Gut tightening, he sucked in a sharp breath at the lump that blocked the entrance, a clearly human, and partially burned, body. Hurrying up the steps, Zach checked for signs of life, but quickly realized that the small man who’d sneaked the camera into his home was beyond help.
But what about the woman traveling with him?
Looking past the body, Zach made out the dim shapes of furniture, but the rest of the room lay in shadow.
“Miss Layton? Jessica? You in here?” He stripped off his jacket and beat down the last few flames at the base of the doorway. As he stamped out the embers, he raised his voice. “It’s Rayford—Zach. I’m here to help you. It’s safe to come out now.”
There was a faint echo but no other answer. Pulse pounding, he stepped over the dead man and moved deeper, using the faint illumination from the headlights of the Prius as his guide.
For a moment, he wondered if the driver of the pickup could have taken her. Then he spotted the blood trail, and what looked like drag marks leading to the closed door of the bathroom. A door that gave only an inch or so when he tried to push it open.
“Jessica!” he shouted, giving it a hard pop with his shoulder. But the door stubbornly refused to yield, as if something heavy blocked its progress....
Something he very much feared would prove to be the beautiful reporter’s corpse.
Chapter 5
Something bumped against Jessie’s back, thumping repeatedly until it woke her. Her heart stumbled as she peered into the darkness. Where was she? What was happening?
Remembering, she gasped and tried to sit up. Making the mistake of pushing off the floor with her injured hand, she shrieked with the agony shooting up her right arm into her shoulder.
She nearly blacked out again, pale stars streaking across her inky vision. But the knocking and the noisy rattling of the knob above her head refused to allow her to escape the pain.
“Move back from the door,” a muffled male voice instructed. “Let me help you.”
Help...yes. She had to have help to get out before the place burned with her in it. But what if it was the shooter out there, trying to trick her into letting him inside to kill her?
Not right, she realized, for why would the man urge her to let him help when he could simply shoot her through the closed door? Or leave her here to die, as she surely would without help?
Her mind conjured an image of her mother, the mother she couldn’t risk leaving to die alone. With the thought, she focused on dragging her body farther back into the bathroom, gritting her teeth as she slid through something wet and slimy. Blood, she realized, her blood, and she wondered if the pool was anywhere near the size of Henry’s. Was it already too late for her, as well?
The door pushed into her again, this time opening wide enough to smell the ash and hear the speaker.
“That’s good.” His words were calm and reassuring, a lifeline to grasp and cling to. “A little more now. You can do this.”
“I—I can do this,” she echoed, moving onto her side and sliding back a little farther.
This time it was far enough.
A moment later, a big man crouched beside her, silhouetted by a dim light behind him.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said, finding the flashlight she’d dropped earlier.
When he switched it on, she saw red. So much red, on the floor, on her clothes. Had it all come from her? Looking up at the man who loomed above her, she recognized Zach Rayford, from the ranch.
He was bleeding, too, she saw, blood that ran from chin to neck, painting a dark bib down the front of his shirt. But there was nothing frightened or confused in his face, only grim determination. “We’re going to get you to the hospital,” he told her. “Don’t worry. An ambulance is on the way.”
“Fire,” she murmured. “I—I smelled fire.”
“The fire’s out,” he assured her. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay!” she burst out, her mind leaping to another fear. “What if he comes back? Comes back and shoots us, too, like Henry?”
“Like who shot Henry? Do you know who did this?”
“I didn’t see, but Henry—he’s really dead, isn’t he? It wasn’t just a nightmare?”
“You’re safe now,” Zach told her, laying a big hand on her shoulder.
“Henry—he didn’t want to come here. He argued after you told me, the sheriff told me, too, to go home. But I—I had to see if Haley had left something, anything to help me trace her.”
“For your mother,” he finished for her, with what might have been understanding in his voice.
“Yes.” She nodded, half choked on her own tears. “But someone must’ve followed us. I was back here, and Henry shouted. There was a boom—and he was falling, and I—I was hit, too, and then I watched him—I saw him—”
She couldn’t make herself say die.
“I know,” Rayford told her, just as if she had. “But right now, I’m worried about you. Now tell me, Jessica, are you hit anywhere else? We need to see if we can stop this bleeding.”
“Only—only here.” She glanced down at the hand she cradled, then sucked in a sharp breath and jerked her gaze from the bloody hole and the white glints of bone in it.
“Try not to look at it, all right? Any other injuries?”
She shook her head, her stomach threatening upheaval and the pain spiraling in on her. “I don’t think so. I only remember hearing one shot, anyway.”
“Then I’m going to move you outside now, where there’s more light and the air is better. Can you help me get you up?”
“I—I’ll try.”
Taking her uninjured arm, he got her to her feet.
“Now close your eyes,” he instructed.
“Why? I don’t want—”
“Just close your eyes, Jessica. I need you to trust me.”
Something in his voice made her obey, made her follow his lead, though her legs were so wobbly she only made it a few steps.
“That’s fine,” he said, lifting her in his arms and carrying her outside, to the fresher air.
Carrying her past Henry’s body, she realized, when she unclenched her eyelids after he’d set her down a few steps from the bunkhouse’s front porch, beside the old barbecue grill she’d spotted earlier.
“Th-thank you.” Her teeth chattered, her limbs so shaky, she had to cling to him to keep on her feet.
