He heard a dog’s low growl and then a snarl.
Wyatt ran forward in time to see the silhouette drop. He launched himself on top of the man, letting his fists fly, relishing the pain in his knuckles as they connected with the other man’s jaw.
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and thought it might be another assailant, but quickly realized it was Elsie. “Elsie, run!” he yelled at her.
“Wyatt?” Her voice was perplexed, shaking and colored with fear.
The attacker chose that moment, when Wyatt was distracted by her voice, to hit hard—hard enough to stun Wyatt momentarily. The man rolled out from under him and started to run.
The dog growled.
“Willow, stay.”
Wyatt took off after the man through the maze of the cabin and out the front door. The attacker had a head start and seemed to know where he was going. He peeled off into the woods. Wyatt followed for as long as he could, feet pounding the earth, until he finally had to admit he’d lost the trail. His breathing ragged, he forced himself to admit what he knew to be true.
The man was gone.
He kicked the ground and bit back a word he hadn’t used in years.
Noise behind him made him swivel his head to look up. It was Elsie and her dog.
“Wyatt?” So many questions in her voice and in the way she said his name.
He didn’t have answers. Instead he said, “I’m sorry I lost him.”
“It’s okay. It wasn’t... It’s not your problem.”
“Do you know who it was?”
She hesitated. He saw her face, as though she were debating her answer, but then she slowly shook her head. It was odd. He almost felt like she was lying. But she’d have no reason to, right? Especially not about something like this, with her safety on the line. Still...
“You sure you don’t?” He pushed anyway, wanting the truth.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before. Not that I remember, anyway.”
There was something odd in that statement that he wanted to come back to, but now wasn’t the time.
His gaze had moved to Willow. “Your dog tracks people, correct? Lost people?” He thought he’d heard something like that.
She nodded.
“Technically I lost the trail. Could she...?”
“She could. But I don’t want to ask her to. It’s too dangerous for her.”
“Dangerous for her? Someone attacked you tonight. We have to find out who.”
“We don’t have to do anything,” she said firmly, more so than he was used to hearing her talk. He’d always thought of Elsie as his sister’s delicate little friend. She was petite, barely came to his shoulders, and slight enough that it seemed if the wind kicked up too hard, it could probably blow her away.
Her voice was anything but delicate right now.
“Elsie, please.”
She sighed deeply, then bent toward the dog. She leaned close, buried her hands in the dog’s fur and pressed their foreheads together, then stood up slowly.
He didn’t think she’d said anything out loud to the dog, but Willow took off.
“If my dog gets hurt, I’m holding you responsible.”
Yeah, because it was his fault he could have gotten his own self killed trying to protect her from whoever had been trying to attack her.
She didn’t exactly seem grateful. Of course, to be fair, she hadn’t invited him here. He’d headed over himself with hardly thinking it through.
They hurried through the woods after the dog. She stayed in their line of sight, but it was still exhausting trying to keep up with the husky, who ran over roots and obstacles with grace while Wyatt found himself stumbling, exhaustion making him clumsier than usual.
Finally, the dog let out a howl, one that reverberated with a melancholy that reminded Wyatt more of a wolf than a dog.
“She lost the trail, too,” Elsie translated.
They hurried to her side, emerging from the shadows of the woods onto the beach that made up the other side of Destruction Point.
Wyatt moved closer to the water and thought he could make out marks in the beach. Footprints or boat prints—it was impossible to say with the texture of the sand. “He may have had a boat waiting. So he intentionally targeted you. This wasn’t a crime of opportunity or he’d have had a boat in front of your house somewhere.”
“It looks like that.” Her voice was flat. Frustrated. Fearful but not surprised.
That was what had caught him off guard earlier. With all the emotions he was picking up on, surprise wasn’t one of them.
Shouldn’t it be?
