A loud thud made her jump. Was it one of the dogs trying to get out? The door being thrown open by Edmonson? What?

Once again, she tried to look but couldn’t see anything from where she was hiding. It was getting darker by the second, which didn’t help.

She eyed the fence, wondering if she should go ahead and climb over and run back to her car. She wanted to get out of there.

But it wouldn’t be wise to try to escape right now. What if she was caught while scaling the fence? She wouldn’t be able to use her phone or her gun.

She’d come this far; she had to ride it out.

Moving the flashlight to her left hand, she pulled the gun from her waistband. The solid weight of it in her palm gave her courage, even though it felt much heavier than it ever had before. But that courage quickly faded as various questions began to bombard her: Could she shoot another human being? Shoot Emmett?

And would she be justified if she did?

All the gray areas she hadn’t considered when she’d been so intent on her purpose flashed through her mind. She was technically trespassing. How would she know if her mother’s renter was a threat? If she shot him before he made that clear, she could kill an innocent man.

But if she didn’t shoot him right away and he got close enough, he could potentially gain the upper hand.

She hoped the right answers would come to her when she needed them most. But uncertainty handicapped her even more than fear. Her palm was sweating on the handle of the GLOCK despite the recent rains and cool weather.

A dark figure moved across the property, limping, it appeared, toward the coop that contained the dogs, so she slipped around the building at her back and hurried down two more rows. But then something else occurred to her: What if Edmonson let the dogs out?

They could come running right to her!

She needed shelter, a place where they couldn’t reach her, just in case. Then, after he went back inside, she’d get the hell out of there.

The chicken manure made her wrinkle her nose as she unbolted the door to the last coop, but she ignored the stink and let herself in. She’d grown up with this smell; it wasn’t anything new. At least now she couldn’t be seen and the dogs couldn’t tear her apart if he let them loose.

Closing the door blocked what little light remained, leaving her in total darkness. She had her flashlight, but she didn’t want to turn it on. Now that Edmonson seemed close, she was too afraid the light could be spotted through the cracks at the corners of the building or around the roof. So she huddled not too far inside the door, blinking at nothing while waiting to see what would happen.

It seemed to take forever, but, finally, the dogs quieted.