Calder Pride (Calder Saga 5)

“…okay,” Ty mumbled.

Cat ran back into her bedroom, grabbed a pair of tennis shoes from the closet and raced for the stairs.

“Cat, where are you going?” her father demanded.

“The lines are dead. There’s a mobile phone in the truck.”

She flew down the steps and heard a door shut somewhere in the house. The path through the living room was ingrained in her memory. She crossed it without checking her headlong pace. At the front door, Cat paused long enough to push a foot into one of the shoes, then hopped onto the front porch while tugging on the other one.

The rumbling growl of an engine starting up momentarily froze her.

It came from behind the house. The kidnappers. It had to be the kidnappers.

Cat ran to a pillar and flattened herself against it as a van came barreling around the corner of the house, its lights off. She watched to see which direction it went. When it turned onto the north road, she ran to the pickup.

The interior light flashed on when Cat opened the door on the driver’s side. She snatched the keys off the floor mat and scrambled behind the wheel, driven by only one thought—she had to find out where they were taking Quint.

Hurrying, she inserted the key in the ignition and started the truck. She reached for the headlight switch, then pulled her hand back. She had been born and raised on this ranch. Cat knew its roads better than whoever had taken Quint. Gunning the motor, she reversed away from the house and sped after the van.

The lights atop the patrol car flashed their eye-jarring cadence, throwing their jerky glare across the Shamrock ranch yard. Logan spotted the dark, wet glisten of a blood trail that led straight to the house. The hand that had been on the butt of his .45 now drew it.

“Stay alert, Garcia,” he told the deputy with him. “It could be a trap.”

Moving parallel to the trail, they followed it to the front stoop and flanked the door. Logan checked to make sure the stocky deputy was ready, then burst onto the porch and into the darkened house, Garcia on his heels. High-powered flashlight beams raked the interior. Then Logan hit the wall switch, flooding the living room with light.

A scratching sound came from the kitchen. At a nod from Logan, the two men moved toward it with caution. The beam picked out O’Rourke’s body on the floor, the back of his shirt soaked with blood. The telephone was near him, his fingertips touching the beeping receiver off the hook.

Logan flipped on the light switch, motioned for Garcia to check the rest of the house, then went to the motionless body, sidestepping the blood smears on the floor. Crouching beside him, Logan pressed two fingers to O’Rourke’s carotid artery and found a pulse. It was on the thready side, but it was there.

“Hang on, O’Rourke. Hang on.” Logan holstered his gun and ripped open O’Rourke’s shirt, exposing two bullet wounds. One appeared to be an exit wound, while the second was an entrance wound, an apparent kill shot, intended to finish off the old man.

Garcia returned to the kitchen. “We’re clear.” His dark eyes focused on O’Rourke.

“He’s alive,” Logan told him. “Grab some towels. We need to get a compression bandage going and slow down this bleeding.”

“How the hell did he drag himself all the way in here, shot up like that?” The deputy moved to the cupboard, pulling out drawers.

“Sheer force of will.” Logan picked up the receiver on the old rotary dial phone and depressed the cradle’s disconnect button, silencing the irritating beep. A

soft moan came from O’Rourke as his fingers moved in a feeble effort to reach the phone. Logan bent close to his face. “O’Rourke, are you with me? Can you hear me?” Lashes fluttered and lifted, showing him glazed and unfocused green eyes. “Who did this, O’Rourke? Who shot you?”

“…don’ know…” The words were barely louder than a breath.

“…mas’…”

“He had on a mask?” Like the kidnappers. The connection in Logan’s mind was instant.

Eyes closed in confirmation. “Yeah…Ca’…alone…sorry…” The last faded into a long feathering breath.

There was a perceptible slumping of his body. Seeing it, Logan thought they had lost him. But, no, the pulse was still there. Gathering up the phone, Logan straightened and moved out of Garcia’s way, then silently cursed the slowness of the rotary dial. He wouldn’t let himself think about the mask yet.

“Jenna, it’s Echohawk,” he said the instant her voice came on the line.

“Logan. Thank God, I—”

“O’Rourke’s alive—barely. Get an ambulance out here double quick. Alert the air-evac while you’re at it.”

“Right away. I’ve been trying to reach you on the radio,” she rushed. “Your wife called—two men in a van took your son. Ty Calder was shot. I’ve got paramedics headed there now.”