Fumbling, Jenna extracted the phone from her pocket and flipped it open. The battery was low, but she hit the speed-dial number for her house.
One ring.
What was dripping? That sound. Now that Allie had quieted, there was another noise. A plop, plop…
Two rings.
And the smell…what the devil was that smell? Copper? Iron? Some kind of metallic tinge in the air?
Three rings. Why wasn’t she answering? Panic assaulted her. Was Allie right? Was the monster in her house, waiting?
Oh, no, please, not Rinda. “Answer, damn it.”
Four rings and her own voice answered. “Rinda, pick up!” she whispered over the recording. “Pick up the damned phone!” Critter was whining, dancing beside her and she gave up. Hung up and dialed Shane Carter’s cell.
“Carter.” He answered on the first ring.
“It’s Jenna. Get out here. Cassie and Turnquist are missing. There’s blood around the barn and…”
Plop!
“What? I’m five minutes away.”
“That might be too long!” she said, and noticed the floor, where the flashlight shined on the boards, paw prints and footprints in a crazy pattern of red…
“Oh, God,” she whispered, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear as she took the flashlight from her daughter and focused its weak beam on the trail of bloody paw prints…backward toward the rear wall where a wide, dark pool was slowly spreading, oozing over the ancient floorboards.
Terror gripped her. She swallowed hard as she slowly moved the flashlight, raising the beam upward, and saw a body swinging from a crossbeam.
Her scream reverberated through the barn, her face twisted in horror as she recognized the victim. Stripped naked and eviscerated, Jake Turnquist had been gutted like a deer on a hunting trip. His body was white, drained, a vicious, gory slash running the length of his body. Entrails, still steaming, were piled on the floor in a slippery, grotesque mass.
Jenna dropped the phone. Allie, clinging to her, was screaming again, losing it.
Jenna’s stomach convulsed.
She retched violently at the horrid, grisly sight.
Who was the butcher who had done this? Did he have Cassie? Breathing hard, fighting the mind-numbing horror, she scrabbled on the floor, into the wet puddle, her hands sticky with the bodyguard’s blood. “Shane!” she cried, but the cell phone connection was lost. She managed to grab the slippery phone, the gun, the flashlight, and Allie’s arm, smearing blood everywhere. “Let’s get out of here.” Propelling her daughter toward a rear cattle entrance, she started running. If they could get to the garage and the Jeep…
She slid open the big door and stepped outside to the quiet night. Pulling Allie with her, Jenna turned off the flashlight, then started running, plunging through the knee-deep snow. She had the phone in one hand and punched out 9–1-1. The more police she could get here, the better. Critter bounded behind, gasping, keeping up as the snow continued to fall.
Rinda! She couldn’t leave Rinda!
But the creep had Cassie.
She didn’t think he was in the house. She’d come from the house and there were no fresh footprints leading in that direction, no freshly broken path through the frigid white blanket. Jenna’s gaze swept the ground and saw only her own trail, already softening with the onslaught of fresh snowflakes.
Get a grip, Jenna. Pull yourself together. You have to find a way to keep Allie safe while finding Cassie.
How? Oh, God, how? She needed help.
Shane Carter, get here, now!
Why the hell wasn’t the phone connecting? Why was there no sound, no beep of life from the electronic contraption? Had the drop on the floor in the barn, the slide through a coagulating, warm pool of blood somehow short-circuited the damned thing? Or was it because thousands of calls were overloading the cell phone towers. Maybe it’s just an overload of the circuits. Keep trying!
She was still dragging Allie, trudging through the snow, blinking against the icy crystals stinging her cheeks as the dog bounded ahead.
Come on, come on…where the hell are the police?