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What were the chances?

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” The familiar voice sang through the barn where the air was cold, but Cassie’s hands sweated over the grip of the pistol. Teeth chattering, she clenched her jaw and, using both hands, leveled the gun as she prayed she could blow the bitch away.Advertisement

“Come on, Cassie,” the voice called out from the darkness, and there was something familiar about it, a quality she recognized.

Who? Think, damn it, who is it?

“Don’t you want to meet me?”

No!

Cassie stared at the hallway, into the darkness. Did she see a bit of movement? Was it the woman stalking her? Or something else? Trent? The dog? A horse? Damn it. Throat dry, she squinted and moved the muzzle of the pistol toward the shifting light. That voice, disembodied and muffled, kept getting nearer.

“Come on, Little Sister,” she coaxed. “We could have some fun.”

Fat chance.

Cassie drew in a shaking breath and thought she heard sirens. Oh, God, were they wailing ever closer?

Please, please, please . . .

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The gun wobbled in her hands.

At that second her attacker stepped from around the corner.

Cassie screamed, her finger frozen on the trigger.

In the half light she saw a woman’s slim figure and above it a gruesome face. What? In the shadowy light she realized it was her own face, like the reflection in a mirror from a house of horrors, the image distorted and melting off its skull. A mask. “Oh, God,” she whispered, then noticed the long-barreled gun pointed directly at her chest.

Cassie squeezed the trigger, but the shot went wild, ricocheting through the rafters, blasting loudly as Cassie tried to scramble away. With the killer blocking her escape, Cassie tried to get off another shot.

Too late.

The killer fired.

Craaack!

The noise was deafening.

Pain erupted in Cassie’s shoulder and the blast propelled her hard against the back wall. Hot, searing agony shot through her as her body slammed into the wood and the killer took aim again.

She’s going to kill me, Cassie thought wildly as the wall behind her suddenly gave way and she was falling backward, tumbling into a Stygian vortex.

I’m dying, she thought frantically, as she sommersaulted through the darkness.

Bam! She landed.

“Oof!”

Her skeleton jarred, but whatever she’d fallen on gave way. Sank a bit. Was even squishy in some places. Dust filled the air and there was a noise like tiny pebbles shifting in a jar.

What?

Where the devil was she, and in God’s name, what was she lying on?

“Did Little Sister fall down and go boom?” her half-sister taunted and Cassie, her mind unclear from the fall, looked upward to see a bit of light falling through the opening from which she’d fallen. The woman in the awful mask was leaning through the small door, her arm extended, the pistol aimed into the darkness.

Cassie was a sitting duck.

All the killer had to do was start firing and the ricocheting bullets would probably riddle Cassie’s body.

Bracing herself, dread filling her heart, she stared upward and thought of Trent. Was he already dead? Had this maniac killed him? Why? Oh, God, why?

“Say your prayers, Little Sister,” the woman said, aiming, then suddenly the arm moved sharply, as if wrenched, fingers opening. The gun fell, tumbling down the well and glancing off Cassie’s shoulder.

“What the fuck?” the killer cried in her so-familiar voice, but she wasn’t leaning into the opening any longer, not speaking to Cassie, but someone else. Someone who had startled her. “Where the hell did you come from? Ouch! Jesus!” The words were muted, but there were other noises as well. Scuffling footsteps. A struggle? Could the police have arrived, or was it her savior Trent?

He had to be alive. Relief washed over her, but she couldn’t just lie here. She had to help.

Groaning, her shoulder on fire, she twisted, rolling to the side, off whatever had broken her fall and suddenly felt the entire floor shift and rattle. More dust. The silage or feed or fodder was giving way. She hadn’t fallen from the very top of the structure, but closer to the bottom, the main floor of the barn to the lower level where the cattle were fed, less than a story. Rattled, still trying to get her bearings in the darkness, she reached out a hand. Touched the object that had broken her fall and felt the cool clamminess of bare skin beneath her fingers. pqdm.com