Minutes to Kill (Scarlet Falls #2)(28)

Chapter Ten

Hannah blinked the airbag dust from her eyes. The dashboard light cast menacing shadows on the man’s lean face as he leaned into the car and dragged out the screaming girl.

“He’s gonna kill me,” she sobbed.

Terror rounded her eyes as she scrambled for a hold on the car seat. She reached for Hannah, panic stiffening her fingers into desperate claws. Hannah struggled to move, but her body was held fast by the seat belt. The latch refused to release her. The space between them grew as if being stretched.

“No!” Hannah’s fingers worked at the jammed belt release.

Jewel’s face blurred and shifted until it was little Carson being carried away, his small body kicking and fighting for freedom, his eyes pleading with Hannah to save him.

Fear squeezed her lungs in a vise grip. Her breaths locked down.

Hannah jolted. Her body jackknifed to a sitting position. Lightheaded and confused, she drew in a lungful of painful air. She put a hand on her chest. Under her sweat-soaked T-shirt, her heart rapped against her ribs like insistent knuckles. She’d been well and truly immersed in her nightmare. Despite her disorientation, she knew the dream hadn’t woken her.

What had?

Pushing away the confusing jumble of images, she focused on her surroundings. Moonlight slanted through the blinds onto the duvet, and a dull headache throbbed in her temple. Accustomed to waking in a different hotel every few weeks, she found the change of scenery no surprise, but the intimacy of the homey decor unsettled her.

A storm of barking erupted downstairs. Again? She checked the clock. Four a.m. Grant and the family had left in a flurry of excitement, and Hannah had gone back to bed only an hour before. But she was glad to have been woken. She didn’t need to experience the terror of that dream. She had enough anxiety. Today was Monday. Whatever end was going to come to Jewel would happen tomorrow, and the Las Vegas police were no closer to finding her. As if failing Jewel hadn’t been enough, her imagination had reconstructed the events of last spring until Carson hadn’t been saved either. Eight months later, the memory of the week little Carson had been targeted by Lee’s killer still haunted Hannah’s sleep.

She swung her legs out of bed. Out from under the heavy comforter, the chill settled on her damp skin. She snatched a sweatshirt from the foot of the bed and tugged it over her head. Barefoot, she crept out of the room and down the steps. Dog tags jiggled, and she turned her head to locate the sound. Her hearing was almost back to normal. More barking told her AnnaBelle was in the rear of the house. Hannah walked down the dark corridor into the kitchen. Light flooded the backyard. The hair on Hannah’s nape quivered. Something or someone had tripped the motion sensors. Her gaze swept the lawn. The grassy area was clear. She squinted into the dark beyond the light’s reach. Something moved near the creek. The dog growled, and fresh sweat broke out between Hannah’s shoulder blades.

“Shh.” She reached down and placed a hand on her head to silence her.

A gust of wind rattled the windows and rustled the branches of the giant oak in the center of the yard. Hannah moved to the pantry, opened the door, and examined the alarm panel mounted on the inside wall. Round lights blinked in a steady and reassuring green line. The security system was armed; all zones were quiet. She closed the pantry door and glanced out into the darkness again. An intruder would trip the alarm, but out in the country, help wasn’t around the corner. It could take the police twenty minutes or more to respond to a call.

A lot could happen in twenty minutes, and the Colonel hadn’t raised a damsel in distress. He’d raised a damsel who caused distress.

Hannah retraced her steps. In the upstairs hall, she went into the master bedroom. In the walk-in closet, she located Grant’s gun safe and spun the combination. The heavy door opened to reveal a hefty collection of weapons. Three rifles, a shotgun, a few handguns, her father’s combat knife. Her Glock was in the bottom drawer. She grabbed her holster and a full magazine before closing and locking the safe. In her room, she dressed in jeans and a sweater. With her gun in hand, she went back downstairs. The dog was still growling at the sliding glass door.

Wind gusted again. Carson’s tire swing swayed. Beyond, in the darkness, movement caught Hannah’s eye. A large body bounded in the shadows. The deer flashed past, the light catching red in its eyes as it sprang through an open area and disappeared into the woods.

Hannah looked down at the dog. “Really?”

The dog pricked its ears forward and focused on the door. She emitted another low growl. Maybe it hadn’t been the deer. AnnaBelle whined.

“Oh, no. We are not going for a walk at dark o’clock.”

The dog kept watch for another ten minutes, then she yawned, stretched, and trotted across the room to curl up in her dog bed.

“At least one of us can sleep.”

Several hours remained until dawn. Too keyed up to go back to bed, Hannah returned to the door and stared out into the darkness. The lights had gone out. Whatever had been moving around in the backyard was gone. She went to the couch and sat down, setting her gun and holster on the coffee table. If the kids were home, she’d have secured her weapon. But this morning, she was very much alone.



The motion lights went out, leaving the yard dark again. The big farmhouse blotted out a chunk of night sky. From the cover of the woods, Mick raised the binoculars to his face and focused on the back door.