him with my high heel and when I leaned on the horn he ran out of the car.”
Tom used his cell phone and called for his brother, Caleb. “Which way did he run?” he asked her as he clicked off the phone. In the distance Caleb left the sheriff’s station down the street and hurried toward them.
“Back that way,” she replied as she pointed down the street. Her heart banged against her ribs and the taste of horror crawled up the back of her aching throat.
Within minutes Caleb was chasing after the attacker and Tom was leading her down the block to the warm interior of the sheriff’s office. Once inside he deposited her into a chair in his office and instructed Deputy Sam McCain to get her a cup of coffee.
Layla glanced at the clock above Tom’s desk and realized it had only been about fifteen minutes since she’d left her office to get into her car to go home.
It felt like an eternity. It felt like a nightmare and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t wake up. Somebody had tried to kill her. Somebody had tried to kill her. The words thundered in her head over and over again.
She took the coffee from Sam not because she wanted to drink it but rather because she needed the warmth to banish the chill that gripped her.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Tom said.
“There’s not much to tell,” she said, surprised when a laugh escaped her. Hysterical. She was definitely on the verge of becoming hysterical.
She took a sip of the coffee and leaned back against the hard surface of the chair back. “I got into the car, he wrapped his arm around my neck and he squeezed.”
“Was your car locked?”
“Yes. At least I think it was but maybe not. I looked around to make sure nobody dangerous was lurking when I left the office and I didn’t think about anyone hiding in my backseat.”
“Did he say anything?”
She shook her head. “The only sound he made was a grunt when I hit him with my shoe. I hope I didn’t break the heel when I smashed him. Those shoes were expensive.” Once again a nervous burst of laughter rose to her lips but she quickly swallowed it down.
It was a fault of hers, the inexplicable need to make light when she was scared or upset. “Why would somebody do that to me, Tom? Why would somebody try to hurt me?”
He frowned thoughtfully. “Can you think of anyone in your personal life who might be angry with you?”
“No, nobody,” she said firmly. “You know me, Tom. I don’t make enemies.”
“What about professionally? Any problems at the office?”
“I’m a Realtor, for goodness’ sake. I work for myself and I make people happy.” She set the cup on the edge of the desk with trembling fingers.
At that moment Caleb returned to the office. “I didn’t see any sign of anyone, but I did a cursory check of the car and grabbed your purse,” he said to Layla. He handed her the oversize bag and then turned to Tom. “I also found this in the backseat.” He held up a plastic bag with a syringe in it.
“Oh, my God, what’s that?” Layla asked as a new horror washed over her. “That’s not mine,” she exclaimed. “I don’t do drugs of any kind.”
“I don’t know what’s in it, but it looks fully loaded,” Caleb replied.
Tom rose from his chair and motioned Caleb out of the room. “Excuse us for just a minute,” he said as he and Caleb walked out into the hallway.
Left alone, Layla’s anxiety flew off the charts as she grappled with what had just happened to her. She couldn’t imagine anyone hating her enough to try to strangle her. She even got along well with her ex-boyfriends.
Sure, she knew that a lot of people in town thought she was shallow and superficial, brash and a bit of a wise-mouth. She also knew that there were some who probably thought she was a bit loose, but Layla was the first to admit that she made a lot of mistakes when it came to men.
Even as she thought about her personal life she knew the truth, and the truth was far more terrifying than an ex-boyfriend.
She reached for the cup and took another sip of the coffee, but the warmth of the brew didn’t begin to touch the chill that had taken up residency in her bones.
What happened now? Did she just get into her car and go home? The idea of being alone in her house terrified her. What if he knew where she lived? What if he came back to finish the job?
Other women had recently disappeared in the town of Black Rock. A new chill took possession of her body at this thought. They’d disappeared and never been seen again.
Tom returned to the room and sat at his desk, a sober expression on his handsome face. “Layla, you know about the missing women we’ve had in the last couple of months.”
“Of course,” she replied. “I was just thinking about that.” There had been four women who had disappeared from Black Rock in the last four months or so, including Tom’s own sister, Deputy Brittany Grayson. “It was him, wasn’t it?” Her heart beat so fast she felt slightly nauseous. This was the truth she hadn’t wanted to think about.
Tom nodded. “Caleb and I think maybe it’s possible you were intended to be number five.”
His words hung in the air between them as she stared at him in horror. Nobody knew what had happened to the women who had disappeared but the general opinion of everyone in town was that they were all dead.
“We think that all the women were taken from their cars. Most people don’t look in their backseats when they get behind the wheel. I would guess that the syringe is filled with something that would knock a person unconscious. He was probably going to choke you unconscious and then administer the drug.”
“Or it could have killed me instantly,” she said. Her throat began to hurt again, as if in response to their conversation.
He hesitated a moment, his eyes flashing darkly. “We’ll know more about that after we send it to the lab.”
“So, what happens now?” she finally managed to ask.
“As terrible as this experience has been for you, this could be the break we’ve been waiting for. We’re keeping your car and will go through it with a fine-tooth comb to see if the attacker left anything behind besides that syringe. Hopefully we’ll get some hair or fiber or fingerprints that will lead us to an arrest.”
“And what about me?” she asked.
“I’ve called Benjamin. He’s going to come by and take you by your house to get some things then we’re going to stash you in a cabin out at the ranch until we’re certain you aren’t in any danger.”
“A cabin?” She didn’t know about any cabin located on the Grayson property.
He nodded. “It’s kind of a family secret, an old caretaker’s cottage that my parents renovated years ago.”
“What about my cat?”
Tom
