town drew her, made her think she might be safe here.
Safe. Was she?
Despite the warmth of the late October afternoon, a chill swept through her, suddenly making her feel as if hostile eyes followed her every movement. She glanced around. Two women were chatting outside the doctor’s office across the street. A cowboy was hunkered on a bench outside the bar just ahead, his wide-brimmed hat bowed as if he were asleep. Behind her, an old junker of a car headed out of town. And at the end of the street, a fancy black SUV covered with red dust turned out of the gas station.
Nothing out of place…just like before, when the trucker had stopped his rig to let her out of the cab and she’d sworn someone was watching, though she hadn’t caught anyone at it…and yet…
What was wrong with her? No one could be following her. No one even knew where she was.
It was just that she hadn’t really felt safe since awakening in that hospital bed.
And now she was an outlaw on the run!
She glanced at the black SUV that crept along the street in her direction. The dark-haired driver seemed to be searching for something…or someone.
Her?
Muscles bunched, she was ready to bolt when he looked directly at her…through her…beyond her….
Realizing that she was of no interest to him, after all, Josie trembled with relief. Not that she could help being a bit paranoid. Undoubtedly that’s what was making her feel those invisible eyes on her.
Bringing her forefinger to her belt buckle, she traced the initials again and again.
J.W….J.W….J.W….
Josie Wales was as good a handle as any.
She had to calm down. Get herself straight. Make plans.
Stop imagining dangers where there were none.
Lost in thought, Josie at first ignored the faint sound coming from the abandoned building preceding the bar. But as she drew closer, she realized it was a cry of distress. Heart thumping, she slowed her step in the deep afternoon shadow cast by the structure and strained to hear.
A scrabble was followed by a sharp “Meow!”
A cat.
Relief shot through her. Just a stray animal.
But as she moved on, the cry grew pitiful, the scrabbling more frantic, and she stopped again as she drew even with the entrance.
“Mee-ooww!”
Josie closed her eyes and sighed. Undoubtedly she would be on a fool’s errand, but she couldn’t go on until she was certain the cat was all right.
The door hung crooked on its hinges and she had to throw her shoulder into the wood to budge it. The panel inched inward, then twisted so that the top hinge gave. Levering the unexpected weight, she took a quick look around, but nothing had changed—women still talking, cowboy still sleeping, SUV still inching along.
“Great. Add destruction of property to my crimes,” she muttered. “Not to mention breaking and entering.”
Another cat cry set her in motion.
Break and enter she did, stopping for a moment to let her eyes adjust, the interior being lit only by the smidgen of gray allowed through the grimy front windows, and that extending only a few yards before fading to pitch black.
How thrilling! she thought wryly. She’d never been able to see well in the dark….
Where had that thought come from?
Josie shook away another chill and concentrated.
Rubble decorated the interior of the abandoned shop as far as she could see—what was left of counters and shelves littered with plaster and rotting chunks of wood. As she moved with care, the floor squeaked and bounced beneath her boots. Her stomach tightened.
The place was dangerous, rotting, collapsing in on itself!
Stopping, she took a deep breath.
If any place could inspire paranoid delusions, this was it. Danger could lurk in every dark corner…in every inch of the area that she couldn’t see.
But of course it didn’t.
The only danger here was what she could inflict on herself.
Even so, reluctant to continue without reconnoitering, Josie softly called, “Kitty, where are you?”
A creak to her right startled her into stepping that way.
Until a loud “Mee-oow!” pulled her in the opposite direction.
For a second, she went rigid. Sounds from two directions? Then giddiness bubbled through her. The rotting wood was protesting, it being disturbed, was all. She veered left, feeling all but swallowed by the dark.
“Kitty, you owe me big time.”
She inched along until her foot hit something solid, the clank punctuated by a growl and a hiss.
Puzzled, she hunkered down. “Hey, I would never hurt you.” And reached out blindly, expecting to ruffle some fur. Instead, her fingers met an unexpected resistance, cold and hard. “What the heck…?”
Leaning forward, she ran her hand along the solid object and murmured reassurances. The cat continued to growl with increasing urgency. The angry-frightened protest raised the hair on the back of her neck even as Josie realized the poor animal was trapped in a cat carrier.
Who would leave a caged cat in an abandoned building?
Instinct snapped her upward, but upon rising, she whacked her shoulder into something ungiving. She took a misstep and twisted her ankle.
“Aah!”
Arms flailing, Josie tried to catch herself. She imagined hands on her even as she took another blind step. Rough hands. Hands that pushed her so that her boot heel came down hard and shoved right through some rotted boards.
For a second she felt suspended…her world turned upside down…a roller-coaster ride…only this time with no safety net….
Chapter Two
Josie fought the panic attack that threatened to engulf her. Shaking…lack of breath…heart threatening to pound right out of her chest.
She hadn’t fallen far, she told herself as rationally as she could—only to the rotting floor—but her boot had gone through the boards, ankle-deep. She tried to free herself. But no matter how she turned or twisted her foot, she couldn’t seem to manage it.
She was stuck!
Gasping for air, ribs and chest hurting where the seat belt had constrained her, she told herself to calm down. She was all right. She could get through this.
Unless…
Ghost memories of hands on her, touching her, pushing her, jumped back at her in a flash.
But had it really even happened?
She couldn’t say for certain. She only knew that same sensation of personal violation had invaded the deep unconscious from which she’d thought she would never awaken while in the hospital. That same sense of physical unease had pressed down on her then, too.
The same paranoia.
Josie willed herself to focus on any lurking danger, but she could no more see a threat in the dark than she could her own fingernails, which were digging painful little ditches in her palms.
Through fear-stiff lips she whispered, “Is someone there?”
Every muscle in her body tightened into knots as she waited for a response.
“Meow.”
She jumped. The cat! She’d