the little two-inch pocketknife blade looked as big and sharp as a switchblade, but Shelby held out her hands. Seth didn’t waste a second. He started sawing while he fired glances all around them. No doubt looking for any sign of their captors returning.
It took a team effort. Seth sliced the knife back and forth while Shelby rocked in rhythm to the blade so that it would do the job faster. She was certain time wasn’t on their side.
Finally, the knife cut through, and Shelby nearly toppled over as the rope fell from her wrists. She quickly righted herself, took the knife from Seth and started to cut him loose.
“I guess you aren’t behind this?” he asked.
It took her a moment to realize exactly what he was asking. “You think I murdered someone in the warehouse and then stun gunned, kidnapped and drugged myself?”
He lifted his shoulder. “I was Tasered and kidnapped, too,” Seth reminded her. “I know you want my mother convicted of killing your father and would do pretty much anything to see that happen. I also know you hate me.”
She couldn’t argue with the part about wanting Jewell to be punished for what she’d done to Shelby’s father. But the second part? Well, Shelby could take some issue with that.
“I don’t hate you,” she corrected. “But you’re not somebody I feel warm and fuzzy about.”
Except for all that touching. That had certainly felt a little warm. Something that she’d carry to the grave, because Shelby had no intentions of admitting it to anyone. Especially Seth.
“I suspect you have the same non–warm and fuzzy feelings about me,” Shelby added.
He didn’t agree or disagree with that. He made a sound that could have meant anything or nothing. “I just want to make sure that neither you nor the trial had anything to do with this.”
That evaporated any trace and memory of a warm feeling from the touching. Yes, he was talking to her as if she was a suspect.
“I can’t speak for the trial, but I had nothing to do with this,” she said through clenched teeth. “Did you?”
He gave her that flat look, the one only an FBI agent could manage. “I’m the law,” he reminded her.
“And the stepson of the woman you’d like to see out of jail.”
There. If he was going tit for tat, then she’d remind him that he had as much motive for this fiasco as she did.
Which wasn’t much of a motive at all.
Good grief. She’d had a few verbal run-ins with Seth in the past seven months since he’d moved to the Sweetwater Ranch to be near his mother for the upcoming murder trial. But during those run-ins, he’d never accused her of multiple felonies.
“I’m an investigative reporter,” she snapped. “Not a criminal like your stepmother.”
That probably stung. Had to. Because from all accounts Seth loved Jewell, and some members of her family, Seth included, were likely getting desperate with the trial just days away. Well, Shelby was getting desperate, too, because she’d waited twenty-three years to get justice for her father.
She hoped her scowl conveyed that to Seth.
Shelby was so caught up in her little mental temper tantrum and scowling that she made a sound of surprise when the knife finally cut through the rope. She barely had time to move back before Seth snatched the knife from her and started toward the door. She got to her feet and hurried after him.
He stopped at the door and looked outside, but with the way he was standing, Shelby couldn’t see anything except the sky. The sun was bleached white, almost blinding, and she had to blink hard several times to stop her eyes from stinging.
“Let’s go,” Seth whispered.
That was it, all the warning she got before he stepped out still gripping the knife. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
She’d been right about the vehicles. None was in sight. But there were a rusted-out tractor, an old watering trough and what was left of a single-story, weathered gray house. It was obvious that it’d been a while since anyone had lived there.
“You recognize this place?” he asked.
“Afraid not.” But she had no idea how long Seth and she had lost consciousness. Their captors would have had plenty of time to drive them pretty much anywhere, including out of the county.
Seth pulled her behind the tractor, stopped and lifted his head to listen. Shelby did the same, but the only things she heard were some birds chirping and her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. Definitely no sounds of cars, which meant there probably wasn’t a main road nearby.
But there was a gravel road leading away from the place.
“There are some fresh tracks,” Seth said, going closer to have a look at them.
“Should we just follow this road and see where it goes?” she asked.
“We’ll follow it, but we’ll have to stay out of sight. These guys will be back for us any minute now.”
Shelby already had come to the same conclusion, but it made her heart beat faster to hear it confirmed.
They went off the road and onto the side away from the barn, where there were a few trees and some bushes. Nothing that would give them much cover, but maybe they wouldn’t need it for long. If they could make it to a farm road or highway, someone would possibly see them. Someone who didn’t want to hit them with another stun gun and tie them up.
“Any idea who did this to us?” Seth asked. There it was again. The interrogating tone that made it sound as if she’d done something wrong.
“No.” But Shelby immediately had to rethink her answer. “Wait. Maybe. There is this guy, Marvin Hance, who’s mean enough and motivated enough to want to hurt me.”
“The former FBI agent who was charged with killing his wife?” Seth didn’t even hesitate.
“The very one. You know him?”
“Not personally, but I’m familiar with his case, and he still has friends in the FBI.”
Hance did indeed, and Shelby had run up against a few of his friends who thought she was Satan himself to pursue their friend with her brand of journalism.
“Well, Hance isn’t a friend of mine,” she clarified. “I did some articles about him, and he didn’t care much for them. Then the murder charges were dismissed on a technicality—”
“A botched search warrant,” Seth supplied. “Hance has threatened you?”
“Oh, yes. Threats, phone calls, showing up at my office. It got to the point where I had to get a restraining order.”
The ordeal had been a nightmare. Well, not compared to this, but it’d been unpleasant. It also hadn’t helped when some of Hance’s FBI friends had made it next to impossible for her to get information about his murder investigation that would normally be provided to reporters.
Shelby shook her head. “I’m pretty sure Hance murdered his wife, and I believe he’s capable of murdering again. But why would he possibly involve you in his mission to get back at me for those articles?”
Seth made a sound to indicate he was giving that some thought, and he walked around a rusted-out car. “The only thing that connects us is my mother’s trial.”
True. His stepbrother, Tucker, was married to her sister, Laine, but since Seth and his stepbrother were barely on speaking terms, that connection was thin.
But, for that matter, so was the trial.
“I believe Jewell’s guilty,” Shelby said, speaking out loud and hoping it made more sense than when it was still in her head. “You believe