The Sheriff of Horseshoe, Texas. Linda Warren

to me now.”

      “What?” Her body grew weak with fright. She wanted out of here, but not like this.

      “The sheriff won’t find us, might not even look. He’ll be glad to see the back of ya, fancy lady.”

      Her breath came in shallow gasps as he lugged her struggling body to a back door.

      Where’s the sheriff? went repeatedly through her mind like a prayer before a disaster. He was her only hope. Just moments ago she never wanted to set eyes on the man again, but now he was the only person she wanted to see.

      And she didn’t even know his name.

      The door came open easily and Zeke hauled her outside into the sultry summer night. The scent of crepe myrtles wafted on the soft breeze, the delicate fragrance pleasant and embracing, a sharp contrast to the terror that gripped her. She blinked at the bright floodlight that illuminated a parking area. To the left, her car and a rusty old truck were enclosed inside an eight-foot-high chain-link fence.

      Zeke dragged her toward the double gates. She tried everything she could to slow him down. She dug in her heels and then bit his arm, but to no avail. His heavy arm around her neck was strong and suffocating.

      When they reached the gates, he yanked out the gun and fired at the chain. Her pounding heart jammed against her ribs at the sound and her ears rang. She held on to her composure, though. Barely. Hysterical screams were right there at the edge of her throat. Someone would hear the shot and come, right?

      She held on to that thought.

      Zeke kicked open the gate and jogged toward the truck, still tugging her along. She realized this was her last chance and she gave full rein to the screams.

      He clamped a filthy hand over her mouth while opening a door and lifted her onto the seat as if she weighed no more than a rag doll.

      “Let me go, you maniac!”

      “Stop it.” He pointed the gun at her. “Or I’ll shoot ya.”

      Her throat closed up.

      “Git over,” he growled.

      In a moment of clarity she realized this really was her last chance. She quickly scooted over torn upholstery to the passenger’s side, intending to open the door and run like hell. The truck was strewn with trash and stank of rotted food and urine. Paper cups, newspapers, dirty clothes littered the floor and the seat.

      She held her breath against the stench as she searched for the door handle. There wasn’t one—just a hole where one used to be. No! No! Frantic, she ran her hand over the inside of the door one more time. Nothing.

      “Gimme yer hands.”

      She twisted around and saw he was in the truck and the door was closed. In his big hands was a small rope. She froze.

      “Gimme yer hands,” he said again.

      “No.” She backed against the door.

      Before she could do anything else, he grabbed her hands and whipped the rope around them with lightning speed. With one movement he jerked the rope so tight it cut into her skin. She had to force herself to take deep breaths.

      Fear held her paralyzed as Zeke fiddled with some wires beneath the dash. After a second the truck sputtered to life.

      Zeke let out a chilling victory laugh and slammed the stick shift into gear. The truck was backed into a parking spot, so when he hit the gas pedal, they shot through the gate and out into the night.

      Panic rose in her anew. She had no idea where he planned to take her. The sheriff would come, she kept telling herself.

      She’d told herself that earlier, she realized with annoying insight. She’d thought Quinn would come. And he hadn’t.

      All her life her father had made sure she never wanted for anything. All she had to do was be his little princess, the light of his life. He took care of all her problems, all her worries. She was loved, pampered, safe and secure.

      But now…

      For once in her life she was on her own.

      WYATT COULDN’T sleep. He didn’t feel right leaving Ms. Ross in the jail. Zeke was as obnoxious as a man could get and he’d likely taunt Ms. Ross all night long. Where was Ms. Ross’s important mother?

      He always trusted his gut instincts and something told him he was needed at the jail. Maybe it was his conscience. He slipped into jeans, boots and grabbed a short-sleeve shirt. Checking the jail one more time would give him some peace of mind and then maybe he could sleep.

      His mother, Maezel, known to everyone as Mae, was in the living room, watching an old Elvis movie. She was a fanatic about the man—there was Elvis memorabilia all over the house. Wyatt complained about it so much that she now kept most of it in her room. His mother was eccentric, to say the least. His childhood had been colorful and he knew every song Elvis had ever sung. Wyatt refused to talk about his middle name.

      “Mom, what are you doing still up?”

      She rose to a sitting position. At sixty-eight, his mother was still in good health, though prone to bouts of depression, when she went silent. Those silent spells got him, so he’d turn up the Elvis music and soon she was back to her old self.

      Pushing permed, short gray curls from her forehead, she replied, “I could ask you the same thing.”

      “I have to go back to the jail.”

      With her eyes on the TV, she said, “Jody says you have an uppity city lady locked up.”

      “Yeah. I have to check on her.”

      “Go. Go.” She waved him away. “I don’t want to miss this scene with Ann-Margret.”

      She’d seen the movie a hundred times at least, but that was his mother—living in Elvis Presley’s time zone.

      “If Jody wakes up, tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

      “She never wakes up,” Mae said, her eyes glued to the screen. “Viva Las Vegas.”

      He placed his hat on his head with a wry grin and headed for the back door.

      His father, John Wyatt Carson, had died ten years ago of lung cancer; he’d smoked two packs a day until a month before his passing. He was set in his ways, but he’d been a loving, caring father—although sometimes, especially when Wyatt was a teenager, a little stricter than Wyatt would have liked, His father had been a highway patrolman and believed in rules and discipline, as Wyatt did now. But somehow Wyatt wasn’t very good at disciplining his own child.

      His mother was very little help in that area. Mae Carson was an easygoing person who lived in the moment. Discipline wasn’t high on her list of priorities.

      She’d lost a son to meningitis when the boy was just five years old. That was before Wyatt had been born and his father had told him that his mother had never been the same afterward.

      For a solid year she’d grieved and no one could reach her, his dad had said, and then one day she started singing “Kentucky Rain” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” She’d listened to Elvis’s records over and over, and Wyatt’s father had let her be. She’d found her solace.

      Over the years his mother’s eccentricity increased. But these days she was content, and Wyatt was grateful to have her in his life to lean on when things got rough. She looked at the world a little differently, but who was to say what was right and what was wrong?

      She was probably the main reason he’d moved back into his childhood home. He needed a little of her kind of insanity in his life, Elvis songs and all. He slid into his car and headed for the jail.

      There’d been too much dying in the Carson family. Maybe that was why he was so lenient with Jody. He wanted their days to be happy because life could be snatched away without a moment’s notice. And he wanted every