Chapter 3
Her cell ringing startled Lakin, but she wasn’t the only one. A clang rang out from behind the partially open door to her cabin. She gasped. Somebody was definitely inside.
“Troy?” she called out tentatively.
It had to be Troy. Right? He’d been at the office earlier. When he drove off without talking to her, he could have been planning to surprise her at home.
And yet she hesitated before walking into her own cabin. It didn’t feel like her home right now; it felt unfamiliar, strange…like her relationship with Troy had suddenly become.
He’d never gone so long with so little contact before. Something had to be wrong, and she knew that he wouldn’t try to remedy that with a surprise. And if he’d wanted to surprise her, he wouldn’t have sent the email last week letting her know that he was finally coming home.
But home probably just meant Shelby. Despite how much he stayed with her when he wasn’t working, they didn’t live together.
Most of his things and his room were at his mother’s house.
Mrs. Amos undoubtedly missed her son as much as Lakin did.
And she probably worried about him even more since she’d lost her husband on the same oil rigs that her son insisted on working on as well.
Lakin wasn’t sure if he was just trying to help his family out or if he missed his father so much that he was trying to replace him. Either way, she loved him for loving all of them so much.
But as much as she loved him, she was beginning to lose hope for a future with him.
So she didn’t believe he’d made the noise inside the cabin. Something…or someone…else was in there.
Once a raccoon had managed to break in through an open window. But a door? As clever and capable as they were with their little handlike paws, she doubted that was possible.
No, it had to be a human inside her place.
But who? Why would anyone break in? She had nothing worth stealing. The only things of value were her heart, which Troy already had, and her life.
She started backing away from the cabin, scared that whoever was inside was going to come out. She turned to run but instead collided with a long, hard body. She gasped as strong arms wrapped around her.
But these arms were familiar.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Troy asked, his voice a low rumble in his muscular chest.
She tingled with awareness of his closeness and with fear. “Someone’s in my cabin,” she whispered.
How was Troy here? She’d been so focused on her cabin that she hadn’t heard his truck drive up.
“Run back to the office,” Troy whispered gruffly.
Maybe he didn’t want to alert the intruder to their presence—but her ringing cell had already done that.
He turned with her in his arms, positioning himself between her and the cabin, then released her.
“Go,” he urged her. “Get Parker and call the police.”
The police—well, her brother Eli—had already called. But she’d been so stunned to find her door open that she hadn’t known how to react.
As if Troy expected her to obey him, he turned back toward her front door.
“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice rising slightly with panic.
“I’m going to try to catch whoever the hell is in there.” He started toward the door again.
“No, it’s too dangerous. They could have a gun or some kind of weapon,” she warned and reached out, trying to stop him.
But then another noise rang out, louder than their argument: the crack of the cabin’s back door slamming.
Before Lakin could grasp his arm, Troy was off, running after a figure that was just a blur of dark clothes heading into the woods. But Troy wasn’t really running. Not like he usually did. He was moving oddly, stiffly, like he was limping or hurt.
If he caught up with the intruder, he might get hurt even worse.
The shadow was tall and broad and moving faster than Troy. But if the person turned back, they could overpower Troy, especially if they were armed. If they were armed, they might do more than just overpower him.
“Troy!” she yelled, her heart racing with fear. “Troy! Come back!”
But it was too late. He disappeared into the woods. Would it be the last time she saw him?
* * *
Troy ignored the twinges of pain in his back as he pushed himself to run faster through the forest. Branches were rustling and snapping back toward him; he was close to whoever had come out of Lakin’s cabin. But all he could see was a dark shadow through the trees.
A black coat maybe? Black hat? Hiking boots. He could tell by the deep treads pushing the pine needles into the dirt.
Just about everybody in Shelby wore hiking boots, though, and coats and hats, too, since the evenings were cold in September.
It could have been anyone, and too many trees and branches blocked Troy from getting a better look at the person.
He had to get closer. But as he ran harder, the uneven ground twisted his back, and he winced.
“Stop!” he yelled at the intruder like Lakin had yelled after him. But he didn’t expect this person to listen to him any more than he had listened to her.
Troy had to find out who’d broken into her place and why. Was this the person Hetty had told him about? The serial killer targeting women in Shelby? Even though he and Lakin had been in a relationship for ten years, she was alone so much. Was that why someone had broken into her place?
Was she the serial killer’s next target?
Frustration gripped him, making his muscles tense even more, and he had to stop running for a moment. He had to catch his breath. His lungs burning, he leaned forward, hands on his thighs and drew in deep breaths of fresh air.
Fresh air with a hint of stale cigarette smoke. Usually the woods smelled of pine needles and fresh rain. The intruder had to be close.
Troy peered around, wondering where the person was hiding. Maybe they weren’t hiding at all. Maybe they were waiting to ambush him once he got close.
He didn’t want to get knocked out, or worse, and leave Lakin unprotected.
Hopefully she had run back to the office to get Parker and had called the local police.
Eli and Kansas could be anywhere in Alaska, but Shelby PD was close.
And at the moment Troy was more of a liability than an asset.
Instead of saving her from the intruder, he might need saving himself.
* * *
The man ducked under the pine boughs and hunkered down near the trunk. He shouldn’t be discovered in the shadows. And if he was…
Maybe that would be a good thing. Getting rid of whoever was chasing him would be the smart thing to do. He couldn’t afford for someone to disrupt the plan he had painstakingly put into place. He had put in too much effort and research for it to be put into jeopardy now.
Who the hell was this guy anyway?
He’d not been around the past few weeks, not like the other men, those Coltons. They were always around. The boys and their dad. He would deal with them in time, too.
But right now…
Now he had a more immediate problem. This young stranger had rushed headlong to her rescue, chasing after him through the woods. Except…there was no running now. No snapping of twigs and branches or rustling of leaves. Just what sounded like gasps for breath.
Whoever was trying to be her hero either wasn’t in very good condition or wasn’t used to the altitude.
It would be easy now to take him out. He would never become a problem.