Page 55 of Salvation

Anna gasped. Jesus, she’d been tricked. It hadn’t been Janna calling for her. It was this stranger, luring her out here. But why?

The young woman’s head jerked to one side, and when she looked back at Anna, her eyes were desperate and wide. “Run!” she called hoarsely. “Run! Get away!”

It took Anna a second to react, but when something started crashing through the bushes, she bolted back in the direction of the road. Whatever was happening, she had to get to the truck and get away. She had to get someplace where she could call for help.

Two steps before she reached the path around the boulders, the shadows overhead flickered, and a man leaped right into the path before her.

“Hold it!” he yelled.

She gasped and backpedaled, then froze as the man slowly straightened from the crouch he’d landed in.

“Don’t! Emmett, please!” the woman behind her cried.

Anna spun to see the young woman strain at her bonds, but then she turned back to face the man. Now that he was upright, he was an inch taller than her. In any other situation, she’d have thought him unremarkable in every way — except for the pale gray eyes and the scar running vertically from his lip.

“We meet again.” He grinned.

Emmett LeBlanc? The man who’d asked about Sarah back in Montana? The man who wanted to kill the bear?

“Now, you were supposed to tell me if you heard anything from your cousin or those Voss brothers,” he said, speaking as if in the middle of a conversation and not out of the blue.

She gaped at him. Was he nuts?

He tut-tutted at her, shaking a finger. “I told you to tell me.”

Jesus, he really was nuts.

She backed up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He didn’t acknowledge her words. He just went on in that menacing voice. “Now if you’d listened to me, you could have avoided all this.”

Her hand tightened around the golf club. All what?

“The others have to die, but you could have lived.”

A chill ran through her shoulders. He wanted her to die?

“They’re the ones who are unpure. You were innocent.”

What the hell was he talking about?

He sniffed the air and scowled. “But now you, too, have crossed the line.”

“Emmett, she didn’t do anything!” the woman begged from behind her.

Anna swiveled her head between them. Was the woman the man’s accomplice or his enemy?

He gestured wildly and screamed. “She’s whored herself to that bear! You can smell him all over her!”

“You’re crazy,” Anna retorted, shaking her head. He was bat-shit crazy, and he wanted her dead.

Think! Act! Flee!Alarms flashed through her mind, paralyzing her completely.

“Now, don’t think I’m not grateful to you for leading me to the others…” Emmett went on.

God, did he want to kill Sarah and Jessica, too? She could see the blood lust in his eyes. But why? What did they do?

He took a step closer, and Anna jumped back, raising the golf club like a sword.

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