A figure lies beside the table, half hidden behind it.
I ease back on my heels. The figure isn’t moving. Do they see me? Do they think they’re hidden?
No, if they were trying to hide, their arm wouldn’t be splayed across the floor.
It isn’t Anders, come home and jumped by an intruder. The light brown skin confirms that.
Someone has broken into Anders’s chalet. Someone who is currently upstairs. And there’s a second person motionless on the floor.
I don’t rush over to help. Even if I did think it was a victim, I’d need to secure the scene first. With my gaze fixed on the supposedly unconscious figure, I reverse until I reach the base of the stairs.
I climb the steps sideways, gaze swinging between the prone figure and the darkness upstairs. When I’m at the top, I pause to consider my options. The chalets have three upstairs areas. Bedroom, bathroom, storage. A tiny hall connects the three. I need to swing around to face the other direction, while not forgetting the person downstairs.
As soon as I’m where I need to be, something rattles in the bedroom. The intruder is going through Anders’s things, drawers opening, objects inside shuffling and shifting. I lift my flashlight, ready to flick it on as soon as I’m through the doorway.
One step, two steps—
A floorboard creaks behind me. My brain screams that I’ve forgotten the person downstairs, but I haven’t. This creak comes from the storage closet.
I spin, but the intruder is already lunging from the closet. Hands slam me into the wall. I recover fast and smash my heavy flashlight into a dark jaw. I catch a glimpse of a face and see only a black mask.
The figure stumbles back. I kick, and they hit the ground with a masculine “oomph.” Then someone slams into my left shoulder.
The intruder in the bedroom.
I swing, but the one on the floor grabs my leg and yanks it from under me. I manage to hit the second figure with the flashlight and then I kick.
I’m reaching for my gun when a blade stabs me in the leg. A flash of pain. A fist behind my knee.
I stumble. Hands shove at me as I fight them off, and a memory ignites. Me in an alley, falling under a rain of blows and kicks. I lash out, but these blows aren’t an attack—they’re a defense, my attackers shoving me aside as they make their escape.
A hand grabs my shoulder and elbows hard enough that I spin, losing my balance, that pain in my leg buckling my knee. By the time I get turned around, they’re already clambering down the stairs.
I pull my gun and take off after them. I’m at the bottom of the stairs when the figure by the coffee table rises. I catch the movement and spin.
“Hands up! Now!”
The figure continues rising unsteadily. A face turns toward mine, brown hair hanging over it. A slender hand brushes the hair back, and I’m about to repeat my order when I see Marissa’s face.
“Casey?” she says, her voice slurred. “Where’s Will?”
Shit.
I tell Marissa I’ll be right back. I’m already in flight, already racing toward the back of the house.
Marissa calls after me. I ignore her. I fly out the rear door and …
And there’s no one in sight.
FIVE
I still go after them. Try to, at least. I run around the front of the house and look for signs of movement in the dark streets. Seeing none, I jog into the forest behind the chalet. There I listen for the crash of escape.
Nothing.
In this darkness, they could be hiding ten feet away. I need to get Storm and track them, but Marissa is in the doorway, groggily calling after me.
I get her to lean on me, and I take her to April as quickly as I can. I ask my sister not to release Marissa until I’ve returned. April doesn’t let me get away that easily. She insists on checking my leg. The pain hasn’t let me forget that I’ve been stabbed, but it’s not slowing me down any more than my old leg injuries.
“There is blood dripping down your leg, Casey,” she says when I grumble.
She says more than that, but I tune it out until I get the magic words.
“You seem fine,” she says. “But come back as soon as you’re done so I can reassess and clean—”
I’m already running for home. I’m halfway there when I spot Dalton and Storm. I change direction and sprint their way.
“I lost track of time,” Dalton calls as I draw near. “You were counting on that, weren’t you? Letting you work into the wee hours of the morning. Should have at least insisted you take the dog—”
He stops, as if I’m finally close enough for him to see the blood. “Casey?”
“It’s a scratch,” I say. “April’s looked at it. I foiled a breakin at Will’s. I lost the intruders. I need Storm.”
If he answers, I don’t hear it. I’m already jogging back to Anders’s place with Storm at my side. Dalton calls that he’ll warn Anders and then conduct his own tracking while I handle Storm.
Two years ago, Dalton bought Storm for me with the excuse that Rockton needed a tracking dog. Newfoundlands are hardly world-renowned trackers—they just happen to be my favorite breed.
Only later did I realize that even saying Rockton needed a tracking dog far oversold the matter. We already have Dalton. Between the two, they cover all the bases. Storm follows scents while Dalton tracks the visual signs I’d miss. A scuffed print here. A broken twig there. That spot where, if you look closely, you can see that the undergrowth parted as someone ran through.
The biggest advantage to using Storm is that no one can accuse her of framing them. Also, people trust a tracking dog over a human tracker. Everyone’s seen movies where the dog tracks a month-old scent through a snowstorm and finds the missing hiker. When it comes to dog noses, people truly do believe in magic.
Working independently, Dalton and Storm arrive at the same destination: Conrad’s door. The two intruders ran through the woods. They stopped about twenty feet away and hid in the bushes when I came out. Once I was busy helping Marissa, they continued on and circled the town, exiting near Phil’s chalet and then weaving through the shadows to Conrad’s place.
With the trail clear and fresh, Storm gets there first. I hear Dalton not far behind, and I wait for him to arrive. When he sees where the trail leads, he snorts.
“Didn’t need trackers for that,” he mutters.
“No, but it’s good to have supporting data. I’ll suggest I talk to him, and you join me afterward. Give Storm all the credit.”