her mouth was bone-dry and it took her several moments to remember why.
She’d been Tasered.
Seth, too.
Sweet heaven. That reminder got her eyes open wider, and Shelby automatically reached out her hands to fend off another attack. But no one was attacking her at the moment. And her hands didn’t reach far.
That was when she noticed the ropes.
What the heck? Someone had tied her by the wrists to a wooden post.
Shelby glanced around to try to figure out what was going on. The rope was secured around a stall post in a barn. An old, rotting one from the looks of it, but not old or rotting enough that it gave way when she tugged as hard as she could. Of course, she couldn’t tug that hard since her arms were weak and wobbly, like the rest of her.
Where was she?
Sunlight speared through holes in the ceiling and hit the floor like mini spotlights on a stage. But other than the holes and the disrepair, it could have been any old barn. She certainly didn’t recognize it.
A sound quickly caught her attention. It was a hoarse groan, and she looked behind her to see Seth. Not his usual cocky self, either. He, too, was tied to a wooden post in the hay-strewn stall, and he looked as dazed as Shelby felt.
Another groan and Seth fully opened his eyes. He blinked hard, and it took him a moment to focus. However, he grumbled some profanity when his gaze finally landed on her face. Despite his wrists being tethered with the rope, he reached for his gun.
It wasn’t there.
He was still wearing his shoulder holster, but it was empty.
Other than the missing gun, they were fully clothed. Seth even had on his Stetson.
“Where are we?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “And how the hell did we get here?”
Shelby had to shake her head on both counts, and she again pulled at the thick ropes to see if they’d give way. They didn’t. So she struggled some more. The wood creaked a little, but it held.
“I remember hitting the floor at that warehouse,” she said when Seth repeated his questions. Good grief, her mouth felt as if she’d eaten a bag of cotton balls, and her heart was racing from the new jolt of adrenaline she’d just gotten. “What about you? What’s the last thing you remember?”
He pulled in a hard breath. “Same here—nothing after someone hit me with the Taser.”
Of course, before that she remembered the dead body on the mattress with the mask covering his face. Not just any mask, but a likeness of her father. She got another jolt. Not of adrenaline this time but a sickening knot in the pit of her stomach from the memories.
Shelby didn’t think she’d ever forget seeing that body. That mask. All that blood.
Obviously someone had killed the man.
But who?
And why hadn’t the same person killed Seth and her?
There must have been plenty of opportunities to do just that once they’d been unconscious. So why had the person left them alive and tied them up like this?
Too many questions and not nearly enough answers. Or time. Shelby had no idea where their captor was, but she figured it wouldn’t be long before he came to check on them. They needed to be gone by then.
“Do you see anyone?” Seth asked.
Shelby had looked around when she first regained consciousness, but she did it again. “No one.” She craned her neck so she could get a glimpse through the partially open door. “I don’t see a vehicle, either.”
Though someone had brought them here in some kind of vehicle. The warehouse wasn’t close to any barns, so their captor would have had to drive them here. Drag them to the vehicle, too. That explained why her body felt like one giant bruise and why she had scrapes on her hands and knees.
“Someone must have drugged us,” Seth told her.
Yes, that had to be it. Unfortunately, the person must have done that right after they were Tasered. Shelby didn’t remember being drugged, but she did recall someone stepping around them in those moments after the initial attack. She’d also felt a stinging sensation in her arm, perhaps from someone injecting drugs into her.
“The person had on boots,” she said.
Seth nodded. “And green cargo pants. I didn’t get a look at his face because he was wearing a gas mask, but it was definitely a man. He had beefy hands.”
Shelby didn’t recall the hands part or the gas mask, but something else popped into her head. “I don’t think he was alone.”
“He wasn’t.” Seth’s forehead bunched up as if he was trying to recall the details through the fog that the stun gun and drugs had created. “I think someone came in through the back exit.”
That made sense because it wouldn’t have been easy for just one person to move two adults. Especially Seth. He was at least six foot three, and solid. Plus, while unconscious, Seth and she would have been dead weight.
Sweet heaven. What else had their captors done to them?
Seth began to yank at the ropes, but he didn’t have any better luck getting out of them or snapping the wood than she had. He struggled several more seconds and then patted his jeans’ pockets. The ones he could reach anyway.
And he shook his head.
“No phone. What about you?” he asked.
Shelby’s head was still so foggy that she hadn’t even considered making a 9-1-1 call. She couldn’t reach her jeans’ pocket, but she leaned her hip to the side so she could feel it when she pressed down onto the floor. But she also had to shake her head.
“My phone’s gone,” she answered. “Flashlight and car keys, too.”
So the person behind this wasn’t just a killer but a kidnapper and a thief, as well. Of course, he’d probably taken the flashlight and keys so she couldn’t use them as pseudo weapons. Whoever was behind this also would have taken their phones to prevent them from calling for help.
And it’d worked.
“I have a small knife all the way in the bottom of my front pants’ pocket,” Seth said, moving around. “I guess they didn’t find it when they searched us. Any chance you can reach it?”
She had more room between the rope and her hands than Seth did, but still it wasn’t enough to reach all the way back to him. Not with a foot of space between them. So Shelby started inching back on her butt while Seth maneuvered himself toward her.
They collided. Her head bopping into his face. It stung, but at least they were closer now.
Seth levered himself up to his knees, as far as he could go, and he thrust his hip in the direction of her hand. She could barely reach the pocket so she kept twisting and turning until she could get her fingers inside.
“Sorry,” Shelby said when her fingers slipped in the wrong direction. She definitely hadn’t wanted to touch him there.
He dismissed it with a manly sounding grunt, but their gazes met. She saw the discomfort in his cool blue eyes. Of course, there were a lot of reasons for his discomfort other than just her touch, but the unwanted effect from the physical contact certainly hadn’t helped matters.
Shelby finally located the knife and tried to clamp her fingers around it. The surface was smooth and it slipped a few times, but she worked it out of his pocket. She nearly dropped the darn thing, but she trapped it against Seth’s stomach with her hand.
He took over from there even though it involved yet more touching.
Now Shelby was the one who grunted when the back of his hand collided with her breast. No apology. He just kept working,