if there were gunmen in that vehicle.
Joelle stumbled, one of the thorny shrubs clawing at her arm, and she had to hold on to Dallas to keep from falling. But somehow, he kept them moving.
Even over the slapping sound of the rain, she heard his phone buzz. Maybe it was one of his brothers letting him know they were the ones in that vehicle. Joelle reached for the phone to answer it, but then she heard another sound. Not buzzing. But footsteps, as if someone were running just to their left.
She turned in that direction just as someone grabbed her by the arm and jerked her violently toward them. If it hadn’t been for the mud and her bare feet, she might have been able to keep her balance. But the motion caught her off guard and she went flying in the direction of the person who’d grabbed her.
Dallas snapped toward her and raised his weapon, but it was too late.
Someone jammed a gun against Joelle’s back.
* * *
DALLAS’S HEART WENT TO HIS knees.
Hell.
This was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid, and here he’d let it happen right next to him. He’d had his attention so focused on the rifle-toting person ahead of them that he hadn’t taken enough precautions to make sure the shooter was acting alone.
And now Dallas had proof that he wasn’t.
Before someone had grabbed Joelle, he’d gotten a glimpse of the rifleman, and there was no way the guy could have doubled back and gotten to them this quickly.
So who was the SOB who now had Joelle locked in a chokehold? Judging from the guy’s beefy arms, it wasn’t one of their suspects.
His phone stopped buzzing, which meant the call had probably gone to voice mail. He already had too much to deal with right in front of him, but he prayed that the call hadn’t been from Harlan to say that he and Kirby were under attack.
“You don’t want to do this,” Dallas tried. Yeah, it wasn’t much of a threat, but he took aim in the general direction of the guy’s head. The problem was that it was also in the direction of Joelle’s head.
Dallas didn’t have anything resembling a clean shot.
And that was just the first of his concerns. The guy was already dragging Joelle back, toward the trees, trying to take her God knows where. Plus there was a rifleman out there somewhere. And that vehicle. If his brothers weren’t in there, then he and Joelle were in big trouble.
Still, Dallas wasn’t just going to let this Neanderthal haul her away.
Even in the darkness he could see the fear all over Joelle’s face. This guy outsized her by a lot, and he was obviously much stronger than she was. He was moving her as if she were a rag doll.
Trying to keep watch and listen for signs that someone else was sneaking up on them to join this, well, whatever this was, Dallas inched after the man and Joelle.
“Let her go,” Dallas ordered. “If you want a hostage, then take me.”
“Admirable,” the man growled, “but I got my orders.” He was wearing a small communicator looped over his ear, and he said something into it that Dallas didn’t catch.
Probably talking to his boss.
Dallas intended to find out who that was and make the person and this lackey pay. Joelle had enough bad memories to last a lifetime without these jerks adding more.
“Dallas?” someone called out.
It was Clayton, and Dallas would have been relieved at hearing his brother’s voice if there hadn’t been another sound.
A gunshot.
“Stay down!” Dallas shouted to Clayton, and he prayed he wasn’t too late with that warning. “Someone with a rifle might be moving toward the house. Call Harlan if you can.”
Might.
Dallas had to accept that the rifleman might have been a decoy. Someone to distract him so that someone else could go after Joelle.
And unfortunately that’s exactly what’d happened.
But what the devil did this person want with Joelle?
Maybe it was Lindsey or Owen hell-bent on revenge. That would make sense. Well, it would in the minds of criminals and lunatics. Of course, this could be connected to the investigation. Which meant any of their suspects could have orchestrated this.
The question was, why?
Dallas slung off the rain from his face and eyes. It didn’t help. More rain came, blurring his vision, and even though the sky was starting to lighten up, it was still hard for him to see much other than Joelle and those frightened eyes.
“What do