Page 13 of Valor

“I’ll take him.” She gently eased the dog from Owen’s arms. “Wow, his whole body is shaking.”

“Yeah. I think he’s scared.” Owen lightly jogged toward the house, then abruptly stopped, his body going tense. He spun and turned back to face her. “Don’t come any closer. We need to get out of here.”

“What? Why?” She tried to look past him, but the puppy kept trying to lick her cheeks.

“They’re dead.” Owen’s words hit her like a sack of bricks. “Both Doc and Dee are gone. What’s left of their bodies are lying in the front yard.”

A cold chill snaked down her spine. Without thinking, she turned and ran back down the two-track, cuddling the puppy close, desperate to leave the horror behind.

CHAPTERFOUR

Owen felthollow inside as he followed Emily down the two-track dirt road. Regardless of how the scene back there may have been staged, he knew full well that Doc and Dee had been brutally murdered.

By the same men who were gunning for him.

How had the bad guys known he’d recovered from his gunshot wound here? He hadn’t told anyone other than Emily.

And he’d been with Emily ever since. Unless...

Had she told her brother Doug when he wasn’t looking? Had he in turn handed that information off to someone else? Like Colin Granger?

There hadn’t been time for that, but he couldn’t come up with another scenario.

Emily slowed to a stop, breathing deep. She turned to look at him, her expression stricken with fear. “I don’t know where to go from here.”

He paused to glance back at the scene of the murder. Seeing the puppy in her arms was a reminder that they couldn’t leave without supplies. “Can you follow our path to return to the spot where we left the truck?” Stepping forward, he showed her the broken branches and leaves from where they’d come through earlier. “If you head southeast, you should be able to find it without too much trouble.”

Her eyes widened. “What about you?”

“I need to go back to pick up a few things. Mainly dog food.” He nodded at the chocolate lab in her arms. “We also need a way to alter our license plate.”

She swallowed hard but nodded. “I’ll do my best to find the truck. But please hurry.”

“I’ll do my best. But if I’m not back within thirty minutes, drive the truck to your brother at the Sullivan ranch.”

She paled. “I don’t want to leave you behind.”

“You may not have a choice. Especially if the bad guys are still in the area.” He didn’t like their tenuous situation any more than she did. “Thirty minutes,” he repeated. Then he turned and ran back up the two-track toward the grisly scene of the crime.

Leaving Emily wasn’t easy. The thought of deliberately staying away longer than thirty minutes passed through his mind. But as much as he wanted Emily to be safe, he knew he couldn’t linger. He didn’t want to die—at least, not like this.

Facing off with Domingo Hernandez? Yeah, maybe. But only if he took Hernandez down with him.

Pushing those grim thoughts aside, he focused on the task at hand. As he got closer to the house, he scanned the area, searching for signs that the bad guys were still there. There was no vehicle in the driveway, and he didn’t see anything else suspicious.

Well, aside from the dead couple. His heart squeezed painfully in his chest. His fault. This was all his fault!

He stood partially hidden behind a tree, watching the area for a long moment before darting forward. He knew the property well from his time there. Since Doc and Dee were lying outside the front door, he headed around to the back, not surprised to find the door was unlocked. Slipping inside, he paused and listened.

Hearing nothing, he moved through the living room to the kitchen. Seeing the dog dishes, he scooped them up, then found the half-full bag of puppy chow. Setting the dog supplies aside, he took a minute to rummage for black electrical tape. Then, even though it pained him to do so, he found and pocketed Dee’s stash of cash. It was only about five hundred dollars, but the Martins wouldn’t need it.

And he felt certain they would rather he put the money to good use rather than letting it go into the hands of strangers.

Wishful thinking on his part? Maybe. He knew they didn’t have kids, and their only other blood relative was a distant cousin who lived in Florida. Thrusting the guilt aside, he shoved the money and black electrical tape into his pocket and gathered the dog’s supplies.

Then he turned and made his way through the back door. He was only a few yards from the two-track when he heard the distant wail of a police siren.

A wave of apprehension hit hard. The bad guys must have called the police to report the crime. Had they expected him to show up here? If so, why not wait?

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