Rachel Lee - Protector of One

“No, just realistic.” A twig snapped behind her in the woods and she looked around. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah. Probably a raccoon.”

“Or a wolf.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of wolves. Believe me, they’re more scared of us.”

“Then bears.”

By this point both women were grinning at each other, building a story from the crack of a branch. “Yeah, bears,” Georgia agreed. “A mother and two cubs. Hungry. Annoyed because we’re between them and the bacon grease I dumped up the hill this morning…”

“Ooooh,” said Leah appreciatively, “that’s it.”

“Yeah. Are we supposed to run uphill or downhill?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Some adventurer you are…”

Just then a doe poked her head into the circle of light cast by the fire. Her eyes reflected red at them, and she froze.

“How beautiful,” Georgia whispered.

“You’re feeling a purely instinctual prey urge,” Leah started to tease her in a whisper. “No appreciation of the beau—”

The word never fully left her mouth. Before her very eyes, Georgia’s face transformed into a twisted mask as something sprayed from the side of her head. A split second later, a loud crack rent the night and echoed off the cliffside.

Leah froze like the deer had moments before, but the doe chose a different course, darting off into the woods.

Another crack and Leah felt a searing burn in her arm. She looked at it and saw a glistening wetness start to spread.

In the firelight, the wetness looked black.

Before she consciously comprehended what was happening, she turned away from the noise and fled into the night, running faster than she ever had in her life. Faster even than when she had been a sprinter in college.

Her body understood the situation even if her brain didn’t…or wouldn’t.

She had become the prey.

Kerry, who felt as if she had barely dropped off to sleep, woke up screaming from the nightmare. Even in her own ears the terrified sound seemed to echo. She sat up abruptly, feeling breathless, searching her room for a reason, a cause for the horrifying dream. Everything looked as it always did.

Just a dream, she told herself.

But then she switched on a light, climbed out of bed and began to dress. The compulsion could not be ignored.

There were a lot of ways to make a living, Gage Dalton thought, that didn’t involve climbing out of a warm bed in the wee hours, leaving behind the soft heat of a beautiful wife. His mouth twisted with grim humor at the thought, because all his adult life, with a break for recovery after a car bomb that had killed his first wife and family, he’d been doing exactly this. DEA, Conard County Sheriff’s Office, all the same, just a difference in degrees.

The call from Kerry Tomlinson had sounded nearly panicky, and she insisted there was no time to waste. He was halfway down the stairs, headed for the front door when his cell rang. This time it was Adrian Goddard.

“I heard two gunshots,” Adrian said. “I wish I could tell you for certain where they came from, but it seemed like the same general direction of the vics we found yesterday.”

“I’m on my way to the office. Kerry just called me. Something’s wrong but she could hardly talk and she said she had to get out of her house.”

“I’m already on my way. Another ten minutes.”

“See you there.”

On impulse, as Gage clipped the phone to his belt, he turned around and headed back upstairs. He went to their son’s room, the little boy they had agreed to adopt a couple of years ago. The three-year-old Jeremy at once filled Gage with blazing love and desperate terror. He knew what it was to lose a child. Bringing Jeremy into his life had been an act of faith more difficult than anything he’d ever done.

Peeking in, he saw that the restless child, as usual, dangled one leg over the edge of the bed, and barely had any covers over him at all. Moonlight, thin and weak, barely touched him.

Again on impulse, Gage scooped the sleeping child up. The boy barely stirred. He carried him in to the master bedroom and slipped him under the blankets with Emma.

Emma stirred, murmuring quietly, and with a mother’s native instinct rolled over until she was wrapped around their child.

Gage adjusted the blankets a bit, then left as quietly as he could, sending up a prayer for their protection.

He thought he knew evil. He’d sure as hell seen enough horror. But tonight, somehow, he felt there was something even darker stalking this county.

Kerry waited, shaking, in her locked car outside the sheriff’s office. What was taking Gage so damn long? She drummed her fingers nervously on the steering wheel, while the back of her neck prickled as if a predator watched her. No amount of telling herself it was just a dream could erase the urgency she felt. The terror she felt.

And this time she didn’t care if anyone thought she was nuts.

At last headlights appeared, slicing through the darkness of the quiet main street. The moon, a mere sliver tonight, shed only the palest light, and the street lights, recently changed to stylish Victorian imitations, didn’t seem to do much better. It was as if the darkness refused to give ground.

But at last the sheriff’s SUV pulled into the reserved slot and she saw Gage’s silhouette at the wheel. He climbed out quickly, after turning off his ignition, and came around to Kerry. She rolled her window down as he bent to look in.

“I think it’d be warmer inside, and I can make us some coffee or tea.”

Clenching her teeth so they wouldn’t chatter, she nodded, turned her own car off, and purse in hand followed him into the office.

The lighting was dim. The night dispatcher, a young deputy, half dozed at the console. He jumped when Gage and Kerry entered, but Gage waved him to relax. “Nothing?” he asked.

“Not a peep, just the regular check-ins.”

“Start the coffee, would you? I think we’re going to have a busy night.”