Chapter 1
Brian Kerr— or Carlson, on the fake ID he was now using— looked around his small bedroom, wondering why he felt so restless. He’d lived in tons of worse places than this tiny room tucked under the stairs of Doc’s mother’s farmhouse. Hell, he’d spent whole nights as a kid riding city buses, when Mom couldn’t make the rent. Back then, he’d have thought this private space with a clean bed, a door that could be locked, and a bathroom down the hall, was amazing luxury.
He sat on the edge of the mattress, tapping his heel against the box of laundry underneath it. Sleep should’ve come easy after a long day of chores, but the evening was ticking by and he couldn’t relax. I wish Nick was here.
Luger, their big dog, rose from his rug by the bed and whined softly. He shoved his furry head under Brian’s arm and stuck his nose against Brian’s ribs, rucking up his T-shirt.
“Yikes!” Brian wrestled the dog’s cold nose off his skin. Luger turned toward the door and whined again.
“What? Do you miss Nick too?” He ruffled the dog’s ears, the soft velvet reassuring under his fingers. “He’s coming, you know. Him and Charlie. They’ll be driving down here. Not long now.”
Nick was back in Minnesota, packing for the move. He’d be eating pizza or something— probably pizza— with Charlie, in Nick’s little single-wide trailer. The trailer Brian had never even spent one night in. The home Nick loved but was selling, just to be with Brian. He’d try to make it up to Nick forever.
Luger suddenly pulled free of his grip, shouldered the door wide, and dashed out into the hallway. A moment later, a rumble and a bang somewhere outside the house made Brian jolt. What? A car crash? Loud, clanging, thumpy sounds set off all the dogs together at the front of the house, Luger’s guard-dog bark much deeper and snarlier than the two border collies. Brian slammed out of his room and charged down the hall. Don’t let anyone be hurt. Don’t let Luger bite anyone.
He hit the front entryway a step behind Doc and his mother, Yasmin, just in time to grab Luger’s collar before Yasmin opened the door. The border collies bolted down the steps ahead of her. Doc called, “Mama. Wait up! Be careful!” but she ran after them, her big flashlight raised like a club. Doc put a hand on the porch rail and vaulted down to the yard.
Brian stumbled down the steps like a normal, uncoordinated person, yanked along by Luger’s pull on the collar. The leather bit into his fingers, and cool air chilled the back of his neck. The two collies plowed to a stop at the edge of the yard, ruffs bristling, barking into the darkness. Luger lunged toward them, yanking against Brian’s grip, roaring a challenge at something unseen, his paws digging into the dirt.
Brian struggled to hold on, then remembered he could use his voice. “Luger! Sit! Stay!” Luger’s butt hit the ground obediently, but his growls didn’t lessen and he quivered eagerly. Brian didn’t let go.
Doc caught up to his mom and stepped in front of her. “Hey? Who’s out there? Is someone hurt?”
Yasmin shone the flashlight past him. The narrow beam swept over the side of the barn, a few small trees, the woodpile Nick had tripled in size when he’d visited. A glitter of light made her shine it farther along the pasture path.
A hundred feet away at the end of the dirt path, her big tractor stood canted at an angle, half in the ditch and half buried grill-deep in a broken metal gate. Beyond the gate, the glow of sheep’s eyes caught the light like zombies gathering for the kill. Or maybe like curious sheep.
“Oh, hell, no!” Yasmin swung her light around the scene. “Where are you? Show yourself!”
Other than a grunt from one of the sheep and the dogs’ slowing barks, no one answered.
Brian knelt beside Luger, rubbing his back soothingly. “Hush, Luug. Shush now.” Luger dropped his growl to a low grumble in his throat, still sitting as ordered but focused off in the darkness like an arrow waiting to be launched. Brian raised his voice. “What happened? Was there an accident?”
Yasmin didn’t answer, moving her light methodically across the bushes and pastureland behind the fence.
Doc spared him a quick glance. “Right. The tractor turned itself on, opened the door, and accidentally drove itself into a gate.”
“Um.” His face heated, despite the cool night, and he bent to check Luger’s paws, hiding the flush. Not that Doc— Zander, he wants to be called Zander in his mother’s house— not that Zander would notice, or care.
Yasmin eventually lowered the light. “I don’t see anyone. Stupid kids. Like we don’t have enough to deal with.”
Zander said, “You think it was kids?”
She looked up at him, her expression hidden in the dark. “Who else would it be?”
Zander glanced toward Brian, then shrugged. “Someone out to cause trouble?”
“Not Damon,” Brian protested. His brother always came to people’s minds when there was trouble.
“Of course not him. Other folk.” Zander’s voice went colder, and Brian was transported back to the bouncing deck of a disguised boat out on the ocean, with guns and flames and blood. To a cold-eyed criminal and a deadly explosion and the things they’d all done—
“You don’t think…?” He glanced around nervously. No way. If Turov’s people had found them, they’d be kidnapped or shot by now, not standing around staring at a crashed tractor. Right? An icy finger ran up the back of his neck, but he didn’t want to put any of that into words around Yasmin. He didn’t know how much or little Zander had told her. Right now, she didn’t look at Brian like he was a risk, a time bomb, or crazy, and he liked that.
“I don’t know what I think.” Zander ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “It makes no sense as a threat. Probably was some damned kids.”
Yasmin swung her light toward the barn. “We’d better check in there. I hope someone catches the little bastards and takes a switch to their behinds. And makes them pay damages. I didn’t need this.”
Zander reached for the flashlight. “Let me look, Mama. You stay here.”
Yasmin didn’t let go. “I’m not some fragile flower, young man. You can come along.”
“I’ll come too.” Brian took a better grip on Luger’s collar. “Heel!” Luug gave him a look that registered as disgusted, but obediently ranged alongside his left knee. Brian bumped the furry Belgian Tervuren’s solid shoulder, feeling safer. Luger was even better than a gun. He wouldn’t know how to shoot a gun.
“Stay behind us.” Zander strode toward the gaping door with Yasmin at his side.
It seemed wrong having the biggest person— and the one armed with a guard dog— hiding in the back, but he didn’t argue. Luger still swung his head side to side as if sniffing for enemies, but his hackles slowly lowered as they approached the barn. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when Zander snapped on the lights to reveal nothing out of place but the tractor. Another switch brought up the spotlights, bathing the farmyard in a bright white glare. Brian pivoted, but saw nothing unusual— parked cars, outbuildings, the dim shapes of trees beyond.
Yasmin ran her light over the sliding track for the door. “Looks like they greased it up. I wondered why we didn’t hear it screech when they opened it. Damned thing’s been sticky forever.”