roads to get home. Still, she wasn’t excited by the thought of the frigid walk through the dark.
Not for the first time she considered moving closer to the office. She wouldn’t have the yard that currently surrounded her mobile home, or a view of the lake, but she could avoid the trudging back and forth.
Heading out through the back-storage room, she didn’t bother to turn on the lights. It was easy enough to follow the narrow path between stacked boxes and old, broken furniture. She could do it with her eyes closed.
It wasn’t until she heard the unmistakable tread of a footstep that she regretted the thick darkness that made it impossible to see.
Her heart thudded, the pizza she had for lunch churning uneasily in her stomach.
“Hello? Who’s there?” Reaching out her hand, she tried to find something she could use as a weapon. There was nothing. “How the hell did you get in here?”
“I’m sorry, Sherry.”
A portion of her terror lessened. There was something familiar about the voice. Was it one of her tenants?
“You better be sorry,” she told the intruder, reaching into the pocket of her jogging suit to pull out her phone. “This is breaking and entering. Don’t think I won’t call the sheriff.”
There was a sound like someone clicking their tongue. “You brought this on yourself.”
“Bullshit. If you needed something, you should have come through the front door during normal business hours.”
Sherry hit the flashlight on her phone and swung it toward the intruder. The idiot was too far away to make out more than the fact that he or she was bundled in a heavy coat with a stocking cap on their head and something clutched in their hand.
A gun?
Shit.
“You never change,” the intruder drawled. “All that squawking in an effort to disguise just how weak you are.”
“Weak? I’m not weak,” she tried to bluff, cautiously inching backward. If she could get into her office, she could lock the door and call the sheriff. “Just ask anyone.”
“Terrorizing helpless victims doesn’t make you strong. Most cowards are bullies.” The arm lifted, pointing the gun straight toward the middle of her chest. “Laugh for me, Sherry.”
Her mouth was so dry she could barely speak. “What?”
“Laugh.”
“I can’t—”
“Do it.”
The words were low . . . almost gentle . . . but they sent a blast of terror through Sherry. This wasn’t some weird-ass joke. The intruder was going to shoot her if she didn’t find some way to get out of there.
Parting her lips, she forced a hoarse laugh past the lump jammed in her throat. It echoed through the room, sounding unnaturally loud in the silence.
“Just like a donkey.” There was disgust in the voice.
Sherry flinched. Her father used to say that. You bray just like an ass. . . .
She slid her thumb to the corner on the screen of her phone and pressed. That was emergency service, wasn’t it? Then, praying that someone was on the way to save her, she tried to distract the intruder. “What did I ever do to you?”
He stepped forward. “You didn’t see.”
“See what?”
“Me.”
Sherry scowled. Why was the weirdo talking in riddles? If they had a beef with her, then just spit it out.
She was on the point of demanding an explanation when she heard the sound of a click followed by a sharp pain in her right shoulder. Had he shot her? It didn’t sound loud enough to be a gun, but maybe he had a silencer on it.
Terrified to even look, Sherry forced herself to glance down at her shoulder, not sure what to expect. What she saw wasn’t a gaping hole or spurting blood from a bullet wound. Instead it looked like a long metal tube was sticking out of the velvet material of her jogging suit.
She tried to puzzle out what was happening, but her brain felt fuzzy. As if it was being stuffed with cotton. And her dry mouth was now parched.
What the hell?
She took a stumbling step in a futile effort to escape, but her weak knees abruptly gave way and she landed flat on her back. She grunted in pain. She was a large woman who hit the cement floor with enough force to knock the air from her lungs. It wasn’t the impact, however, that caused her heart to halt in pure horror.
It was the dark form that moved to stand directly over her.
“Laugh for me, Sherry.”
Chapter 2
After a night of tossing and turning, Dr. Lynne Gale had barely managed to fall into