Fatal Burn (West Coast 2)

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

With her scuffs pushing through the muck that still remained, she made her way to the front door. The house was locked and she had no key.

“Wait. I’ll get it.” Shea used a key from his ring and opened the door, the key she’d given him when she was still married to Ryan. It seemed eons ago, now.

As she opened the door, she expected Khan to hurl himself at her, but the cottage was empty. And silent. No clicking toenails on the stairs, no eager whines, no wiggling body begging for her to pet him. Only the hum of the refrigerator and the drip of the faucet in the kitchen. Shannon snapped on a light and stood in the foyer. Everything was as she’d left it, and yet it seemed different, almost surreal. As if she hadn’t been inside in years, rather than days.

She walked into the kitchen, twisted hard on the faucet and spied her bananas and apples now rotting in a basket on the table. Her cell phone charger was in place and her purse, on the end of the counter, looked undisturbed.

Shea was still standing in the doorway, on the other side of the threshold. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Except for Khan.”

“Either Santana’s got him or he’s with the others,” Shea guessed.

“Probably.” But it didn’t feel right. Everything looked the same, but the atmosphere in the cottage had lost its warmth, its coziness. She rubbed her arms as if chilled, though she was still sweating from the heat.

“I’ll go look for him when I check the other animals, you…go on, get cleaned up.” He glanced at his watch again. “Can you handle the stairs by yourself?”

She forced a smile she didn’t feel. “I think I’ll manage. Am I keeping you from something? A hot date?”

“What?” He looked up sharply. Caught her expression and grinned. “No…Nothing. A habit.”

She wasn’t sure he was telling the truth but wasn’t in the mood to argue. Not tonight.

“I’ll leave the door open. Yell if you need me,” he advised and turned abruptly, heading toward the stable at a quick jog. He seemed jumpy. Out of sorts. But then so was she. No doubt her whole family was.

She made her way upstairs, one painful step at a time and once in her bedroom, where the bed was still unmade, she made a stab at cleaning herself up. She washed her face, ran a wet cloth over her body, slapped on sheer lipstick and a bit of mascara, then, with some difficulty, pulled on a pair of jeans and a knit top. She couldn’t bend over without a lot of pain, so she stepped into a pair of flip-flops, then tried and failed to tame her hair. It was wild and curly and in the back, there was a large patch missing where her head had been shaved and a neat row of stitches held her scalp together. With gentle fingers she swept the hair over the delicate spot, secured the unruly curls into a ponytail and surveyed her reflection with a wry look.

She looked marginally better, but she wasn’t out to win any beauty contests.

Not that it mattered, she just wanted to square off with Travis Settler.

She was on her way downstairs when she heard an engine barreling up the drive. Headlights cut through the night as she stepped outside. She expected to find Nate Santana returning with Kahn, nose poking out the window, in the passenger seat.

Instead she spied her brother Robert’s new sports car, a BMW with a silver finish that looked nearly liquid in the lamplight. He’d bought the thing the weekend he’d moved out of the house that he’d shared with Mary Beth and their two kids. In Shannon’s estimation the flashy car was just one more symptom of his malaise known as midlife crisis.

Robert wasn’t alone. Aaron was in the passenger seat and as they climbed out of the sleek vehicle, Shea appeared in the doorway of the kennel and half-ran to catch up with his siblings.

“So what’s this?” Shannon asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “An ambush?” Eyeing the stern expressions on each of their faces, she added, “By the Brothers Grim? That’s with one m.”

“Funny,” Robert muttered.

“So where’s Oliver?” Shannon asked.

“With Mom…or at the church,” Robert said. “You know how it is, the Lord’s work is never done.”

“What’s up?” she asked, her accusatory gaze landing on Shea. “Don’t you guys gang up on me and try and talk me out of meeting Settler, cuz it’s not gonna work.”

“We just want you to have all the facts,” Aaron said.

“Like the fact that you told these two what was going on”—she wagged her finger at Robert and Shea—“even though we had an agreement?”

“Because of the fire.”

She was still irritated as all get-out. “So what’s on your minds?”