sorry that Kitty’s been attacked, I really am, but she’s got to take some responsibility for her actions. Plenty of people don’t take kindly to her meddling.”
Joe was clearly more sympathetic than his wife. “Come on, honey, we don’t wish harm on her, do we?” He turned to Ryan as Carla gave her husband a stony glare. “Is Kitty okay?”
“She’s fine,” he replied. “But she’s pretty shaken up. Whatever Kitty’s father has done, she doesn’t deserve to fear for her life, so if any of you hear about who might be responsible for the attack yesterday, I’d like you to come and talk with me in confidence. We can’t allow residents to take the law into their own hands.” He caught Buzz’s eye. “Isn’t that right, young man?”
“Yes, sir,” Buzz said compliantly.
With a head of fair curls and baby blue eyes, Buzz possessed a face more suited to a boy band heartthrob than a hardware store clerk. But he was clearly cowed by his grandfather and his body language was uneasy.
“I hear that Sheriff Wilkins is retiring soon,” Frank said to Ryan. “And I’ve been told that you’re a hot contender for the job. But if you don’t get Kitty under control then your chances of support from this town don’t look good.”
Ryan frowned, unhappy with Frank’s choice of words. Kitty wasn’t a wayward animal to be brought under control. She was a human being, acting irrationally because she loved her father.
“Let’s go, Buzz,” Frank said, leading his grandson to the door. “I’m sure our new chief deputy has got a lot of work to do.”
The four residents filed from the station, leaving Ryan to contemplate just how he was going to broach this subject with Kitty. Shane was already one step ahead of him.
“I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, trying to persuade Kitty Linklater to drop her investigation,” he said. “She won’t take kindly to you telling her what to do.”
“I don’t intend to tell her what to do. I just need to remind her that she has a responsibility to be kind to the community. They’re hurting.”
“She’s hurting, too, boss. And people in pain tend to lash out when cornered.”
Ryan rubbed a hand down his face and sighed. That was exactly what he was worried about.
* * *
Kitty walked around her house, checking that each window was closed and locked. She fingered the Band-Aid covering the cut on her forehead, pressing down the sides, feeling a bruise settling there.
On top of her worries about her attacker, she was also anxious about Ryan moving in to the apartment. She kept telling herself that his presence would be reassuring, but a more powerful emotion niggled away: dread. For months she had been increasingly rejected by a small but vocal section of the community. Most of the town was holding its peace on the issue, but those few voices kept getting louder—and there was no one actively on her side, speaking up in her defense. As a result, she’d become ever more reclusive, avoiding town functions and special events. But now she would possibly be forced to confront the hostility that she expertly evaded in her daily life. Ryan was quite open about his belief in her father’s guilt and the more she considered this fact, the more it bothered her. For a lawmaker, he was closed-minded and biased, not willing to even consider that the jury made the wrong call. Of course, she knew why. A man who’d lost his sister to a murderer at the tender age of nine would never trust the word of a convicted killer. She would simply have to live with his prejudiced mind and try not to let it bother her.
She entered the living room, jumping at a streak of black in her peripheral vision.
“Oh, Shadow,” she said in playful rebuke, seeing him walking along the windowsill outside, crying to come in. “Why don’t you use your flap like a normal cat? Okay,” she said, opening the window. “Come on in and get dry.”
He snaked through the window, walked onto the piano and shook himself over her, causing her to laugh and brush herself down. Then she reached for the handle of the window to close it up.
But someone was waiting for her.
A hand stretched up from below and firmly clasped her wrist, pulling her forward. She reacted instantly and instinctively, yanking her arm from side to side as if to shake off a spider. She looked for any indicators that would help her identify this man, but Kitty could see only a limb, an arm that belonged to a man hidden in the bush below.
Using her other hand, she pulled the window shut while simultaneously wrenching her arm inside. The frame caught the hairy limb of her attacker and he howled from below, losing his grip and pulling back, allowing her to fully shut the window. She secured the latch, turned the lock and ran from the room, snatching up her cell from the hallway table along the way.
She could hear the door being rattled as she fumbled in her pocket for Ryan’s number.
“Ryan,” she said breathlessly when he answered. “Somebody’s here again. He’s trying to get in.”
“Stay calm and I’ll be there soon.”
A bullet came through the front door, slamming hard into the wall just yards away. She screamed.
“He’s shooting!” she cried.
“I’m on my way right now,” he promised. “Do you have a gun?”
She ran up the stairs. “Yes, it’s in my bedroom.”
Another bullet zinged through the air behind her, finding a vase on the table and shattering it into pieces.
Ryan clearly heard the commotion. “Get your gun, stay upstairs and barricade yourself in your room. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be afraid to shoot, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Hold tight.”
She gasped, remembering that Shadow was still in the living room. Without hesitation, she ran back down the stairs, screaming as another bullet pinged through the door, just missing her shoulder.
“Shadow,” she called. “Where are you?”
He immediately ran to the sound of her voice and she scooped him up into her arms. Then she turned and raced back to her room, as a pounding foot came down on the wooden door from outside, pummeling it.
Reaching her bedroom, she fled inside and slammed the door. After placing Shadow on the floor, Kitty used all her force to drag her dresser across the entrance, wondering if it would be enough. She figured the front door must have given way when she heard a loud bang resound through the house, and then footsteps run through the downstairs area.
“Please hurry, Ryan,” she muttered, dragging her bed across the rug to give her barricade extra strength.
The footsteps stopped. Her noise had revealed her location. Now her attacker would surely be coming for her. She slid open the top drawer of her low dresser and pulled out her black handgun, checking the bullets in the chamber. The man was there, outside her room, rattling the handle, trying to force it open.
“I
