“It’s Deputy Diaz,” she said, answering.
Harlan watched her face shift as she listened. Her eyes narrowed, her fingers tightening around the phone.
“A note?” she questioned. A second later, she tapped the screen and held it so he could see. “One of the bomb techs found this near the IED.”
A photo filled the display. White paper. Black marker. The words were thick and uneven, as if scrawled in haste.
You’re next, Deputy Laney Sutton.
For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke, but Laney made a barely audible gasp.
Harlan felt the prickle along his spine, the kind that came with knowing the threat was real. His jaw locked, and his gaze shifted from the note to her face. She was pale beneath the morning light, but her chin lifted in defiance.
The fear was there, though. He could see it. And the only thing he could think of was that someone had just drawn a target on her back.
Across the road, movement caught his eye. A figure slipped between the trees on the narrow trail, dark clothing blending with the shadows.
“Trail,” Harlan said, already opening his door.
Laney was right behind him. They drew their weapons in unison, boots crunching gravel as they crossed. The air smelled of cedar and damp earth. Every step closer tightened the coil in his gut.
He kept his focus forward, scanning for more movement and for explosives, listening for the sound of a foot snapping a branch. He couldn’t shake the thought that this could be a setup. A perfect way to pull Laney in and end her life.
But if that was the goal, why not take the shot when she stepped from her car earlier? Why draw them into the trees?
It felt like a game. One with rules that only the other player understood. And Harlan hated being on the losing side of a hunt.
They moved a little farther up the trail, each step deliberate, eyes scanning the brush and shadows. A patch of sunlight broke through the canopy ahead, glinting off something small in the dirt.
Harlan slowed and lifted a hand for Laney to hold back. It was a single pink hair clip lying there, stark against the earth, looking impossibly out of place.
Laney came up beside him, her gaze locking on it. Her breath caught, sharp and quick. “Oh, God. That’s Evie’s.”
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Chapter Three
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Laney’s pulse thundered in her ears as she stared at the little pink clip. And her chest tightened until she could hardly draw breath.
“Take me home,” she said, her voice sharper than she intended.
She yanked out a glove from her coat pocket, and despite her trembling hands, she finally managed to get it on. She took an evidence bag from her other coat pocket, retrieved the clip, and dropped it inside the bag.
“Take me home,” she repeated, well aware that her voice was shaking just as much as the rest of her.
Harlan didn’t argue. They turned back the way they’d come, their steps quick and sure but still cautious, neither speaking as they reached his truck. He fired up the engine and pulled onto the road, the tires throwing gravel.
“What does all of this mean?” she murmured, fighting back the flood of emotions that were right at the surface.
“Not sure,” Harlan admitted.
Laney had to hand it to him. He didn’t launch into speculation. Probably because there was nothing he could say that would help with the wave after wave of nerves that were coursing through her. Nerves that made each moment feel likean eternity and each mile endless. She desperately needed to see her little girl, and there was no substitute for that.
Trying to steady herself and losing that battle, she forced herself to look out the window. The drive took them along the two-lane highway that stretched out from Redwater, past open pasture and weathered fences. Her home sat five miles outside of town, a wide-sprawling ranch that had been in her family for generations.
Rolling acres framed the long drive, the land dotted with oak and mesquite. The big, rambling house rose up from the center of it all, its white clapboard siding and deep porch a familiar silhouette against the sky.
