Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
There was a long pause. “Call me when you get home?”
“Will do. Later.”
He hung up and stepped on the gas. It wasn’t snowing and she’d know it if the blinds were still open in the room. He’d give her five minutes before she called him back. Skylar wasn’t stupid by a long shot, and her brothers were late visiting her. Coupled with the fact he’d left without saying goodbye after insisting he wouldn’t leave her side for the next two years, he figured it would be less than five.
Three minutes later his phone was ringing. He ignored it. He couldn’t lie to her if he didn’t answer. It was still ringing when he pulled in front of her home. The white truck was parked out front, but no lights were on inside. He needed Max, but there was no time to drive to town. If they kept to their schedules, they would have left school after Jake’s football practice. That would put them home around five thirty, tops. The past two days they’d come home, grabbed a snack, and anything Skylar asked them to bring up when they visited her. There was no way they came home and fell asleep. Not her brothers. If they were safe, they would have been on the road already after calling her a million times just to check on her. But now there was radio silence.
Logan grabbed his .40 caliber and flashlight from the glove box then climbed out of the cab slowly. He was five feet from the porch when he shined his light on the front door and found it slightly ajar. With his gun raised, he swept the outside, watching for another surprise attack. Dark spatter caught his light on the second pass, and he concentrated his light on the snow. Blood tainted the white just off the path.
“I will skin you alive with your own knife,” Logan hissed, following the trail with his light. It headed off toward the forest. Acres of it.
He needed his night vision and thermal scope. His M40. He could track them miles away with his sniper’s kit, and make a kill shot up to a mile in dead calm without his team. And the night was still enough to hear his heart beating in his chest.
Logan turned on swift feet and headed back to his truck. Once he had his gear on, he’d call Ty and report in. He needed someone to know his location and the state of play. If Chance managed to kill Logan, he wanted to make sure they knew where to look for the bodies and who the killer was.
He didn’t give Ty a chance to speak before he hung up, so Skylar wouldn’t be alerted. “Listen but don’t reply. I’m at the James homestead. Forest to the east of the house. Follow the blood trail. I’ll have my phone in my pack but silent. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow afternoon, track my GPS. If I don’t come back with her brothers alive, tell Skylar I died trying to keep my promise to her. That the last week has been the happiest of my life.”
Once he cut communication with Ty, he turned his phone to silent and stuffed it inside his pack to block out the light if someone managed to get a call through while he was tracking. He turned toward the forest abutting the James property and raised his M40, sighting the terrain in case Chance was waiting just inside the tree line to attack. His night vision allowed him to navigate the terrain, and his thermal scope alerted him to body heat.
All was quiet. No heat signatures. Time to track and bring Skylar’s brothers home.
_______________
His hand shook, but he didn’t let it stop him from sharpening his knife. He watched the James brothers struggle against their restraints in the firelight, while he slowly ground the steel blade to a sharp point.
Chance had been waiting for the brothers inside their cabin when they got home from school. He’d wanted the sister. The one who looked like his mother reincarnated, but she’d managed to get herself beat up and was in the hospital.
He studied his so-called brothers and looked for any resemblance. He was as dark as they were fair. Nothing of his mother had come through in his genetic makeup, but it had in theirs. Just like their sister.
The older one was still bleeding from his left shoulder, courtesy of Chance. He’d tried to play the hero when Chance surprised them in their living room, rushing to grab Chance’s weapon. The bullet went clean through and lodged in the wall. He would have dug it out of the log if he cared about being caught now, but his vengeance would be complete tonight. He’d wanted the sister to take to hell with him, but the brothers would do. As long as a part of Sarah James died alongside him, he could burn in hell happy.