LITMIR.BIZ

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new email. She picked it up, ignoring that her hand was shaking. So great to get your message. Glad we’re finally going to do this. Where and when? I don’t mind a drive.

      She’d told him that she lived about ninety minutes southwest of St. Louis but hadn’t been specific about Ravesville. She wasn’t stupid. She might be new at the online dating game, but she knew enough not to give out her personal information. He lived in Kansas City.

      Maybe Hamerton. It was a twenty-minute drive from Ravesville. There were a couple of good places there. She wanted someplace nice but not too fancy. She typed back. Mulder’s in Hamerton. At seven.

      Almost immediately came the response. Looking forward to it.

      She closed her phone feeling suddenly very warm. She had a date. The idea of it made her BLT rumble in her stomach.

      She pushed her chair back, walked to her Jeep and got Duke out to take a little stroll. They went up and down the streets, with Duke stopping frequently to drink out of the dog water bowls that many of the merchants left outside their entrances.

      Then it was back to the Jeep for Duke while she went to the grocery store and bought milk and eggs and more fresh vegetables than she probably needed. But hopefully she’d catch a fish this afternoon and be able to cook the fish and the vegetables on the gas grill that was chained outside the cottage.

      Back at the Jeep, she shoved the groceries inside the back door and slipped into the driver’s seat. It was a very warm day, and through her capri pants, she could feel the heat of the leather. She leaned back in the seat gingerly, knowing that her tank wouldn’t provide much protection. She’d pulled her hair into a low ponytail, like she usually wore it to work, but it felt heavy on her neck. Maybe it would be cooler on the water.

      She checked both ways and then pulled out of her parking space. Duke had his head hanging out the window. There was a lot of traffic that didn’t lighten up until she’d turned off onto the side road that would wind around until it led her to the cottage.

      She remembered several of the hairpin turns from the previous night and realized that they were much scarier in the daytime. She hadn’t been able to see how narrow the shoulder on the road was.

      Fifteen minutes later, when she was back at the cottage, she let Duke out to do his thing and grabbed the groceries. She held both plastic bags in one hand so that she had a free hand to enter the combination.

      She got it on the first try this time. The door swung open.

      And by habit, her eyes swept the room. Call her crazy but it seemed different than it had when she’d left two hours earlier. It smelled different. And the handle of the faucet on the kitchen sink was turned to a slightly different angle. And the rug on the floor had one corner flipped up, as if someone had caught it with a shoe.

      Trust your instincts.

      She could almost hear Rafe’s voice in her ear.

      She dropped her groceries and ran for her car. Where the hell was Duke?

      She was reaching for the Jeep door when someone caught her from behind. She turned, swinging her fist.

      The stranger caught her arm. He was big and beefy and he smelled strongly of garlic. He was completely bald, maybe late fifties.

      She opened her mouth to scream and he backhanded her. She fell to her knees.

      “Shut up or we put a bullet in you,” he said. “Get the dog.”

      She thought he was talking to her but realized that there was a second man. He was standing five feet away, holding a gun. He was much younger, with dark hair that touched his shoulders. But there was no doubt that the two were related, maybe father and son.

      Her ears were ringing and she was pretty sure she had a bloody nose. She lifted her head, looking for Duke. He was fifty feet away, his fur raised, on full alert. He was going to charge the man with the gun.

      “Oh, no, Duke,” she cried.

      The man pulled the trigger, catching Duke as he leaped into the air. She heard his sharp yelp of pain and saw him fall.

      Duke’s big body hit the hard ground and he lay there.

      She pushed herself off the ground. She had to help him. “You bastard,” she screamed. “You killed him.”

      And when the younger man laughed, Trish launched herself in his direction, kicking and screaming with everything she had.

      It took both men to subdue her, and she only stopped when they had her on the ground with the gun pressed up against her temple. She turned her head to see her poor dog.

      He lay absolutely still.

       Chapter Five

      “You son of a bitch,” she screamed at the younger man.

      He laughed and yanked her arm, pulling her to a standing position. Then he pushed her toward the cottage and through the doorway. She stumbled over the spilled groceries. She was shoved toward a kitchen chair and her tailbone hit it hard.

      The older man had followed them in and was now going through her purse that she’d dropped outside during the struggle. He pulled out her billfold, flipped it open and held it up, squinting at it. “Trish Wright-Roper. Jackpot.”

      He had to be comparing her to her driver’s license. Jackpot. That could mean only one thing. This hadn’t happened by chance. They’d been looking for her.

      It made no sense. She didn’t have enemies.

      Maybe not, but a man had been murdered outside her café the previous night. Was that what this was about? Milo?

      She sat in the chair and faced her attackers, attempting to control her spiking emotions. The idea that these men might have had something to do with Milo’s death fueled an anger that she’d never thought herself capable of. And then there was what they’d done to poor Duke.

      But she couldn’t get so upset that she couldn’t think.

      “Anthony, go finish off that dog,” the older man said. He pulled Trish’s cell phone out of her purse. He didn’t bother to look at it. Just dropped it on the ground and stepped on it with the heel of his boot.

      Anthony looked up from the cookies he’d grabbed from the floor. He tore at the packaging. “I’m eating.”

      “You can eat when this is over,” the older man said. He spoke in a tone that made it clear he considered himself in charge.

      Anthony evidently understood the pecking order because he tossed the now-open cookies onto the counter. “What the hell am I supposed to do with it?”

      “This isn’t that difficult. Just get it out of sight. Put the carcass in the woods, under something.”

      Duke deserved so much more. She was going to kill both of these men when she had the chance. And leave their bodies for the buzzards.

      Anthony stalked to the door, leaving it open behind him. She couldn’t see but Old Guy was watching.

      “What?” he said loudly, his voice cross.

      Anthony didn’t answer, but perhaps he motioned or something because a look of exasperation crossed Old Guy’s face. “Fine,” he said. “Just come back in.”

      She could barely keep the smile off her face. It could mean only one thing. Duke had somehow had enough life in him to slink away.

      Stay alive, Duke, she thought. I’ll try to do the same. With that thought in mind, she once again tried to channel her anger, to make it into something productive. Her phone was out of commission but her gun was still on the porch, still stuffed underneath the cushion, where she’d left it last night. She needed to somehow find a way to get to it.

      When Anthony came back inside, he picked up the other groceries

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