Page 61 of Apple of My Eye

“Shit. Everyone close in on the barn now. I think the deputy isn’t legit,” I shouted, taking off ata run.

In twenty seconds, I reached the barn aisle. The men were there, and we checked every stall, every corner, front to back. Nothing.

“Jake. Can you get into position on the roof and look behind the barn? Anything in the distance?” I asked.

“Copy that.”

“What now?” Colt reached me, eyes huge, adrenaline pumping. He’d been in the Navy, on a ship, and hadn’t seen the action some of the rest of us had.

We both stared out from behind the barn at dark acres of land, nothing but prairie grass and trees.

“Think. Think. If I were Trevor, wanting to take Daisy away from all of this, I’d lure her away from the crowds, to the furthest point possible.” I scoured a hundred and eighty degrees around us from right to left.

There, toward the back of the stable, maybe thirty feet from where we were standing… the door hung open. The light above it was out, and the horses made a ruckus inside.

“Over there! The stables. Now!” I sprinted, carefully slowing at the door. I peeked my head inside for a quick look, not sure if I’d find someone there with a gun, or worse, Daisy’s body.

No one was there, though. I allowed myself one second of relief for that. Only the horses showed signs of visible distress inside. Juniper, with her ears flat, pushed against her door to get out. Scarlett paced. Tank threw his head around, grunting, trying to tell us what they saw. If only we could read their minds.

“Whoa. Whoa. Okay, Juniper. It’s all right.” I calmed her down enough to pet the bridge of her nose, peering into her eyes. “Yeah, we’ve been through this before, haven’t we, girl?”An escaped convict had abducted Willow last fall. But thank God for Juniper who had busted out of her stall in the barn, racing to Willow just in time to save her.

“Is she part bloodhound? Should we release her and see if she can scope out Daisy’s whereabouts?” I seriously asked Ash.

“Maybe. All right, everyone. Quick sweep here. Look for any signs,” Ash yelled.

“Jake? Anything from up high?” I checked with him.

“Nothing.”

We did a fast sweep at the stables, about to leave, at a loss where to go next. When my flashlight caught something on the floor by the door. I paced to it and picked it up. Silver… Daisies…

“This is her bracelet, the silver daisy chain. She was here!”

I put it in my pocket and went cold. It had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with steel-coated focus.

“Knox? Come see this,” Colt called. About ten feet away from the back of the stable, where the gravel turned to dirt, he found fresh ATV tracks. Not ours. None of us rode out in that direction.

“Where would they go?” I gestured widely at the land before us, too dark to see.

Ash knew. “This part of the ODRR property used to be the Wylde place. I’m almost certain the orchard would be that direction. Pretty daring to take that trail at night on an ATV, though.”

“Would he really take her back to her own house?” Colt scratched his jaw.

“He’d been watching Daisy for years from a distance. He might know this terrain. And the house? Yeah. Everyone is here. Noone is there.” I shook my head at the audacity.

“We can get there faster by truck and the main roads; try to cut them off.” Ash threw more orders out. “Two men take our ATVs and try to follow those tracks as far as they go. Jake: keep on the roof, keep watch for anyone and anything. Everyone else holds positions.”

We ran to Ash’s truck, the nearest of ours and easiest to get off the ranch and onto the road.

“Sheriff Patrick, are you on this channel?” I called.

Patrick’s voice came back immediately, already clipped and operational. “On it. What’ve you got?”

“Daisy has been taken, and I think I know where he took her.”

Colt droveas if the road had caught fire. I sat in the passenger seat with one hand on the door and my eyes wide and alert on the dark road, my mind running through every scenario I didn’t want to face. Ash was in the back, rifles in the bed.

Colt cut the headlights before we hit the driveway, rolling in quiet and slow, the way you approached a position you did not want to announce.