Chapter Two
Isla caught one last glance of Garrett tearing across the pasture after the shadowy figure. No fear there. He was a Jack Reacher, built for that kind of pursuit. He could handle himself.
Her focus had to be here.
She tightened her grip on the pistol and eased up the porch steps, heart hammering. “Trudy?” she called softly.
No answer.
The door creaked wider as she nudged it with her shoulder. She slipped inside, gun sweeping the corners. The living room opened up in front of her, the same space she remembered from her teenage years.
Old sofa with worn cushions. A rocking chair that had lulled more than one crying foster kid to sleep. Dozens of framed photos lined the mantel. Faces of children who had passed through Trudy’s care, smiles caught in time.
Her gaze snagged on one photo in particular. Baby Harris. Swaddled in a blue blanket. He had been there less than a week before someone had stolen him away, yet Trudy had framed his picture too.
Isla forced the emotion down and kept moving.
“Trudy?” Louder this time. Still nothing.
She cleared the living room, every nerve stretched tight, the silence pressing heavy. The house felt too still.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Isla hurried through the living room and into the kitchen. Her breath caught when she saw the back door hanging crooked on its hinges, the frame splintered where it had been forced.
A gunshot cracked outside.
Her heart dropped. She darted to the window in time to catch a glimpse of Garrett hitting the ground. Panic clawed at her chest, but then she saw him move, saw his arm come up with the gun ready to fire. He was alive. Fighting.
Every instinct screamed at her to go to him, but she shoved it down. Garrett could handle himself. Her priority had to be Trudy.
She tore through the rest of the bottom floor, voice calling out. “Trudy?”
No response.
Isla hit Trudy’s bedroom first. Bed neatly made, covers untouched. Empty. As was the nursery just across from it.
The nursery door creaked when she pushed it further open, and the sight hit her like a fist. The crib was still there, tucked against the far wall, though the paint had faded and the wood bore the scratches of time.
A mobile hung above it, dusty but intact, its little stars and moons tangled on their strings.
Baby blankets, folded and stacked on a shelf, carried the faint smell of cedar from the old chest nearby.
No baby had slept here in decades, but the room still breathed with ghosts.
A rush of memories slammed into her. Harris. The weight of him in her arms. The sound of his soft breaths. And the way the world had cracked open when he was taken.
She blinked hard, forcing her focus back to the present. No one here. No Trudy. Just the ache of the past pressing in.
She sprinted down the hall to the office. Her stomach knotted when she saw the mess. Papers scattered across the floor. File drawers yanked open. The laptop gone. Someone had torn through the place in a hurry.
But no sign of Trudy.
The silence in the house pressed harder, wrapping around her chest like a vice.
Footsteps pounded in the hall. Isla pivoted fast, gun up, ready to fire.
“Easy.”
Garrett stepped into the doorway. In the dim light he was mostly shadow, his black hair blending into the darkness, his black tee and jacket and camo pants making him look like part of the night itself.
Her gaze swept over him, searching for blood, for any sign he had been hit. Nothing. Relief surged through her chest, sharp and quick.
“Someone took a shot at me,” he said, voice low and clipped. “Got away.” He didn’t pause before adding, “Where’s Trudy?”
“I don’t know.” Isla lowered her weapon but kept her grip tight. She turned toward the office. “Come look at this.”
Garrett followed as she stepped inside. She swept her hand at the chaos. “Files everywhere. Laptop gone. No sign of her.”
The mess looked even worse with him standing there, his broad shoulders tense, eyes taking everything in.
“Upstairs now,” he snarled, every muscle in his jaw as steely as the rest of him.
Together they moved fast, heading for the stairs. The old steps groaned under their boots as they climbed, the air thick with dust and silence.
The second floor opened into a long hallway lined with doors.
Isla’s stomach knotted. She knew these rooms. Over the years, dozens of foster girls had stayed here.
Strong bonds, whispered secrets after lights out, tears muffled into pillows.
Trudy had always made sure the girls had a safe space, a home.
Trudy hadn’t taken in foster kids for the past three years, but Isla knew she had kept the rooms ready. Beds made. Closets cleared. Just in case one of them ever came back to visit.
The quiet now felt wrong. Too still.
Isla lifted her gun higher and edged toward the first door.
Garrett flipped the switch, and the hallway light flickered to life. The glow spilled over the floorboards, and Isla’s stomach clenched. Drops of blood marked the wood, a dark trail leading deeper into the hall.
“Trudy?” Her voice cracked as it carried through the silence.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing. Then a sound. Low. Broken. A moan.
Isla’s pulse spiked. She and Garrett followed the blood, step by step, their guns steady, their eyes on every shadow. The trail ended at the last door. Isla’s old room.
Her chest tightened as another faint moan drifted out from behind the door.
“Trudy,” she whispered.
The knob rattled uselessly in her hand. Locked.
Before she could react, Garrett shifted forward, braced, and drove his boot into the frame. The door splintered inward with a sharp crack.
They rushed inside.
The door banged open, and the sight inside made Isla’s breath catch.
Trudy lay on the floor, her back propped against the side of the bed. A baseball bat rested in her hands, her grip weak but stubborn, as if she had fought until the very last second. Blood stained the front of her blouse, dark and spreading.
“Trudy.” Isla dropped to her knees, setting her gun aside. Her fingers found the older woman’s wrist. The pulse was there, but faint. Too faint.
Trudy’s face was pale, her skin drawn tight with pain. At seventy-three, she had always carried herself with quiet strength, her sharp eyes and kind smile unshaken by the years. Seeing her like this, fragile and bleeding, cut Isla straight to the bone.
“She’s alive,” Isla said, more to herself than to Garrett, forcing the words out as hope.
Garrett was already at the door, scanning the hallway with his weapon raised, his body a shield between them and the dark. He pulled out his phone, voice clipped and urgent as he called for an ambulance.
Isla pressed her hand against the wound, trying to slow the bleeding, willing Trudy to hold on.
Garrett ended the call for the ambulance and crouched beside them for a moment, his hand brushing over Trudy’s shoulder. “Help’s on the way,” he said, steady, though Isla caught the edge in his voice.
He checked her pulse, his jaw tight, then rose and crossed to the window. The curtains shifted as he pulled them back just enough to scan the yard. Darkness pressed close on every side.
“I’m calling Noah,” he let her know. Noah Riggs, their boss and head of Crossfire Ops.
Garrett pulled out his phone again and punched in a number.
“Noah. It’s McCall.” His voice was clipped, controlled.
“We’ve got a situation. My foster mother, Trudy, has been shot.
Intruder was on site, armed. Took off across the pasture, made it to a vehicle.
Escaped before I could get a clean shot.
” He paused, gaze sweeping the shadows beyond the glass.
“I need you to relay everything to the county sheriff. Get deputies out here now.”
When he finished the call, Garrett came back toward the bed, dropping to his knees across from Isla.
“She’s losing too much blood,” Isla said, her voice tight. Her hands pressed harder against the wound, but it wasn’t enough.
Garrett met her eyes. “It’s a gunshot wound.”
His voice was tight as well, and Isla could feel the worry and anger coming off him in hot waves. Worry for Trudy but anger because he hadn’t been able to stop this.
Whatever this was.
It didn’t feel like a robbery though someone had clearly been after something in that office. But there weren’t many valuables at the ranch, and Trudy wasn’t a wealthy woman.
So, why had this happened?
“Trudy,” Garrett said, his voice low but firm.
Her eyelids fluttered, then opened, her gaze finding them. A weak smile tugged at her mouth before it dissolved into a groan. Pain rippled across her features.
“Someone… shot me,” she whispered, her voice raw.
Garrett leaned closer. “Who?”
Trudy’s head moved side to side in the smallest shake. “Didn’t… see.”
Her face pinched, and she winced again. Her hand lifted shakily, fingers brushing the back of her head. Isla caught the motion and her stomach twisted. Blood smeared Trudy’s fingertips. Not just a bullet. Hell. She had been clubbed, too.
Isla pressed her hand more firmly against the wound in Trudy’s side, fear biting at her. The older woman looked so fragile now, so far from the strong foster mom who had once kept a whole house of teenagers in line with nothing but her steady voice and unshakable will.
Trudy’s breath rattled as she forced the words out. “The baby… this is about the baby.”
Isla’s stomach knotted. “What baby?” The words scraped out of her throat.
“Harris,” Trudy whispered. Her gaze shifted between Isla and Garrett, still sharp despite the pain dragging her down. Her lips trembled as she forced the next words. “I think I know who took him.”
She opened her mouth to say more. But more didn’t come. Trudy’s eyes fluttered closed, her head lolling as consciousness slipped away.