off the mask to see who was behind it, but he couldn’t compromise any evidence that might be there. Shelby and he had perhaps compromised enough just by going inside the building. However, when he’d gotten that call from the CI, the last thing he’d expected was to find a dead body.
Seth backed up, trying to follow the same path that he’d used to get into the room so he would disturb as little of the area as possible. He bumped into Shelby, who wasn’t moving. She seemed frozen. Her gaze was fixed on the body, and her mouth was trembling. She’d only been seven or eight years old when her dad had died, but this had to bring back what bad memories she had.
“They never did find my father’s body,” she said. More trembling and this time, it wasn’t just her mouth. She sagged against him. “But the cops think he was stabbed multiple times because there was blood everywhere.”
Seth was very familiar with the details. Heck, he’d memorized them.
“Come on,” he told her. “We need to get out of here.”
The last thing he wanted was to get into a shouting match with Cooper because Seth hadn’t followed this search to the T.
When Shelby didn’t budge, Seth took her by the arm to get her moving. But they only made it a few steps when he heard the plinking sound. Like something metallic falling onto the concrete. That barely had time to register in his mind when the smoke started to billow right toward them.
But it wasn’t ordinary smoke.
It was tear gas.
Both Shelby and he started to cough immediately. The tear gas burned his throat and eyes. Seth tried to get them out of there, but it was hard to see anything. Hard to think, too.
Each step was an effort, but he headed straight for the door. He also kept his gun ready because someone had thrown that tear gas grenade, and that someone no doubt was lurking outside waiting to do heaven knew what to them.
Shelby and he were still several feet from the door when he heard a sound to his right. A footstep. But it was the only warning that Seth got before someone wearing a gas mask reached out and touched him with something.
The jolt went through Seth, all pain and static, and he had no choice but to drop to the floor.
Someone had used a Taser on him.
A split second later, Shelby made a sharp groaning noise and fell right next to him. Their eyes were open, gazes fixed on each other.
But neither could move.
Seth could only lie there as the footsteps came right toward them.
The moment Shelby opened her eyes, the light stabbed into them, and she groaned.
Oh, mercy.
She was in a lot of pain. Her head throbbed like a toothache, her mouth was bone-dry and it took her several moments to remember why.
She’d been Tasered.
Seth, too.
Sweet heaven. That reminder got her eyes open wider, and Shelby automatically reached out her hands to fend off another attack. But no one was attacking her at the moment. And her hands didn’t reach far.
That was when she noticed the ropes.
What the heck? Someone had tied her by the wrists to a wooden post.
Shelby glanced around to try to figure out what was going on. The rope was secured around a stall post in a barn. An old, rotting one from the looks of it, but not old or rotting enough that it gave way when she tugged as hard as she could. Of course, she couldn’t tug that hard since her arms were weak and wobbly, like the rest of her.
Where was she?
Sunlight speared through holes in the ceiling and hit the floor like mini spotlights on a stage. But other than the holes and the disrepair, it could have been any old barn. She certainly didn’t recognize it.
A sound quickly caught her attention. It was a hoarse groan, and she looked behind her to see Seth. Not his usual cocky self, either. He, too, was tied to a wooden post in the hay-strewn stall, and he looked as dazed as Shelby felt.
Another groan and Seth fully opened his eyes. He blinked hard, and it took him a moment to focus. However, he grumbled some profanity when his gaze finally landed on her face. Despite his wrists being tethered with the rope, he reached for his gun.
It wasn’t there.
He was still wearing his shoulder holster, but it was empty.
Other than the missing gun, they were fully clothed. Seth even had on his Stetson.
“Where are we?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “And how the hell did we get here?”
Shelby had to shake her head on both counts, and she again pulled at the thick ropes to see if they’d give way. They didn’t. So she struggled some more. The wood creaked a little, but it held.
“I remember hitting the floor at that warehouse,” she said when Seth repeated his questions. Good grief, her mouth felt as if she’d eaten a bag of cotton balls, and her heart was racing from the new jolt of adrenaline she’d just gotten. “What about you? What’s the last thing you remember?”
He pulled in a hard breath. “Same here—nothing after someone hit me with the Taser.”
Of course, before that she remembered the dead body on the mattress with the mask covering his face. Not just any mask, but a likeness of her father. She got another jolt. Not of adrenaline this time but a sickening knot in the pit of her stomach from the memories.
Shelby didn’t think she’d ever forget seeing that body. That mask. All that blood.
Obviously someone had killed the man.
But who?
And why hadn’t the same person killed Seth and her?
There must have been plenty of opportunities to do just that once they’d been unconscious. So why had the person left them alive and tied them up like this?
Too many questions and not nearly enough answers. Or time. Shelby had no idea where their captor was, but she figured it wouldn’t be long before he came to check on them. They needed to be gone by then.
“Do you see anyone?” Seth asked.
Shelby had looked around when she first regained consciousness, but she did it again. “No one.” She craned her neck so she could get a glimpse through the partially open door. “I don’t see a vehicle, either.”
Though someone had brought them here in some kind of vehicle. The warehouse wasn’t close to any barns, so their captor would have had to drive them here. Drag them to the vehicle, too. That explained why her body felt like one giant bruise and why she had scrapes on her hands and knees.
“Someone
