him to work. “Search!”
And off he went sniffing the air, left to right. She followed, fighting down fatigue and despair as the first gray light of dawn fingered through the leaves and rain.
Eager suddenly got wind of fresh human scent, and his head popped sharply in a ninety-degree angle to the left. His tail wagged loosely as he zeroed in on the scent cone.
“Not too far, Eager!” June yelled, trying to keep up, but suddenly he vanished.
She stopped in her tracks, breathing hard, heart hammering. Then she heard the crash of breaking brush, followed by wild barking. Quickly, she scrambled in the direction of the barking, but as she pushed through low scrub, the ground suddenly gave out under her and she realized too late that she’d overshot the lip of a ravine hidden by a tangle of brambles. Groping wildly for purchase, June tumbled down a steep bank.
Her fall was halted as her shoulder whumped into a log. She gasped in pain and lay still for a moment, mentally regrouping as sweat and rain dribbled into her eyes. Tentatively she edged onto her side and with relief she realized she wasn’t badly hurt, just bruised. She kicked the toes of her boots into the loam on the steep slope to find purchase, and she began to inch down to the ravine floor. Eager came gamboling and crashing back up the slope, oblivious to the precariousness of her situation, and he hit her body with his front paws, as if to say, “Come, come, I found it, Mom, I found it!”
“Good boy—take it easy,” she said a little shakily. “I’m right behind you, buddy.”
It was dark at the base of the bramble-choked gulley as June pushed branches aside and saw what Eager had found.
A man lay on his side. Big. Maybe six foot two. His face was hidden from view and his dark hair glistened with rain. His denim jacket and jeans were soaked through. June noted he wore serious hiking boots, and the bottom of his left pant leg was soaked in what looked like blood.
“Good boy, Eager,” she whispered, tossing his toy to the side for him to play with as she crouched down beside the man.
June carefully rolled him over. His head flopped back, exposing a mean gash across his temple. She felt his carotid. He was alive, but unconscious, his skin cold.
Her peripheral thought was that he was devastatingly good-looking, in a rough, tanned, mountain-man kind of way, and maybe in his early thirties. She hadn’t seen him around Cold Plains before—a guy like this would be hard to miss.
Then she caught sight of the leather holster at his hip—empty. And for a nanosecond June froze. It must have been his Beretta she’d found.
Had he fired at Lacy and her children?
Sweat broke out over her body and her paramedic training warred with a need for safety. Because if this man was carrying, he could very likely be one of Samuel’s henchmen.
Samuel eschewed weapons in the hands of his Devotees, but his personal murderous militia were the exception.
Bitterness filled her mouth as she reached quickly for his leather belt, first removing a GPS handheld device so she could undo his buckle, which was engraved with the name Jesse. It sounded like a brand of Western wear. June quickly undid the buckle and the zipper of his jeans. She edged his pants down over his hip. And there it was—a small D tattoo—the branding mark Samuel Grayson personally gave each one of his true Devotees. And if this Devotee was carrying—he was most certainly a henchman.
Bastard.
But before she could think through her next move, the man’s eyes flared open and he grabbed her wrists. A hatchet of panic struck into her heart. She tried to jerk free, but his grip was like iron.
He blinked into the glow of her headlamp, and June saw his eyes were a deep and unusual shade of indigo-blue. In them she could read confusion.
“What are doing with my pants?” His voice came out hoarse, rough. Eager growled, hackles rising.
“Quiet, Eager,” June whispered, fighting to tamp down the fear swelling inside her. “I’m here to help you,” she said as calmly as she could. “I … needed to see if you had the Devotee tattoo on your hip—to see if you were a local, one of us, from Cold Plains.”
Confusion filtered deeper into his eyes. “Devotee?” he said.
“You have a D tattooed on your hip, the one Samuel Grayson personally gives his true followers,” she said.
He stared at her, features blank. Then he tried to move his head, wincing as he did. The movement caused fresh blood to flow from the gash down the side of his face. His jaw was dark with stubble. She wondered how long he’d been lying here.
“Where am I?”
“Looks like you took a tumble into the ravine,” she said. “You’ve got a pretty nasty cut on your head and your leg is bleeding. Let me go so I can look at it.”
He stared at her, refusing to relinquish his viselike grip on her wrists. His hands were big, calloused. He was impossibly strong, even in his injured state.
June’s mouth went dry. She could easily disappear down here with her dog, and no one would find her until it was too late.
“I haven’t seen you around Cold Plains,” she said as calmly as she could. “My name is June Farrow. I’m a part-time paramedic with the Cold Plains Urgent Care Center, and a SAR volunteer. This is Eager, my K9. He’s pretty friendly, but if he thinks you’re going to hurt me, he’ll attack. I’d hate for that to happen, so why don’t you let go of me and maybe I can help you?”
His gaze shifted to her dog. Slowly he let go of her hands.
June lurched up to her feet, jumped back and pulled out her gun. She aimed it at his head.
Careful, don’t blow your cover, June.
To the best of her knowledge, no one in town knew she worked against Samuel. Like most of the two thousand residents of Cold Plains, June attended his motivational seminars on Being the Best You. She pretended to hang on to his every word, painting herself as a potential Devotee on the cusp of conversion. Samuel had even suggested she come to one of his private counseling sessions, which were where he did most of his mind control. He was a master at preying on any insecurity, exposing a person’s deepest fears and then promising to make them feel safe. His message was that as long as you were a Devotee, you were safe—in turn he wanted obedience, time and money. But if you tried to escape, as Lacy just had, he wanted you dead.
“What’s your name?” she demanded. “What are you doing out here in the woods?”
His hand went to the holster at his hip.
“I have your weapon. It’s missing rounds. Did you shoot at them?”
He frowned.
“Shoot at who?”
“There’s a young mother and her two children lost in these woods. I’m looking for them. Are you chasing them? Did you hurt them?”
He tried to sit up, groaning in pain. And as he moved June caught sight of something lying in the soil behind his shoulder—a little, sparkly red shoe.
Rage arrowed through her body, obliterating any trace of fear.
“Don’t move! Or I will shoot you dead. Where did you find that shoe?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about … I can’t seem to remember … anything.” His voice faded and he touched the wound on his brow, his fingertips coming away bloody. He stared at the blood, a look of disorientation on his rugged features.
“What’s your name?” she repeated.
His gaze lifted slowly and met hers, and in his eyes June saw the beginnings of fear. “I … Jesus—I don’t know my name,” he whispered.
June swallowed.
Was