Fresh tears spilled down his cheeks.
Holidays wouldn’t be the same. He didn’t know if Corinna would want to spend them with him. He doubted so since it would just be the two of them now. They didn’t know each other well. She barely tolerated him as it was. A hollow feeling filled the pit of his stomach.
He didn’t know how he was going to be able to keep his promise to Greg. He could only hope God would provide the way.
His cell rang, the shrill sound startling in the quiet. Hoping the call was a break in the case, Ben scrambled to pluck the device from the top of the dresser.
He pulled himself together and managed to answer without sounding like he’d been blubbering like a baby. “Fritz.”
“Hi, it’s me, Corinna.” Her soft, feminine voice sounded a bit shaky.
Concern flared. “Are you okay?”
“I’m…coping. You?”
He relaxed, letting the tension in his shoulders ease. “Coping is a good way to describe it.”
“How is the other vic…victim?”
His heart twisted to hear the catch in her voice. “He’s in a coma. I have guards posted outside his room.”
“You really think the killer will come after him again?”
“I do. I just pray he awakens soon and can tell us who we’re looking for.”
“I hope that, too. This whole night seems so surreal.”
Ben understood. He could only imagine how devastated she must be. Greg had always said Corinna was the ray of sunshine that made his world brighter even during the darkest cases. Ben’s chest squeezed. Who would Corinna bring sunshine to now?
Forcing himself to speak past the tightness constricting his throat, he said, “If you need anything, Corinna, you can count on all of the Rangers. We are your family now.”
A moment of silence filled the line. “Thank you. I’ll say good night now.”
“Good night.”
There’d been an undertone in her voice. Something different than he’d ever heard before. Anger? Hurt?
He smacked his head. She’d just lost her father. Of course she was hurting. They both were.
He vowed to do whatever it took to make the person responsible for their pain pay. Dearly.
THREE
Corinna stared at the bright blue numbers on the clock. 3:00 a.m. She couldn’t sleep. The nocturnal noises of the horses and other animals that made the barn their home kept her nerves stretched taut. Finally, she left the warmth of the pullout sofa and padded barefoot across the wood plank floor to the refrigerator hoping to find something inside to drink. She wasn’t really surprised to see the fridge empty. It had been a long time since anyone had stayed in the loft.
Maybe the officer outside would be willing to go inside and retrieve some snacks for her.
Slipping on her fuzzy blue slippers and feeling the weight of her “just in case” gun deep in the folds of one robe pocket and her cell phone in the other, she left the loft and made her way outside into the yard lit by the glow of a full moon. Gabby followed closely at her heels. Corinna didn’t see her guard. He must be positioned in a strategic place somewhere in the front of the house. She wished she’d thought to ask for his name so she could call out to him.
At the sliding glass door to the dining room, she hesitated. Ben had made it clear the house was an active crime scene and she wasn’t to go back inside.
But the crime had happened in the study, not the kitchen.
And she had no intention of going anywhere near where her father had died.
With resolve that she’d apologize later if need be, she entered the dining room, and Gabby darted past her into the dark house. Corinna hurried straight to the refrigerator. Since she was there, she decided to grab a bag of potato chips, her one junk food vice, as well as a carton of orange juice.
A noise disturbed the quiet of the house. Corinna jerked, nearly dropping the bag of chips even as her mind reassured her the noise was just her cat, Gabby.
Suddenly, she desperately wished she’d listened to Ben and gone to stay somewhere else.
But her father raised her not to be a coward.
She needed to stand on her own two feet.
Which meant facing things that went bump in the night. Especially when it was just her cat getting into who knew what.
She left her goodies on the kitchen counter and stepped toward the dark hall. “Gabby?”
A scraping sound came from behind the yellow-taped off, closed door of her father’s study. How had the cat found her way in there? Blood pounded in her ears. The last time she’d opened these doors, she’d been shot and then she’d found her father dead on the floor.
Refusing to allow the memories to paralyze her, she rushed out of the house the way she’d come in and hurried toward the patio doors. She skidded to a halt. The doors stood wide open. Corinna swallowed back her rising fear as she took out her cell and called Ben.
A man dressed in all black stepped out of the study onto the patio. Corinna screamed, hoping to alert the officer out front, and jammed her free hand into her pocket. The intruder turned toward her, his face awash in the moonlight. When he started toward her, she wrestled her weapon free, took aim and fired.
The shrill ring of a phone jolted Ben to consciousness from a troubled sleep. He still had difficulty coming to grips with the reality that Greg was gone. The ringing continued.
He jerked upright, his eyes quickly adjusting to his shadowy bedroom. The noise emanated from his lit-up cell on top of his dresser where he’d left it before climbing exhausted into bed. A quick glance at the red numbers on his bedside clock revealed the time, three-thirty in the morning.
That got his blood pumping. He flung the covers aside and reached the dresser in two long strides. He palmed the phone and checked the caller ID.
The call was coming from Corinna’s phone.
His heart slammed against his ribs. He pressed the talk button. “Corinna?”
“Come quick,” she said in a shaky voice. “I need you. Hey!”
The line went dead.
“Corinna!” he shouted into the silence.
She was in danger! Something had happened.
Pulse-pounding dread filled his veins. All sorts of horrible scenarios played across the screen in his mind. Was she hurt? Had Greg’s killer returned after all? Ben should have listened to his instincts.
With fear coiling low in his belly, he sent out a text alert to the Rangers at lightning speed, then quickly changed from his drawstring sleep shorts into jeans and a T-shirt. Grabbing socks, tennis shoes and his sidearm, he ran from the apartment with his keys dangling from his fist.
He drove barefoot, taking the curves and running the traffic lights across town to the Pike ranch, the whole while mentally thrashing himself for having acquiesced to Corinna’s insistence she stay at her house.
Guilt, ugly and feral, reared up to poke at his conscience. His actions may have put Corinna in harm’s way. He’d never forgive himself if she were hurt again.
He pulled his Jeep to a halt next to Corinna’s compact car and jumped out. Sharp bits of gravel dug into his bare feet but he ignored the pain. Lights lit up the house. He rushed to the front door and banged his fist against the wood. “Corinna!”