Sharon Ashwood - Possessed by a Warrior

He’d barely gone a quarter mile before he found what he was looking for. A car had been parked by the side of the road—a small compact, judging by the tire treads in the soft shoulder. They weren’t deep, and human eyes had missed them. The shadows were dense here at the edge of the forest, so Sam pulled a compact flashlight from his pocket, filtering the bright beam with his fingers and using just enough light to see without wrecking his night vision.

There weren’t any obvious clues—no lost buttons or dropped wallets. Just a few spots of blood that probably fell when he climbed into the car.

Sam narrowed his eyes. If he was reading the tracks right, there were two sets of footprints in the soft dirt. It looked as though the intruder got in the passenger side. Had someone been waiting for him?

Instinct made Sam follow the road about a mile to the first bend. The wind was starting to smell damp with a rain that would wash away any remaining clues once it fell. He was running on pure intuition now, all hunter, the beast in him adding its predatory cunning to his human intelligence.

Just around the bend he found the car. It was nose-first into the ditch, the front bumper crunched against a tree. The passenger door was partially open but jammed into the ground, as if the accident had happened when the door was ajar. Had someone bailed out partway through the crash?

Sam wrinkled his nose. Despite his deadened senses, a new banquet of smells, both revolting and enticing, pulled him toward the scene. He approached cautiously.

The driver was slumped over the wheel, obviously dead. Air bags hung like deflated balloons. Sam felt a wave of cold nausea as he circled toward the windshield, peering through the glass to catch a glimpse of the man’s face.

A good deal of the man’s head was splattered over the side window glass. The bullet had come from the passenger seat. Sam mentally reconstructed the events. Bang, pop the door, jump out just before the car swerves into the ditch and smashes the tree.

Risky, shooting the driver. Then again, he would have been slowing the car for the turn. A cold, calculated chance. Not for beginners.

Sam looked long and hard at the ruined face, finally placing it. One of Jack’s security guards. Here, perhaps, was an answer. Gossip traveled through household staff like wildfire. News of the dress, however hard they’d tried to keep it quiet, would have been a particularly juicy tidbit. If this guard was in league with Jack’s killers, that would explain how he came to be in this car. It also would explain how the thief got into the house. The question was, who were his contacts?

Sam circled around to the open door, covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve to filter the stench of carnage. Blood was one thing, but there were plenty of substances inside a human body that should definitely stay inside.

Digging his feet into the soft dirt, he pushed the car upright enough to free the passenger door. It was a fruitless effort; the hinges were bent. Bracing the car with his shoulder, he gave the door a solid jerk. It came off in his hands. Sam tossed it into the ditch and let the car settle back into the mud.

Now that he could get inside, he looked for a bullet casing, but found none. Either the shooter had somehow retrieved it or it had flown out of the car during the crash. He searched the glove compartment only to discover the car came from a cheap rental place that specialized in older, practical runabouts. Perfect for getaway cars.

Sam would lay good money the name on the rental papers was fake. Whoever the intruder was, he was an ice-cold professional. He would call Winspear, have him send one of the Company’s crime scene experts, but he didn’t expect that they’d find much.

Whoever this guy was, he was good.

Sam pulled his head out of the car, sucking in clean, sweet air. His head snapped toward Oakwood, where the lights glinted through the trees. He had found what he could for now. Time to get back. Kenyon was guarding Chloe, but that wasn’t enough to stop the tsunami of Sam’s protective instincts.

Chloe.

Then, as if on cue, a scream tore the night.

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