Violet drove Wyatt’s beast of a truck right onto Grandma’s lawn, pulling as close to the front porch as possible before shifting into Park. She’d dialed Fortress Security while Sheriff Masterson had crammed Wyatt’s face against the hood of his cruiser, then explained the night’s events to Sawyer. The engine of his vehicle had growled through the line as she spoke.
Sawyer was on his way.
Still sitting in the truck, Violet noticed how the headlights flashed over ruined rows of Grandma’s prized roses, and her heart lodged in her throat. The mulch was littered with red and white buds, pink petals and whole yellow flowers, all chopped and crushed into the ground. The remaining stems were headless, thorn-covered sticks, standing broken and naked in the moonlight.
It was a silly thing to care about in the big scheme of things. They were just flowers. Only plants. But it was another threat. And it hit home hard. Whoever had done this knew how important the roses were to her grandma. And it only solidified Violet’s opinion that Mr. Masterson was the villain in this story. Not good news since she doubted his jerk of a son would ever arrest him, short of catching his father in the act of murder. Maybe not even then.
In the morning, Violet would talk to her grandma’s doctors about moving her to a facility outside Grove County, somewhere the Mastersons couldn’t reach her.
Anywhere but here.
Violet scanned the dark yard once more, thankful they’d left the porch light on. “One,” she whispered, steadying her nerves and checking her rearview. “Two.” She gripped the handle at her side. “Three.” Violet popped the door open and jumped out. She flung the cab’s back door open and hoisted Maggie’s car seat from the cradle, baby and all. Then she shut both doors with the flick of a wrist and bump of a hip. They flew onto the porch in three long strides. Violet juggled her sleeping baby in the heavy car seat while trying to work the key into Grandma’s new lock. Her clumsy hands and fraying nerves made the simple task nearly impossible.
“Come on,” she scolded herself as fear crawled all over her.
The night sounds seemed to close in on her. The wind was an ominous whisper in her ear, a chill along her neck.
She wrenched the door open and slammed it shut behind her with a whimper, securing the dead bolt and chain before checking the other doors and windows. “All clear,” she whispered to herself, repeating Wyatt’s confident phrase. The home was all clear. And she and Maggie were alone.
Violet scrubbed a heavy hand against her quivering lips, then forced her feet into motion. She tucked Maggie safely into her crib, then returned to the first floor to put on a pot of coffee. Next, she lowered her grandpa’s old rifle from its ornamental spot above the fireplace and loaded the heirloom with ammunition. Violet hadn’t had any target practice in a decade, but if someone came close enough to hurt her or Maggie, she wouldn’t miss.
Her mind raced, cluttered with the awful day’s events. Losing Maggie at the library. Watching Wyatt be forced away from her. Her heart even ached for Grandma’s roses. Violet had helped her choose the plants. She’d shoveled mulch and kept them watered each night as the sun went down. She’d tended them dutifully and with love until her last day in River Gorge. After that, she’d enjoyed Grandma’s calls to her college dorm room, updating her on the blooms. She’d been ecstatic to learn Grandma had won prizes for them at the county fair, and she’d been honored when Grandma planted a bush of white roses in Maggie’s honor following her baby’s birth. That tribute had meant the world, and now those buds lay scattered among the mulch, angrily trampled by whoever had committed the crime.
Two mugs of coffee later, a set of headlights flashed over the front window, and Violet raised Grandpa’s rifle. She marched slowly to the living room and peeled back the curtain. An old-model Jeep Wrangler sat in the drive behind her car. No driver.
She dropped the curtain and pressed her back to the wall, counting silently to settle her nerves, then she looked again. A man dressed in all black stood just outside the glass.
Violet clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from voicing her shock.
“Miss Ames.” A slow Southern drawl slid under the door and around the window frame, smooth as molasses and warm as fried chicken. “I’m Sawyer Lance. You can put the weapon down. I believe you invited me here.”
Violet stayed out of sight, but kept the rifle in clear view of the window. “Show me some ID.”
The man positioned a small white rectangle in his fingertips and extended his arm toward the window. “Sawyer Lance,” he repeated. “Fortress Security.”
Violet peeked.
His hair was sandy and overgrown, his beard thick and unkempt. His fitted T-shirt and jeans gripped every muscular plane of his body. He wasn’t as big as Wyatt, but he was close and twice as scary. The Fortress Security business card in his hand had his name embossed in black letters.
“Do you have a photo ID?”
He snorted, then bent at the waist peering through the glass, hands cupped at the sides of his face for a better view. “Are you kidding me?”
“Come on,” she demanded, waving the rifle’s barrel. “Show me, or get off my grandma’s property.”
He mumbled under his breath, then wrenched upright and fished a wallet from his back pocket. “I would like to state for the record that you’re implying I’m not me, which means someone is out here impersonating me and in possession of my business card. Furthermore, you are suggesting someone has gotten the best of me, taken my cards and vehicle and left me behind.” He turned a military ID in her direction. “I realize you do not yet know me, but trust me when I say that ain’t ever gonna happen.”
“Where’s your driver’s license?” she asked, stalling. Wyatt had told her to trust Sawyer, but opening the door to another stranger was proving tougher than she’d imagined.
“Expired while I was overseas.”
Violet inhaled deeply and opened the door.
Sawyer walked in. He dropped a black duffel on the couch and scanned the room. “How many people in the house?”
“Two,” Violet said. “My baby, Maggie, and me. Well, now you, too.”
“How old’s the baby?”
“Eight months.”
He nodded. “You were right not to trust me. I could’ve been dangerous, but I’m not.”
She felt her brow furrow. Her gaze lingered on his scarred face. The angry puckered skin of a newly healed burn marred the area over his left eye.
Pale blue irises studied her as she studied him. He kicked his cheeks up in a sudden grin. “I mean, I’m not dangerous to you, but I definitely am dangerous.” He waltzed through the room, heading for the kitchen. “Where’s the baby? How many rooms on each floor? How many entrances and exits?”
Violet struggled for words and tried to keep up. She answered as many questions as she could while he checked her work, testing the door and window locks, then exploring the home in detail. “Why haven’t you gotten a new driver’s license?”
“I just got home. Newly discharged.”
“How new?”
His smile dropped. “New enough. Where would you like me to set up for the night?”
“Wyatt slept on the couch.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Violet squirmed, the need to be hospitable warring with her desire to run upstairs and drag the bed in front of the door again. “I’ll get you some coffee.” She turned for the kitchen without waiting for a response.
Sawyer followed.
Violet’s chest constricted as she poured two mugs, recalling the way Wyatt had done the same just hours before. Where was he now? Why hadn’t he called? What was Sheriff Masterson doing to him? Would Wyatt have an “accident,” too?
She rubbed her eyes as tears threatened to form.
“You must really hate coffee,” Sawyer said.
She jerked her gaze to meet his. “I hate that Wyatt’s stuck in jail when he didn’t do anything wrong, and I don’t know what’s happening to him.”
“He’s fine.” Sawyer set his mug aside and began unloading a laptop from his shoulder bag.
“How do you know? Have you spoken to him?”
Sawyer stopped to stare. “Have you met him? Trust me. He’s fine.”
She flopped onto a vinyl padded chair at her grandma’s kitchen table and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“You guys are close?” Sawyer asked.
“He’s the only person I trust,” she said defensively, hoping Sawyer couldn’t see straight through her, too.
“Well, I’m going to try not to take that personally,” he said, logging on to the laptop and typing in a password. “Where’s your Wi-Fi?”
“No Wi-Fi. Wyatt’s using his phone as a hotspot.”
“Great.” The tone of his voice made it clear Sawyer didn’t think that was great at all. He extended long, lean legs beneath the table and stretched his neck slowly, tipping his head over each shoulder.
The phone rang before Violet could tell him to suck it up. She strode to the wall and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“Violet Ames?” a man asked. “This is Roger at River Gorge General Hospital.”
“Yes,” she answered breathlessly. “This is Violet. What’s happened? Is my grandmother okay?”
Sawyer stilled. His eyes lifted, focusing wholly on her.
“I’m sorry to say she’s taken a turn for the worse. We’re calling the family in now.”
Her heart sputtered. “What?”
“You should probably make your way back here,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Nausea rocked Violet’s gut as she hung the receiver back on its cradle. “My grandma isn’t going to make it,” she said, barely believing the words. “We were just there. She was doing great.” Someone’s done something to her. Bile rose in her throat at the thought.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Sawyer slid a key ring across the table in her direction. “Take the Jeep. No one here will recognize it. I’ll stay and watch over Mandy.”
“Who?”
“The baby.” He pointed up the staircase. “Your daughter.”
“Maggie.”
He nodded. “Unless you want to wake her. Then I’ll just hold down the fort. Whatever you want.”
Violet worked her mouth shut. She didn’t want to wake Maggie or leave her with a man she’d just met who couldn’t even remember her name. She also didn’t want to take Maggie back out on the road when who knew where the next disaster would occur.
Wyatt’s words echoed back to mind, strong and assured. Lock up tight until he gets there. Trust him when he does.
She turned her eyes back on Sawyer. He was a mess. Scarred face. Bruised knuckles. Messy hair, matted beard. He looked more like the problem than the solution, but Wyatt trusted him, and she trusted Wyatt. Violet took the keys from the table. “Maggie shouldn’t wake up before dawn. Don’t touch her if she does. Just call me on the number I called you from earlier. I’ll be home in an hour. If I’m not, I’ll be in touch again.”
He gave her a limp salute.
“Keep her safe,” she ordered.
“That I can do all day.”
* * *
VIOLET RAN THE length of the empty second-floor hallway to the nurse’s station. Tanya leaned against the desk, speaking to another nurse in patriotic scrubs. Her eyes widened at the sight of Violet.
“Sorry I took so long,” Violet said. “Have they moved her? I just realized I don’t even know if this is the right floor anymore.” Was she in another ward now? Critical care or wherever patients go to… Her throat ached and she couldn’t swallow. She worked to collect a full breath and some of her senses. “What can I do?”
Tanya looked as if Violet had grown a second head. “What are you talking about?”
“Grandma,” Violet answered, frustrated and suddenly uneasy. “Someone called to tell me to get down here.”
“Why?”
Violet’s limbs went limp with confusion. “Something went wrong. The hospital was calling in the family.”
“What went wrong?” Tanya asked. “Grandma’s the same as she was when you were here before.” Her eyes turned suspicious. “Who did you say called you?”
“Roger.” Violet turned toward Grandma’s room. “Roger from River Gorge General Hospital.”
Tanya shook her head slowly in the negative. “I don’t know anyone named Roger, and I’ve been here all night.”
Violet burst into motion, racing for her grandma’s room and praying that the phone call she’d received was a mean joke and not a threat on her grandma’s life. Her shoes skidded over the highly polished floor and ground to a halt outside her door. “Grandma?”
The curtain was pulled around the bed, making her grandma invisible in the dimly lit room.
“Grandma?” Violet’s skin heated. Her stomach knotted. Her tongue seemed to swell in her mouth as she hit the light switch and dived for the drawn curtain. Terror seized her chest as she whipped the flimsy curtain back.
Grandma’s face was serene and waxen as it had been during visiting hours, but the rolling tray used for mealtime had been positioned over her middle.
Tears stung Violet’s eyes as she took in the gruesome message before her.
The tray’s faux-wood finish was covered in crushed rosebuds and petals. A note lay among the destroyed blooms, stained with color from their petals.
Your baby or your grandma, Violet? You can’t protect them both.
48 hours and the clock starts now.