Quinn and Denver were off to the Skeleton Bar and Grill or the Burro Saloon, not far from the ranch. Billy had met a girl from Prescott, so there was a good chance he’d be hooking up with her there tonight. It was Sanchez’s weekend to stay at the ranch.
Cain had finally succumbed to an itch that urged him to return to Jerome. He had always listened to his intuition, and all day it had nagged him, telling him the trouble Jenny had faced with the bikers wasn’t over.
He probably should have just called her, made sure she was okay, but the idea didn’t sit well. He was worried.
Or maybe he just wanted to see her.
Either way, he reached the top of the mountain, made the sharp turn onto Clark Street, and headed downhill to Main Street. It took him a couple of minutes to find a parking place, and in the end, he had to walk a block back to the saloon.
Even a block away, he could hear the country music, same singer, same guitar as last night. He stopped in the shadows outside the bar. The same row of motorcycles he’d seen last night were parked in the same space as before. He recognized a couple of them, one black-and-chrome with silver conchos on the seat, another with red-and-orange flames streaking over the gas tank.
His strides lengthened. His intuition rarely let him down, and apparently, it hadn’t tonight. He pushed through the swinging doors, his gaze going in search of Jenny, but he didn’t see her.
A row of tables had been pushed together, same as before, the bikers sitting around it, though none of them had their motorcycle boots propped on top.
The Steel Cobras were there—all but one. Ryder was not among them.
Ryder was missing, and so was Jenny. Worry slid through him. He strode across the room to where Troy stood behind the bar, pouring a customer a whiskey and Coke.
“Where’s Jenny?” Cain asked.
“She had a headache and quit early.”
“She went home?” He knew she lived in Cottonwood. She was going to be working for him. After tonight, he was going to know a lot more about her.
“Jenny’s in a room upstairs. She went up to lie down.” Troy collected the cash for the drink and rang it up in the old-fashioned brass cash register next to the credit-card machine.
Cain glanced back at the bikers’ table. Still no sign of Ryder. “Jenny may be in trouble. Which room is she in?”
“I’m not allowed to give out that information.”
“I just want to check on her. Which room?”
“Sorry,” Troy said, mopping the top of the bar.
Tired of being polite, Cain reached over, grabbed the front of Troy’s black Copper Star T-shirt, and hauled him halfway across the bar. “Which room!”
“I’m . . . I’m not sure. We’ve got a full house tonight. She said it was in the new section, number eight, I think.”
Cain let him go, turned, and strode across the room to the lobby. Praying for once his instincts were wrong, he headed up the stairs.
* * *
Something shifted in the air. Jenny felt the bed dip, and her eyes flashed open to see a man’s face in the shadowy darkness above her. A scream rose in her throat, but a meaty hand cut off the sound.
“Take it easy, and you won’t get hurt.”
She started shaking. The man was using his weight to press her down in the mattress, trapping her arms, and he weighed a ton—Ryder, she remembered, big, bald, and ugly. She’d been worried about ghosts, not the biker she had pissed off in the bar last night.
“Now . . . here’s what’s going to happen,” the biker said. “You and I are going to have us a little fun.”
She started squirming and twisting on the bed, trying to break free, trying to push off his heavy weight, but he only laughed.
“You’re gonna spread your pretty legs for me, sweet thing. You might as well get used to the idea.”
She thrashed and tried to scream, but the sound was muffled by his big, thick-fingered hand. She had locked the door. How had he gotten in?
Reaching between them, he yanked up her sleep-tee, and she started fighting harder. The hand over her mouth moved a little, and she sank her teeth in and bit down as hard as she could.
