Chapter One
Leaving the diner, Danielle Glass walked down Main Street to the sheriff’s office. She wondered why Sheriff Wayne Champion had summoned her. It certainly couldn’t be to give her statement again.
With all her being, she wanted to forget what had happened to her in Malcolm Winters’s basement.
She stopped in her tracks and closed her eyes, recalling the horror she’d experienced at the hands of the beast.
Thank God, the bastard is dead. Even though the psycho was gone, her nightmares remained, mingling with older, dark memories.
Wyatt and Wade Masters, Mackenzie’s men, had taken out the son of a bitch and saved Danielle and Mac’s brother, Trent, from certain death. Mackenzie was a strong woman, and like her, was not native to Wilde, Nevada.
Wilde was different on so many levels, but the one thing that had made it the perfect place for Danielle to stay was that the citizens welcomed everyone without question. Questions were the last thing she needed. Being invisible and off the radar was the most important thing to her.
Turning left on Coyote Street, she headed to the entrance of the jailhouse.
She walked in and found the sheriff talking on the phone.
He motioned for her to take a seat. “She’s here now.”
She tensed. Who’s he talking to about me?
“Thanks, Austin.” The sheriff hung up the phone.
Realizing the man on the other end of the phone had been Austin Wilde, she breathed a sigh of relief. Austin was married to Jessie, one of the women Danielle had grown close to.
“Thanks for coming, Danielle.”
“What’s this about, Sheriff? I really have told you everything I can about what happened with Winters. I don’t have anything to add.”
“I know, but this isn’t about that. Not exactly. I have two reasons for calling you in.”
She didn’t like the sound of that.
“You know that Austin and I have been working together to bring down the drug cartel that Winters was working for.”
“Yes.”
“Austin found out that some of the cartel’s known associates have been digging around and asking questions about you and Trent Green. We believe that they are under the assumption that you and Trent have the money that Malcolm stole from them.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. We were Winters’s prisoners, not his partners.”
Sheri