Page 143 of Wild Sanctuary

I don’t answer. I cross the porch in three strides and drive the butt of the rifle up under his jaw. His head snaps back and his knees go from under him. He hits the boards hard, face-first, his hat skidding sideways to stop against the rail. I put my boot between his shoulder blades and bring the rifle to rest at the base of his skull.

“Where is she?”

My voice does not sound like my voice.

“Wyatt, I tried to stop⁠—”

“Where is she, Marcus?”

Nothing.

“Where the fuck is she?”

He doesn’t answer. His shoulders are shaking under my boot. Not with grief, but with the kind of fear that finally catches up to a man who’s never had to live with his own consequences. And he does not give me one goddamn word.

Rhett comes around the left of the house with his rifle at low ready and a zip tie already in his free hand. Colt is a beat behind him, looking past us toward the yard.

“Dave.” The name is exhaled on a gasp as his face drops, and he takes off at a run.

Rhett takes in the scene in one look and drops a knee between Marcus’s shoulders.

I pull my boot off his back, step away, and the yard opens up to me. The F-250 sits broadside against the old pasture fence, the driver’s door hanging open, and the front-left tire shredded to the hub. There’s a long-gouged arc in the dirt behind it.

I cross the yard at a run, rifle up, sweeping every line of sight the place has to offer.

No Daisy. No Stan.

Colt’s got Dave, his belt cinched above a gunshot wound in his upper arm with the knot bit tight. Dave is face down with his head turned, his mouth open and his skin gray. The dirt under him has gone dark.

“Bullet went wide. Caught his arm.” Colt does not look up. “He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’ll hold if the paramedics get here quickly.” His gaze finds mine then, urgency pouring from those bright blue eyes. “Go, Wyatt. Find her. Go.”

I turn a full circle. The F-250 cab stands open and empty. Nothing moves in the drive or in the tree line.

“Marcus.” My voice carries across the yard to the porch. “Where in hell is she?”

There’s silence, then Rhett yells back, “He’s not talkin’, Boss.”

My head jerks toward the house.

“Daisy!”

Nothing back.

Uselessness claws at my damn guts as I dig my phone out of my back pocket, quickly scroll, and press her name.

It rings twice while I pace the yard, not toward anywhere in particular, just moving because my limbs don’t know what else to do.

My legs just about give out when she answers the call. I hear her breathing, stretched thin and held.

Then a man’s voice comes in through the speaker, gentle as a whisper.

“Come on down outta that loft, darlin’. No sense drawin’ this out.”

I stop dead in the yard. She’s opened the line, so I’ll hear where she is.

The loft. She’s in the loft. Run, you damn idiot.

I don’t waste another second, turn toward the hay barn, and sprint.