friends then.
Now they were strangers, but she knew how to find her way through the woods and to his childhood home. She knew that the back door didn’t lock properly, that there was a rotary phone hanging on the kitchen wall, that an old Chevy truck sat in the garage near the back of the property.
At least, those things had been true when she’d left town eighteen years ago. Maybe they were still true. Maybe she could walk in the back door, grab the phone and dial 911. She knew enough about Titus to know he wouldn’t have let the property go to waste. He would have rented it out or sold it, and he would have made certain the electricity, water and phone were always on. There had been too many times during his childhood when they hadn’t been.
So, the phone would be working.
It had to be.
And the place would either belong to someone else or be a rental property managed by Titus.
Either way, she should be able to find the help she needed.
She hoped.
Staying in the woods, trying to keep a step ahead of her pursuers when she was cuffed and injured would be a death sentence.
She shuddered, her body suddenly cold with shock.
Ryan was dead.
The reality of it seemed to finally be sinking in, and she was sick from it. Her stomach churned, her head pounded, her feet felt numb. She stumbled down a steep slope, falling face-first into a small creek. Cold water filled her mouth and nose, nearly choking her. She refused to cough, afraid her pursuers would hear. She could hear them shoving through the trees, closer than she wanted them to be. They hadn’t been fooled by her change in direction. They were hot on her trail, and if she didn’t do something quickly they’d find her.
She struggled to her feet, slipped and slid up the opposite side of the bank, praying for help, wondering if it would come. She wanted to run, but her legs were heavy, her body shaking with the force of her heartbeat. She had to settle for slow, steady progress. Down a hill and up the other side, the sound of her pursuers echoing through the otherwise silent woods.
From the sound of it, they were racing toward her, sprinting through the early spring foliage.
She needed to run, too, but she could barely manage to walk. A light flashed through the trees. She thought the men had circled around and were setting a trap, but the light remained steady as she ducked behind an ancient oak. Her heart jumped as she realized what she was seeing. Not the beam of a flashlight. A house light. She ran as fast as she dared. Finally breaking free of the forest and sprinting across lush grass. Her harsh breath was the only sound in eerily quiet darkness. The house was a few hundred yards away—a little bungalow that looked like a sweeter, more-cared-for version of the one Titus had once lived in. Manicured yard and whitewashed porch with a swing hanging from its ceiling. The light she’d been aiming for shone from a front window. Another was visible in the attic dormer.
A man cursed, the sound breaking the silence. Seconds later, she heard the soft click of a gun safety. She dove for cover, sliding across grass as the first bullet flew. It slammed into the earth inches away, kicking up bits of rock and damp soil. She managed to roll behind a bush and shimmy a few feet closer to the house, blood oozing in thick warm rivulets down her wrist and seeping into the back of her shirt and the waistband of her jeans.
She kept low as another bullet hit the ground.
She was almost to safety, crawling across the ground on her belly, her toes and knees propelling her forward, her pulse slushing loudly in her ears and blocking every other sound. She had no idea if her pursuers were approaching, no clue whether they’d fled. She knew only her goal: to escape, to survive, to get help for herself and justice for Ryan.
She skirted the front of the house and crawled around the corner, out of the line of fire. She managed to get to her feet again, to run the length of the house and around to the back. The door was there, just like she remembered it. Three steps up. Grab the doorknob. Turn it. That’s all she had to do. She made it up the stairs, managed to turn her back to the door and grab the knob with her cuffed hand.
Only, instead of opening like it had when she was a kid, it remained closed, the lock holding.
She tried again, afraid to knock and give away her location. When it didn’t open, she searched the back porch for a spare key. The beam of a flashlight skipped across the yard near the corner of the house, and she darted down the steps, tried to run to the back of the property.
Too late.
Someone grabbed her shoulder, hard fingers digging into tense muscles. She whirled, sideswiping her attacker’s ankle. He swayed but didn’t fall. She shoved forward, using her body weight against him, trying to knock him to the ground. He muttered something, his grip loosening almost enough for her to break free.
She tried again. This time he stepped sideways, letting her tumble to the ground. She fell hard, the breath knocked from her lungs, her vision blurring. She could have stayed down, but she’d been fighting hard battles most of her life, and all she really knew was how to keep going.
She managed to roll to her back and was struggling to get up when a bullet whizzed past and slammed into a deck railing. Wood splintered, a piece of it digging into her cheek. She had no time to react.
Her attacker was on her, pressing her into the cool grass. All her training flew out of her head. All the years of careful control were gone. In an instant, she was back in time, fighting off the man who had just murdered her mother. She brought her knee up. Or tried. He had her pinned. Legs pressed to legs, chest to chest, his entire body covering hers.
She twisted, the bone in her injured arm snapping. She would have passed out if adrenaline hadn’t been pouring through her. She bucked, trying to throw off his weight.
“Stop!” he growled. “Someone’s shooting at you, and we’re both in the crosshairs. I don’t know what your plans are for tonight, but I’m not planning to die.”
It was the voice rather than the words that stilled her frantic movements. She knew the gritty texture of it, the soft Southern drawl that had never left. Not even a decade after moving to Hidden Cove with his mother.
“Titus?” she managed to say, the name ringing hollowly in her ears.
He tensed, then shifted just enough so she could breathe.
“Wren?” he responded.
He was looking into her face, staring into her eyes like he had dozens of times when they were kids exploring the woods together.
“What’s going—?”
Another bullet slammed into the deck, and his weight pressed into her again. This time, though, she didn’t fight it. She hadn’t been thinking clearly when she’d headed toward his property. If she had she wouldn’t have done it. Bringing danger into someone else’s life wasn’t the way she operated. She didn’t want Titus hurt because of her, and if she could have jumped up and led the gunmen away, she would have.
“You need to get out of here,” she whispered.
“We need to get out of here,” he responded, his lips brushing her ear. “Who is it? What does he want?”
“I don’t know who he is. What he wants is me dead,” she replied.
“How about we don’t let him achieve his goal? Stay down and stay quiet. I’ll see if I can get a visual.” He rolled away, cold air replacing the warmth of his body as he moved.
She wanted to tell him not to go. She wanted to remind him that she was an FBI agent and knew how to take care of herself and her problems, but her thoughts were sluggish. Before the words could form, he was gone, disappearing like a wraith into the darkness.
Wren Santino was the last person Titus would have ever expected to show up at his