dry. Aware of the man standing beside her, listening intently, she said, “Hawk, I knew they were coming. Just like I knew about Baby.”
Her brother was silent as he digested the information. She’d called him on his cell a couple days ago, after she’d had one of those strange mental flashes. In this one she’d seen her brother’s beloved dog, Baby, lying on the ground, blood pouring from its flank. Her brother hadn’t been available to answer her call. But when they’d spoken later she’d learned her brother had been involved in a fight for his life, and his pet had been injured by a bullet meant for him.
“This is related to what you found out about our mother, isn’t it? What haven’t you told me about that? Why would people have tried to stop you from discovering the truth about her death?” She felt, rather than saw, Shane’s reaction to her words.
“I’ll tell you everything later,” Hawk promised, a hint of desperation sounding in his voice. “But I think the woman who showed up at your door is Dr. Janet Sheridan. She’s a chemist, and the man she works for will stop at nothing to get you, Cassie. She’ll try to inject you with a drug they’ve designed. You can’t let her near you.”
The ground seemed to shift beneath her. There were, she thought numbly, more pieces than ever missing from the story her brother had yet to tell her about his adventures in the last few weeks. “Who is he?” she demanded. “How would he know about me?”
“That doesn’t matter now. If the woman at your door was Sheridan, and from your description, it sure sounds like it, she’s picked up some hired muscle to help her. I don’t know why she left before kidnapping you, but you can’t wait for her to come back.”
“I know why.” Cassie took a deep breath, forced herself to think rapidly. “Shane was coming up the drive. When they saw the car, they left, saying they’d be back tomorrow.” After their initial insistence on seeing the horses, she’d thought it odd that they’d left in such a hurry. But when she’d discovered who was in the vehicle that had sent them on their way, all thoughts of the couple had abruptly faded.
“Farhold’s there?” Hawk’s voice was sharp. “Let me talk to him.”
She hesitated, torn. Her brother had made no bones about his feelings about Shane when he and Cassie had broken up. But the decision was taken out of her hands, along with the phone.
Ignoring her glare, Shane took a few steps away, holding the cordless to his ear. “Hawk. What the hell’s going on?”
“Get her out of there, Farhold. You’ve got to keep her safe. You owe her that much, at least.”
The censure in the man’s voice didn’t come as a surprise. For all intents and purposes, he’d left Cassie alone and pregnant. Even if he had known about the baby, it wouldn’t have changed what happened between the two of them. Couldn’t change it even now.
“I heard most of what you told her on the phone,” he said evenly. “And there was a car leaving as I came up the lane. You think the couple in it was after her? But why?”
“I’m as certain as I can be. So is the FBI. They’re involved in this case, too. I don’t have time to go into it. Just get her to town and watch her every second. I’ll get there as soon as I can, and the Bureau is sending agents, as well. The danger is real, Shane. Make her believe it. And keep her safe. This guy who’s after her, he’s—” The line went abruptly dead.
“Hawk?” When there was no answer, he clicked off the phone and looked at Cassie. “His phone must have gone dead. Was he calling from his cell?”
“Check the caller ID.” He pressed the button on the receiver that should have displayed the numbers of incoming calls. The screen remained blank.
“Looks like it was your phone that went dead.”
She went to the den and retrieved her cell phone from its cradle. As she reentered the living room, she flicked on the light switch, then stopped midstride when the light failed to go on. She swallowed hard, caught his gaze on her. “The electricity is off.”
A grim mask slid over his expression. “Any chance it happened earlier today and you just didn’t notice?”
She thought for a moment. “I used the microwave and the stove about three hours before you got here. It could have gone off anytime since then, I suppose.”
He went to the window, peered out into the rapidly descending dusk. “There’s no sign of anyone out front. Any other way to get to the ranch without using the lane?”
“Not unless someone got to the main road and cut the fence, came up a quarter mile or so from here and circled around back.” The likelihood of that scenario was remote. But then, the whole scene Hawk had warned her of had a vaguely surreal aspect to it.
“Grab a bag and throw a few things together,” Shane said. “You’re staying with me until we get this figured out.” As he spoke he moved to the door, locked it. She stared at him, swaying a bit on her feet as his figure moved into and out of focus. His words seemed to come from a distance and there was an all too familiar sense of velocity, as though she was being catapulted through space. Her pulse galloped as her vision dimmed, rainbows arrayed beneath her eyelids. The cell phone slipped from her hand, clattered unnoticed to the floor. And then it was as if a giant curtain was slung aside, bits of mental images whirling and colliding before forming yet another scene.
Shane was striding across the room in front of the window. There was the sound of a shot, and the glass shattered, spraying across the room.
“Cass!”
She blinked rapidly, noting the insistence in the word, if not the meaning. Her vision cleared, leaving her feeling weak and limp. She was seated, although she didn’t remember sitting down, and Shane was kneeling in front of her, his hands over hers, his face concerned.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.” She tried to summon a smile, doubted she pulled it off. Rising, she prayed her knees would hold her. “I’ll get a bag. You’ll need to lock the other two doors.”
Shane got to his feet, still watching her strangely. “I already did.”
Although she had no memory of it at all, she nodded. “I’ll just be a minute.” She took several steps before hesitating, flashes of that last mental image appearing again in her mind. “Come with me.”
He did, driven out of an anxiety he didn’t voice. She was still white, still shaky, and he didn’t trust her to not collapse before making it to her room. But she moved at record speed, dragging a small bag out of her closet and throwing in a change of clothes, then crossing to the adjoining bath to pack some toiletries. He went to the window in her room and looked out, the lengthening shadows making it difficult to see anything. It’d be fully dark in another fifteen minutes. Night never used to hold any particular fears for him. Not until he discovered firsthand how many black-hearted thieves and murderers prowled beneath its mantle. The knowledge was enough to keep his instincts razor sharp.
He looked up as Cassie reentered the room, noted that she’d regained a bit of color. “Let’s go,” he said, taking her elbow and leading her out the door. “We can contact Hawk again once we get to town.”
“I could call him now from my cell.”
“It’s going to
