Sara winced. “No. You don’t think they were hurt, do you?”

  “I’m not sure,” Kurt said. “When I first came outside to see why they were barking, they were all staggering around like they were drunk. Or drugged.”

  “Oh, no!” Unshed tears filled her eyes. Nobody had the right to take out their anger on helpless animals.

  Adam had finished securing the barn, caught up and reached for her hand. She let him hold it. “It’s almost sunup. We’ll go look for them when we can see better.”

  “We need to find them now. They may need a vet.” Tears had begun to stream down her cheeks. “This is too much. It’s all too much. It’s not fair.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Adam replied, leaning into the increasing wind. “It isn’t fair. Come on. Let’s all go inside where it’s quieter. We need to call the sheriff and report what happened to Kurt.”

  Although Sara nodded, wiped her tears and let him tug her along she wasn’t eager to give up on the missing dogs. Then she noticed something. “Where’d Kurt go? He was right next to us.”

  The young man’s voice sounded muffled when he called, “Over here. I found old Charlie and the others under the porch. They’re groggy but breathing fine.”

  Sara gasped with joy. She wasn’t sure whether it was considered okay to pray for animals or not, but she had been doing just that. And Kurt had brought her answer almost before she’d said, Amen. The humans embroiled in this mess may still be in jeopardy, but at least the innocent animals had come through it all right. At least she hoped so.

  It wasn’t a huge triumph but it was something good. At this point, she was willing to praise the Lord for the tiniest blessing.

  And there lay the deeper lesson, she mused. While waiting for answers to her grand prayers, she was missing small daily joys that lifted a believer’s spirits and brought peace despite trials. Like the touch of Adam Kane’s strong hand.

  NINETEEN

  Kurt ended up making breakfast for his brother, Sara, Sheriff Caruthers and Deputy Elmer Ott, aka Tiger, after they finished checking the crime scene. Rain was falling.

  “More pancakes, anybody?” he asked, gesturing with a spatula.

  Adam was too engrossed in the sheriff’s report to eat much. He waved the request away and continued asking questions. “You’re positive Hector gave you good intel?”

  “Oh, yeah. All he wants is to be sent back to Texas and leave us crazy hillbillies behind.” Caruthers’ grin was wide and genuine, helping to relieve some of Adam’s angst.

  “Okay, what about his three buddies? Was one really a woman?”

  “A teenage girl. We picked them all up. Once we had a vehicle description it wasn’t hard to locate their SUV. The girl folded and explained everything the minute we started interrogating her. They came up here to make sure Vicki hadn’t passed on any evidence or told anyone about their illegal enterprises.”

  Sara interrupted. “Which one shot Rigo and why? And who set Vicki’s place on fire?”

  Caruthers shrugged. “Hard to tell. They’re all blaming each other for his death to keep law enforcement confused. The only thing they do agree on is shooting to miss you.”

  “Miss me?” Sara’s eyes widened.

  “Yup. The idea was to scare you so you’d tell the truth when they questioned you. They swear they never used a rifle.”

  Adam leaned forward, elbows on the kitchen table. “Whoa. How can that be? I mean, the slugs you dug out of the tree were fired from a rifle, right?”

  “Looked like it to me. Haven’t gotten ballistics info back from Jeff City yet, though.” He slurped his coffee, then held out the cup for more as Kurt brought a carafe to the table. “Thing is, they did confess to shooting your truck in town and following you back here to the ranch. That’s how they knew where Sara was staying.”

  She interrupted. “So, why trash my apartment? I mean, if they were looking for Vicki’s journal, why make such a mess of the place when they didn’t find it?”

  Caruthers shook his head thoughtfully. “Beats me. They admit to tossing the place but deny spilling any paint. Hector said they thought Vicki might have given proof of the thefts to you and they were hoping to scare you enough to give it back.”

  “When? How?”

  “Out here, tonight, apparently. Only you weren’t home.”

  Adam watched Sara’s face, wondering if she had come to the same conclusions he had. Finally, he said, “This doesn’t make sense. They had already tied up Kurt and drugged the dogs. Why didn’t they wait?”

  “I think because Hector had been their leader. Without him in charge, they got into an argument and bailed too soon.” The sheriff smiled behind his coffee mug. “You should be glad.”

  “We are.” Adam covered Sara’s hand with his. “I just wish I could connect all the dots. Didn’t they have a second car? There were two of them when we came under fire at Sara’s first apartment.”

  “It broke down and they abandoned it,” Deputy Ott offered. “I was having it towed to impound when we got the call to come out here. Haven’t had a chance to go over it yet.”

  Sighing heavily, Adam nodded. “Okay. What now?”

  “More questioning,” Caruthers said, draining his cup and setting it aside. “We’ll sort out who murdered their cohort and put together a time line before long. In the meantime, staying here and keeping your heads down is probably the most sensible move.”

  Kurt saluted with his coffee mug. “I’ll drink to that.”

  Unsatisfied, Adam got t
o his feet and followed the sheriff and his deputy to the kitchen door. Rain was still dripping off the eaves and had left muddy puddles, while more menacing, dark clouds raced across the morning sky. “Are you positive you got them all? I mean, couldn’t there be other gang members out there with an ax to grind toward Sara?”

  “Could be, but I doubt it,” the sheriff replied. “These guys are good for all her troubles. It’s just a matter of figuring out which ones were on scene when they happened.”

  “Meaning, you think they split up and could be responsible for everything? Even running her off the road?”

  “Exactly. One person couldn’t be in all those places at once but an organized gang could have covered it.” He patted Adam’s shoulder in passing. “Quit worrying, son. I’ve got this.”

  “If you say so.” Still, Adam wasn’t satisfied. He was the kind of direct thinker who liked all his facts to mesh neatly. These didn’t.

  He trailed the lawmen outside and stood on the porch. “Don’t forget to ask them who slashed Sara’s tires and left the note on the windshield.”

  Caruthers waved and slammed the door of his car while Elmer got into the patrol unit and also drove away.

  Sensing Sara close behind him, Adam turned and slipped a protective arm around her. “You cold?”

  Sara nodded. “Yes. But the rain’s letting up. Before we go in I want to check on your poor dogs again. They might be cold and wet.”

  “It’s the nurse in you, I suppose. Fair enough. Come on.” He led her down the steps to the side of the porch that opened into a makeshift den for the recovering dogs.

  Despite the cloudy morning, a porch light sent parallel bars of illumination through slits between the boards. She crouched to peer underneath. “They’re wagging their tails, especially that little one that looks like a beagle. Maybe the bigger dogs kept him from eating as much of whatever Hector’s gang fed them to knock them out.”