The four-wheeler hummedbeneath Jaxon’s body.His hands vibrated as he tore out of the shed and across the property.He hadn’t wasted time asking the Watsons’ permission to take their four-wheeler.He’d run through the woods like a man possessed as he tried, with no fucking luck, to reach the sheriff.Luckily, the Watsons’ shed had been unlocked and the key left in the vehicle’s ignition.
He’d explain later.
The machine flew through the snow and across the width of the Watsons’ property.Their back-porch light turned on as soon as he hit the woods, and shouts bellowed behind him.Good.If they followed him, he’d have backup.
In a few short minutes, he reached McKenna’s property.He crossed over into the woods where the tracks had fled.He adjusted his speed and slowed so he didn’t miss a turn they’d made.The four-wheeler’s headlight lit the trail.Urgency pumped through him.It took all his self-control not to tear through the woods screaming for McKenna.If he missed a clue and went in the wrong direction, who knew how long it would take him to find her.
He continued on for another couple hundred feet, then the tracks veered off the trail.He stopped.Dread thickened his esophagus.If they’d stopped here, it couldn’t have been for anything good.He dismounted and shone his flashlight into the trees.There wasn’t a goddamn trail.There was no way they could have gotten the machine through the dense forest.He followed the tracks.The snow on the ground had been stirred.A chunk of bark had been ripped from a tree.More scattered snow and disturbed branches littered the edge of the forest, and then the tracks reappeared on the trail several feet ahead.
She must have thrown him off.
If that was the case, and she’d fought this far into the forest, the kidnapper had kept her alive for a reason.If he’d wanted her dead, he wouldn’t have carried her this far.Unless she’d pissed him off and he’d dumped her body.
Jaxon dragged his hand through his hair.All the heat left his body, and he shivered.He had to find her.He hopped back onto the four-wheeler.
A scream split the air, reverberating through the trees.His eardrums rang.
McKenna.
He twisted the handle and gunned through the woods at top speed.The vehicle kicked up chunks of snow that hurtled into his face.Icy air rushed into his nose.A set of low-lying tree branches approached, and he ducked.The tiny twigs scraped his cheek.
The motor growled in the night, but he strained to hear other sounds.Nothing.No more screams echoed, which only made the fear chomping at his spine that much deeper.His arms shook with unspent rage as he ripped through the forest.
She was alive.She had to be.
CHAPTER 14
Fingers dug intoher hair with the strength of talons.McKenna twisted against the searing pain and scrunched her face, but the sharp anticipation of a bullet kept another scream from coming.
The attacker wrenched her around to face him.
Brown curls peeked out from the edges of his hood.The rim of a beanie covered his forehead but didn’t hide his face.
Dr.Lots.
Despite her strong suspicions, she hadn’t expected to be right.Hadn’t expected to stare into the cold, hard eyes of the town’s only doctor.One of the friendliest men in the backwoods.The one who’d sent numerous patients her way.
Her mouth opened and closed.Tears stung the corners of her eyes and froze in the wind.He dropped her hair and pointed his gun at her chest.“Move,” he said, gesturing toward his property.
She shook her head.The dense snow molded her feet to the ground.It had taken away all feeling beneath her knees.If she didn’t get warm soon, frostbite would set in.
His eyes bugged out of his head, and he cocked the gun.“Move.Your scream surely got the attention of your boyfriend.”
“Please,” she said, her chin trembling.“What do you want?”
Before she could register the movement of his hand, he caught her neck.She let out a yelp as he towed her through the snow.
“What do I want?”His voice pitched with hysteria.This wasn’t the calm, amicable doctor she’d known the last six years.This wasn’t the man who delivered the Watsons’ twins eighteen years ago in their home, nor was it the man who made house visits to the elderly too old and feeble to venture out in the winter.
Something’s not right.
He hurled her ahead of him.She stumbled and collapsed.Just before hitting the ground, she shot out her hands and caught the stone firepit.A shed sat twenty feet away, large enough to fit six four-wheelers.She scanned the property.Lights shone from inside his house.
She snapped her gaze back to the woods.“You won’t get away with this,” she said, spinning on him.“You left your four-wheeler on the trail.Jaxon will find it.He’ll make it here soon.He’ll know it was you—everyone will.”
Dr.Lots’s mouth twisted into a sneer.“All I’ve got to say is someone stole it from me.By the time the cops come with a warrant, your body will be long gone.”
The ice coating her skin turned to fire.Rage.She clamped her teeth and pulled her fingers into her palms.“Why?What did I do to you?”
