Betrayal in the Badlands. Dana Mentink

caused her scream. He called Tank to his side. “Remember my dog, Tank? He’s been looking for you.”

      When Logan released him, Tank trotted up to Isabel and licked her face. She jerked at first and then wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close, her fingers clinging to his black fur.

      Logan stayed quiet for a moment, letting the dog ease Isabel out of her shock. Very slowly he laid his hand on her forearm. “Can you talk now?”

      She looked at him for a long time before she blinked, rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes and nodded, all the while keeping one arm around the dog.

      “I heard you scream. What happened?”

      She tried several times before the words came out. “It was the man, the one who pushed me into the ravine. I came to visit Cassie’s grave and he was here, watching me.”

      Logan frowned. “How do you know it was the same man?”

      Her eyes brimmed with tears. “That awful song. He sang the same song.”

      He kept his voice soft and gentle. “Did he touch you? Hurt you?”

      She started to tremble. “No. He just watched me. Watched me run and fall and get up and run again. He just watched me. And…”

      “And what?”

      Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Logan, he knew my name.”

      He squeezed her forearm, wishing he could force the fear out of her. “Stay here. I’m going to check around.”

      She looked panicked, so he added quickly, “Tank will stay with you. No one will touch you when he’s on duty.” He ordered the dog to stay and moved away.

      He did a quick perimeter check and worked his way inward in ever-diminishing circles until he rejoined Isabel. “No trace of anyone.”

      She was calmer now, but her voice still held an edge of panic. “He was here. I saw him. Leaning right against that tree. I’m not making it up.”

      Logan reached out a hand to her and, after a moment of indecision, she took it.

      “We’re going to go back to the police station, and this time, I’m staying with you.”

      FOUR

      Isabel hardly registered the walk as Logan took her by the arm and guided her back to the police station. She expected to see the leering face of the crazy man from the cemetery behind each tree and bush. All of her nerves were alive with residual fear. When she recoiled at the snap of a branch, Logan kept her moving forward. He was outwardly calm, but she could tell he was monitoring the surroundings as they made their way to the station.

      The only thing that kept her moving was the pressure of his strong hand holding hers and an occasional nudge from Tank’s wet nose. Some distant part of her mind questioned Logan’s concern. He was a stranger, looking to finish work on her sister’s ranch. She didn’t know a thing about him, really.

      Except that he’d climbed down a cliff to get her.

      And shown up at the sound of her scream.

      She tried to see some sign of his feelings on his face, but there was only a look of concentration there, a man doing his job.

      What was Logan’s job, anyway? The Triggs indicated he was military, but he’d had time to do construction work for Cassie and come to her aid twice. Was he home on leave?

      In a few minutes she found herself sitting in Officer Bentley’s office again, facing his disbelieving stare. If Logan hadn’t been standing next to her, she would have run for the door.

      The officer looked at Logan before he gestured for Isabel to talk.

      “I went to the cemetery and…” Fear closed over her again, her throat thick with tears. It was the same terrible fear she’d tried to put behind her since she’d sent her ex-husband to jail. She’d kept it tamped down, rolled into a dark corner of her heart, but it was back again, a jagged emotion that cut through her insides.

      Logan finished the story as best he could.

      Officer Bentley made more notes. “Did you see the guy, Logan?”

      “No.”

      He turned back to Isabel. “Could you identify the man if you saw his picture?”

      She nodded. “I think so.”

      He led her to a sparse room with an older model computer.

      “Probably got a faster way to do this back in L.A.” He asked Isabel for a basic description of the man—race, age range—and pulled up a series of pictures on the screen. “Start here and keep going until you find a match or run out of pictures.”

      She thought there was a hint of derision in his voice as she took her place at the computer. Logan sat down next to her.

      Bentley switched on a fan, which turned feebly in the stuffy air. “I’m going to check out the cemetery. I’ll be back shortly.”

      The door swung closed behind him with a sharp bang.

      Isabel looked at Logan. “He thinks I’m making this all up.”

      Logan sighed. “Maybe, but he’s a good enough cop to check things out anyway.”

      “Do you think that, too? That I’m making it up?”

      His green eyes bored into hers. “I believe you were honestly terrified in that cemetery. I also think that’s not an unfamiliar feeling to you.”

      Her cheeks warmed. “So you wonder if I might have dreamed up this guy because I’ve been in bad situations before?”

      “You didn’t imagine the footprint next to the ravine. I saw those myself.”

      She tried to read the feeling under his words. Skeptical, yes, but not dismissive. And for some unknown reason, he was doing his best to help her out. She couldn’t figure out a logical motive, so she applied herself to scrutinizing each picture. An hour later, she’d only made it through a couple hundred mug shots.

      “This is taking forever.” She looked around and found a notepad by the phone, along with the stub of a pencil. She sketched quickly until she got the essence of the man who had terrorized her. Long, thin face, pale skin, gray-blue eyes, long, reddish hair and the faintest hint of a goatee on his chin, a felt hat pulled down over the forehead.

      Logan watched over her shoulder as she drew, his hard shoulder touching hers. Pulse quickening, she handed the sketch to him.

      He whistled. “You are one talented artist.”

      She felt her face warm again. “A hobby of mine, since I was a child. That’s the guy.”

      He sat down again. “He looks like some kind of soldier from the past.”

      A shock went through her and she gasped. “That’s it.”

      “What?”

      “The song. He was singing a song about a wounded drummer and the flag. It made me think of an old soldier of some sort.”

      Logan looked closer at her sketch. “This man isn’t old enough to have fought in anything but maybe Desert Storm and Iraq. Let me make a copy of this and we’ll leave one with Bentley. With your permission, I’d like to send this along to a friend of mine. He may be able to help us ID the guy.”

      She nodded and turned back to the pictures as the song played in her mind.

      Logan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove back to Cassie’s ranch. Bentley hadn’t returned to the station before they’d left, but another cop had been there to take the sketch. No one in the database matched Isabel’s description of the man. “I’m sure the guy’s gone, but maybe you should consider staying in a hotel in town. Just for a few days.”

      Isabel