“My ears are ringing,” she said, “and my side hurts, but we’re both alive, so I’m pretty much okay with that.” She shuddered, looked at the officer. “You can stop pointing that at him. He’s a good guy.”

The officer didn’t lower his weapon until his partner gave the all clear. Gavin pulled Sarah into a loose hug.

“Did you find Brianne?” she asked.

He shuddered. “I did. At least I assume it’s her.”

“And?”

“She’s dead,” he murmured. “Gunshot to the head.”

“I was afraid of that.” Sarah bit her lip and looked away, blinking hard. “I’ll take a look and make sure.”

“No, you don’t want to see that.”

“I need to. I can tell you if it’s her or not. If it’s not, then we need to find her.” Sarah pushed away from him, and he followed her into the house and down the hall. She took one look and gasped. “That’s her.”

Gavin took her back into his arms, relieved that she let him.

“We were too late,” she mumbled against his chest. “Too late.”

“We tried.”

“Did he kill them?”

“I don’t know. The ME will have to do her job and the cops will do theirs before we’ll know that.”

“Of course.” She swallowed. “Thank you for not leaving me,” she said, her voice soft, barely there. “Knowing you were there, behind him, behind us, kept me from losing it.”

He leaned back and she looked up at him. He brushed strands of hair from her eyes. “Something’s going on, Sarah. Something . . . weird.”

“I know.”

“And somehow we’ve landed right in the middle of it.”

“Yeah, I think I’ve kind of figured that out.”

Caden paced the small area just outside Sam Wilmont’s hospital room. The man had come through the ninety-minute surgery to remove the bullet and bone fragments with no complications. Now Caden just needed him to wake up. The SWAT member who’d pulled the trigger had had to aim for the shoulder since he couldn’t get a good bead on Wilmont’s head. With Sarah’s timely headbutt, the risky shot had worked, and that’s all that mattered to Caden at the moment.

As much as he would like to get his hands around the man’s throat, he wanted to talk to him more. He needed answers and he needed them yesterday. But he’d have to play it cool if he wanted to stay anywhere near this case. Wilmont’s actions had connected Sarah to the case, which made things awkward for him and for the other detectives. It had been all he could do to convince his supervisor that he could exercise self-control and be objective. He wouldn’t be surprised if they asked him to step away.