Nightmare. It was just a nightmare.
On a slow exhale, she dropped her brow to the floor.
Another two shots shattered the stillness of night. Rowan jerked her head up, pulse kicking back to high gear.
Not a nightmare. Someone was shooting at the house.
A thud sounded from down the hall, launching her heart into her throat.
Oh God, oh no, oh shit. Was someone in the house?
Rowan kicked free of the covers tangled around her legs and rose into a crouch, retrieving the case with her Sig Sauer from the nightstand drawer. Her fingers fumbled through the combination.
“C’mon. C’mon!”
Snick.
The lock sprang open and she pulled out the gun, sliding in a fresh magazine. Though she wanted to race, she forced herself to slow down, clear the rooms as she made her way down the hall to Robert’s bedroom. Prepared for the worst, she opened the door, immediately ducking to make herself a smaller target.
Robert lay on the floor, gasping for breath, clutching his chest. Rowan swept the room. No intruder. No shattered glass.
She didn’t have time to make sense of that as she knelt by her great uncle. No blood. But that was only a minor relief. His pulse thundered every bit as hard as hers and his face was pale, even in the moonlight streaming through the windows.
“It’s gonna be okay, Unk. I’m getting help.” Please don’t let me be too late.
Keeping out of the line of sight of the windows, she grabbed the cordless phone from one of the nightstands and dialed 9-1-1 as she hurried back to Robert.
“9-1-1, what is the nature of your emergency?”
“Multiple shots have been fired outside 1137 Boydell Road, and I need an ambulance for a fifty-five year old man having a heart attack.”
“Can the shooter get into the house?”
“I…” Damn it. She hadn’t checked the doors. With a quick look at Robert, she bolted to the front of the house, then to the back door in the kitchen. Both locked. “No. As best I can tell, no one has come inside.”
“Is the heart attack patient breathing?”
Rowan ran back down the hall and dropped to her knees beside him. “Yes, but it’s extremely labored and his color is terrible. His pulse is strong but very fast. He just had bypass surgery three weeks ago.”
Rowan could hear the rapid clacking of a keyboard.
“Is the shooter immediately outside?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you just hear the shots or did you see someone?”
Questions. Endless questions. As a cop she knew they had to be asked, but she just wanted them to send someone… “The sound woke me up, then I heard two more.”
“So you didn’t see anyone?”
“No.” God, she was every useless witness she’d ever interviewed.
“Do you have any idea who the shooter might be?”
Rowan considered who might have followed her from Houston, but there was no sense getting into that now. “No.”
“Which direction did the shots come from?”
“North, I think. From the back side of the house. They sounded close.” And yet how was it there was no shattered glass? The sound had been so loud, she’d swear someone was shooting at the house.
“Okay, police are on their way. The fire department and ambulance are right behind, but they will not come to the scene until the police clear them.”
“Understood.” Rowan bit back the need to urge them to hurry. They’d get here as soon as they could.
Please don’t be too late.
She wanted to go outside herself, to track down whoever the fuck had done this, but she didn’t dare leave Robert. As soon as the dispatcher finished giving her instructions for her great uncle, she disconnected and dialed Nash.
He answered on the first ring. “What’s wrong?” Was he one of those guys who sounded wide awake when you woke him in the middle of the night?
Everything. “Robert’s having another heart attack.”
“I’m coming over.”
“No! I don’t know where the shooter is.” What if he’d withdrawn to the woods and was just waiting to pick off anyone to come out of or up to the house?
“Shooter? What shooter?” Nash’s voice went sharp, and she could hear him shifting into tactical mode.
“Someone was shooting at the house. It’s what woke me up.”
The long beat of silence had her gut clenching even tighter.
“Rowan, I’ve been awake since you left. I didn’t hear a thing.”
She couldn’t let the implications of that sink in. Not yet. She had to focus on the thing she knew with certainty was real. Robert needed medical attention. “The police and medical are on their way. I have to go.”
Without another word, she hung up the phone.
Bending low over her uncle, she gripped his hand hard. “Don’t you dare die on me.”
But Robert didn’t squeeze her hand back. He’d slipped into unconsciousness.
As the phone clicked to silence, Nash swore. Pausing only to arm himself and throw on some shoes and his Kevlar vest, he slipped out of his own house and ran toward Robert’s. If there was a shooter, he’d be unlikely to expect someone approaching on foot. An actual shooter was probably already gone by now. Unless the mission was to kill rather than harass.
Was there really a shooter? Was there a mission?
If someone had used a suppressor, the sound wouldn’t have carried all the way to his house. But Rowan had said the sound of shooting woke her. Maybe she meant the sound of bullets striking the house or breaking a window. Until confronted with evidence that said otherwise, he had to assume he was stepping into a dangerous situation.
Toward the end of his driveway, he moved into the woods, intending to approach from the left flank. A shooter with any brains would be firing from the cover of trees. Slowing his pace, Nash scanned the area. Lights were still off in the house. Rowan would be keeping low, making sure not to highlight them both as prospective targets to anyone looking inside. He wished he’d grabbed a flashlight, though that would’ve just as easily made him a target. How far out was backup?
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he circled the perimeter of the house. He didn’t see any movement. He didn’t find signs of anything by the time two more Wishful PD officers pulled up a few minutes later, followed by Chief Greer. Nash announced himself and gave a quick report.
“Have you seen Robert?” Ethan asked.
“Not yet.”
“Fire and medical are staging off-site, waiting for our go ahead. Let’s make another sweep to ensure the scene is secure. Caller believes the shots were fired from the north side of the house.”
The second, more thorough sweep turned up nothing. The only footprints they found were Nash’s. Ethan radioed the okay to the medical personnel. “Let’s go talk to Rowan.”
She answered the door armed. Her face was pale, with lines carved around her unsmiling mouth and eyes hard as marble. But her hands didn’t shake as she looked from Ethan to Nash.
“Everything’s clear,” Ethan told her.
As he spoke, the ambulance pulled into the drive, lights flashing.
Looking beyond him to help, she smoothly lowered the gun and opened the door. Nash didn’t miss that she avoided his gaze as they came inside.