killings. The gore.
Not Kayla. Not on his watch.
* * *
The phone lay muted on top of the hale bay next to her, the screen turned off to prevent anyone from seeing her. Some reptilian part of her brain shouted at Kayla to slither under the bales and simply hide until the police arrived.
Where was Keith when she needed his savvy?
She prayed that she could somehow channel her brother’s firefighting survival instinct. Because things weren’t getting any quieter inside the barn and she needed some kind of crime-scene smarts.
Rio would be the best help here.
She gave herself a quick, silent shake in the darkness. This wasn’t the time to revisit that hurt.
Stay alive.
Kayla knew better than to go inside and try to help whoever was struggling with the owner of the low voice. From what she could gather it was one man and one woman and they weren’t talking about anything pleasant.
But the woman’s voice had gotten quieter since the gunshot. Maybe the shot hadn’t been intended to hurt anyone, and this was some kind of crazy domestic argument. Kayla heard the woman’s humming voice as she spoke to the angry man. The man’s voice conveyed a fury that had Kayla quaking.
Kayla wondered if she was crazy. Maybe it wasn’t a gunshot she’d heard, but something else, maybe a piece of furniture overturning.
She rested against the barn wall, behind the stacked bales. It was wet and cold and smelled of alfalfa. The one plant on the entire planet that Kayla was allergic to. She wasn’t worried about her watery eyes or itchy nose, though. Not yet.
First, she needed to survive whatever was going on, and hoped it wasn’t anything more than her overactive imagination.
The door shook as a heavy object hit it, followed by the creak of the hinges and a loud slamming. Kayla moved slowly, needing to see what was happening. As she peered between two bales, she made out the open door. It was a yawning black hole, indicating the lights had been turned off.
Shuffling, a grunt or two, crying. Soft, pain-filled crying.
“Help me, someone.” The low, raspy plea reached her ears and it felt as though Kayla was as injured as the woman. If there was any way she could help her...
Kayla stood up from her crouch and looked over the stack of bales. A prone figure lay in the walkway, a woman. The harsh glare of the overhead security lights illuminated dark hair and a business outfit—skirt and jacket. On her stomach, she leaned on her forearms as if she was in a yoga sphinx pose. Kayla immediately recognized her. Scanning the entire area as much as it was feasible while behind the bales, she didn’t see anyone else. The man must have left.
“Meredith!” she whispered as loudly as possible.
“Help. Me.”
Kayla rose to do just that when a shot rang through the night, and Meredith’s head slammed into the ground.
Oh no.
Kayla pressed against the hay, her heartbeat and the ringing from the gunshot loud in her ears. She didn’t know if she was hidden from the killer or if she needed to make a run for it.
She’d never outrun a bullet.
The sound of approaching footsteps was quickly followed by the sound of something scraping and a grunt. A loud thwack as an object hit the ground. Peering through the hay bale, she could only see Meredith’s hands, still as her head lay between them, a briefcase with file folders splayed in front of her where a dark spot grew into a larger circle. Blood. She wished the side light of the barn door wasn’t so bright—the image of Meredith bleeding out would be burned into Kayla’s mind.
Someone cleared his or her throat. She heard the distinct sound of a zipper and then the sound of liquid hitting the side of the barn.
The killer was taking a leak?
“It’s done. I’ll see you in the morning.”
The sound of the deep voice, obviously making a phone call, startled Kayla and she stumbled, landing on the damp ground with a soft thud.
“Who’s there?”
The harsh voice matched the throat clearing, the furious man she’d heard before. She was in trouble. Kayla crawled on her belly around to the other side of the bales and without stopping rose to her feet and ran for her life.
* * *
Rio’s headlights illuminated the open side door of the barn and the figure in front of it. He saw a dark shape darting toward the back of the barn as he got out of his vehicle. As he chased the assailant, weapon drawn, the figure blended into the darkness that surrounded the barn. Rio swore under his breath and tapped the microphone on his communication gear.
“Suspect ran into the fields behind the barn. Do we have units on the other side of the woods? I’m turning back to investigate a possible victim near the east side door.”
“Roger that, Rio.”
“Send a unit to Waverly Street to intercept possible escape.” Waverly bisected the wooded area the dark figure had vanished into.
Heading back to the barn, he let out a silent thank-you that the female lying outside wasn’t Kayla—the hair was too dark, the woman too tall. As he drew closer he saw that not only was she facedown, but she’d also been shot in the back of the head. Blood stained the ground around her head in a black halo. He kneeled to feel for a carotid pulse. The entire left side of her head was gone.
Muttering another oath, he searched for the pulse just in case. Just in case the blood and torn flesh looked worse than the real injury.
Unfortunately, his initial assessment was correct. As he expected, there was no pulse.
“I’ve got a dead female, probable homicide. Call in forensics and the coroner.”
“Have you located the caller yet, Rio?”
“No joy. Still looking.” His gaze landed on her van. “Going to investigate her van.”
“Do not go into the van or barn without backup, sir.”
What the dispatcher was telling him was standard protocol. But Kayla could be in either place, bleeding out. He couldn’t stand on protocol.
“Kayla!” He called over and over, pulling open the doors of her van as he searched for any sign of her.
Nothing.
Her phone.
He directed his frustration at dispatch. “She still on the line?”
“The line’s still open but there hasn’t been any communication since about seven minutes ago.”
It felt as if he’d been on the case for days instead of ten minutes. But time was never reliable during the heat of a crime. Judging from how warm the victim’s body was, she’d been breathing just minutes earlier.
“Has anyone intercepted the suspect?”
“No, but local residents in the neighboring subdivision report someone running through their yards, alerting dogs. One caller saw someone dressed in black get into a late-model sedan and drive away.”
“Did they get plates?”
“No. We’ve got a sheriff’s chopper inbound.”
A single assailant so far. Either he’d shot Kayla, too, and she was on the ground nearby, or she was still hiding, worried for her life.
“Kayla!” He ran back to the barn and entered the kitchen, flipping on the light switch next to the door. The commercial illumination revealed a scene of total chaos. Pots and pans of all sizes were everywhere. A butcher block had been knocked over and several chef knives were strewn over the tiled floor. One knife lay closest to the door, blood