Calder Pride (Calder Saga 5)

Ideas about redoing it floated through her mind even after she picked up a Michener epic she had started a couple weeks ago. It was almost midnight before Cat put the book down and accepted that Logan wouldn’t be home any time soon. She reached up to turn out the lamp. The instant her fingers touched the knob, the lights went out—both the one in the hallway and the overhead light in the living room.

“Great,” Cat muttered to herself.

The fuse box, she knew, was in the utility room. The location of the spare fuses was another matter entirely. Moving cautiously across the pitch black room, Cat groped her way toward the kitchen. She flipped the wall switch for the kitchen light, only to find it wouldn’t come on, either.

Then it hit her. The tall outside yard light was out as well. That’s why it was so black. Had the fire caused a power failure? Changing directions, Cat felt her way to the front door and looked out, half expecting to see the red glow of flames in the distance.

There was nothing, not even the smell of smoke in the air. Frowning, she scanned the yard, faintly suffused by pale starlight. Something moved along the lane. Cat stared into the pooled shadows, half-convinced she had imagined it.

She froze as a dark figure moved out of the blackness onto open ground where the dim light of the stars could outline him. A second figure joined him, both running toward the house with a hunched-over stealth. She couldn’t see their faces, then she realized why—something dark covered them.

Logan’s advice came back to her, the advice he had given her the night he had shown her various ways to break an attacker’s hold. “When you get loose, you run. Don’t try to fight. Don’t grab something and try to hit him with it. You run—and you run like hell.”

Cat lingered only long enough to close and lock the door, then raced to Quint’s room and snatched him out of bed. He protested sleepily, then sagged against her. As she reached the living room, a flashlight beam played over the front of the house. Taking a chance, Cat tightened her hold on Quint and ran across the intervening space to the kitchen, almost knocking over a chair before reaching the door to the utility room. She paused long enough to check the phone. As she expected, the line was dead.

After the jostling from the run, Quint was awake. “Mom, where—”

“Sssh.” She pressed a hand to his mouth and whispered, “There’s two men outside, trying to break into the house. We’re going to sneak out before they can catch us. Okay?”

“Where’s Dad?” he whispered back.

“He had to leave.” Cat glanced out the back door. Seeing not

hing, she slipped out as quietly as she could, and eased the door shut.

The instant her foot left the last step, she broke into a run and didn’t slow down until she reached the stand of firs twenty feet from the house. Needles brushed her face as she pushed her way between the outreaching branches of two trees.

She had no idea whether they had been seen. She couldn’t hear anything but the frantic pounding of her own heart. Already her arms ached from holding Quint, but she knew she didn’t dare put him down. Without shoes, he’d never be able to run over the rough ground. There was no choice; she had to carry him.

Run, she thought again. But where? And how? Both vehicles—hers and Logan’s—were parked in front of the house. If she tried to reach them, there was too much risk of being seen.

A snort and a shuffling of hooves came from the corral. Cat briefly considered saddling their horses, but that meant going into the barn, trying to find the tack in the dark. It would take too much time. Then she remembered Molly. Dear, sweet, reliable Molly. A halter and a lead rope were all she needed with that gentle, biddable mare. And both were just inside the rear barn door within easy reach.

Kneeling, she whispered to Quint, “Climb on my back.”

While he did, Cat measured the distance to the barn area and chose a route that gave them the most concealment. When Quint’s skinny arms and legs were securely clamped around her, she set out at a jogging trot.

Her fingers closed around the halter and lead rope with the first groping try. She threw a glance toward the house as a spear of light flashed over the back of it, then winked off. Fighting panic, she took a quick steadying breath and moved quietly among the horses.

The bay mare, as always, was easy to catch. Holding the lead rope looped around Molly’s neck, Cat led the horse out of the corral and halted deep in the barn’s soot-black shadows. There, she transferred Quint to Molly’s back, then buckled on the halter.

“Where are we going, Mom?” Quint whispered.

“To Uncle Culley’s.” She vaulted up behind him, centered herself on the mare’s back, then one-reined the horse into the darkness beyond the barn, confident she could find her way to Shamrock, thanks to the rides she and Quint had taken, exploring their new surroundings.

“Where the hell are they?” Rollie crawled into the van’s passenger side, the black ski mask muffling his voice. He yanked it off.

“How should I know?” Lath snapped in frustration, his own mask already lying between them on the seat. He gunned the motor and the van shot out from the concealing motte of trees onto the ranch lane.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Rollie declared, still feeling the pump of adrenaline. “They weren’t at the fire with Echohawk. We would have seen them. And the pickup and Suburban were both parked in front of the house. They had to be there.”

“They weren’t, damn it. We went through that whole house, closet by closet.” Nearing the intersection with the highway, Lath flipped on the headlights.

“I know.” Rollie wadded the knit mask into a ball and started to jam it into the pocket of his dark navy windbreaker, then stopped and felt inside the pocket. His heart froze, then started pounding wildly. He made a frantic search of his other pockets and swore bitterly. “Turn around, Lath. We gotta go back.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” He let up on the accelerator, slowing the van.

“The ransom note, it’s gone. It must have slipped out of my pocket back there.”