The suspicious man disappeared around the corner of a home two away from the Howards’. As she chased him, she pressed her mic and said, “I’m in pursuit of a guy at the Howards’. I’m two houses away heading west. I need backup.”
Who was this guy? Why was he there? What was he looking for?
Rachel chased the man around the side of the neighbor’s place, colliding into the solid wall of his body, his head down, hood masking his face. She stumbled back, fighting to stay on her feet. As she regained her footing, she raised her head just as a fist plowed into her jaw, then her eye. The world swirled, and she collapsed.
Rachel slammed against the ground, pain radiating through her face where she’d been hit. The air rushed from her lungs. Dragging in shallow breaths, she hurriedly tried to stand, but her ears rang and dizziness swirled her vision, one eye watering where her assailant had struck her. Punching the button on her mic, she said, “I need help,” a few seconds before Deputy Jones rounded the corner of the house and rushed to her.
“Are you okay?” The deputy made a quick scan of the area then squatted next to her.
Rachel gently felt the left side of her jaw and winced. “The suspect I was chasing had a strong right hook.”
“Which way did he go?” Jones stood.
“He’s long gone by now.” Again, she attempted to stand, this time using Deputy Jones’s offered hand, and managed to remain upright although it felt like a bell was continuously clanging in her head. She filled him in on why she was chasing the guy who had assaulted her. “I need to check the area under that window. I found boot prints on the dirt road behind the Howards’ house. This guy had boots on.” Had she encountered one of the kidnappers? He’d taken her by surprise. She hadn’t expected anyone looking in a window at the crime scene not long after the crime had happened and with the police on-site. When she increased her pace, her world spun. She stumbled, would have gone down if her deputy hadn’t grabbed her.
“Ma’am, I’m taking you to the hospital. You need to be checked out. I’ll let Deputy Carson know about the intruder and where he was. He’ll look into it.”
She started to protest. She had an investigation to oversee. A crime to solve—quickly. But her stomach roiled, and she leaned against Deputy Jones, closing her eyes. “Okay.” She hadn’t wanted to show any weakness in the first month of being the sheriff. She’d overheard a couple of her deputies recently saying that the only reason she’d won the election was because her father had been sheriff. She was determined to prove she was a better person for the job than the guy who’d run against her, Marvin Compton.
* * *
Hours later, Dallas paced the Cimarron Trail Regional Hospital room while his daughter finally went to sleep—although Michelle wouldn’t be getting much rest overnight here. He wanted to be out there hunting down the people who had done this to Michelle. Clenching his fists, he tried to work the rage and tension from himself. He needed to be focused and was determined to find out who took his nephew and left his daughter to possibly bleed out.
The door opened slowly. It was too soon for the nurse to be checking on Michelle again. While he swung around to see who it was, every muscle in his body constricted, preparing to protect her.
When Sheriff Rachel Young poked her head into the room relief drove the tightness from his stance. His shoulders slumped as he leaned against the bed, taking in the reddening skin around her eye and swelling on the left side of her jaw. “What happened?”
“I ran into a fist.”
“One of the kidnappers?”
“Don’t know. He got away, but the doc who checked me out earlier said I’ll look like a chipmunk trying to store food for the winter, not to mention my shiner.” She glanced at Michelle, sleeping, her head bandaged. “You called Deputy Jones and told him what your daughter said about the abduction. I want to make sure we have the correct information before I move forward with the investigation. Is this a good time to talk?”
He slanted a look at Michelle. “This is fine.” He gestured toward the loveseat and chair in the hospital room.
When Rachel took a seat in the chair, he sat on the couch catty-corner from her. “It’s not much. She’ll probably remember more later. She said there were two people—a woman and a man.”
“What did they look like?”
“She couldn’t tell me much. All she could say was the woman had large dark sunglasses and big blond hair. The man had a mask on.”
“What kind?”
“A black ski mask.”
“Did she see what color his eyes were? How tall he was?”
Dallas remembered Michelle crying as she talked about the kidnappers. “All she said about him was that he was taller than her and the woman with him.”
“How did they get into the house?”
“She blames herself. She opened the front door to the woman. Then the woman barged into the house and Michelle ran toward where she’d left Brady sleeping on the blanket. The first time she saw the guy was on the screened-in porch. He’d kicked the door in and was standing over my nephew. After that, she doesn’t remember much.”
“Why did she open the door to the woman?”
Dallas let out a long breath. “Normally she wouldn’t open the door, but my sister told her that a lady was bringing over a file she needed for the committee Lenora is on. Michelle thought she was that woman. Have you talked to my sister yet?”
“Briefly, right before I came back to the hospital to talk to you and Michelle. Lenora kept asking for you. Your brother-in-law called her doctor, who came over and gave her a sedative. She’d barely been able to answer even simple questions, like when she left the house. I’d like you to be there when I talk to her the next time. Paul’s supposed to let me know when she wakes up.”
“When did Paul arrive home?”
“Fifteen minutes after your sister. She kept asking where you and your mother were.”
“I’ve been trying to get hold of Mom. She has a tendency of silencing her cell phone. She only has one for times she wants to get hold of someone or for emergencies. I left her a voice message and texted her. Hopefully she’ll use the phone and notice them.”
“Where is she?”
“This is her day to run errands so she could be many places. Once a month she goes to San Antonio. I don’t know if that’s today or not. Has the Amber Alert gone out?”
“Yes. Paul gave me a current photo of Brady, and Lenora told me what he was wearing.”
Exhausted from the past months of working a tough case, Dallas glanced at Michelle. He had to pull himself together. He couldn’t rest until he found the kidnappers. What if they came back after Michelle? Her head injury was serious, and she’d lost quite a lot of blood. They’d left her to die, and she could have if he and Rachel hadn’t gotten there in time. When the kidnappers
