I stared at the woods, heart thumping, my nose numb and dripping from the cold. Marc was nowhere in sight, but I knew he was watching me. Waiting. I glanced at the steps, then craned my neck to see the window overhead and five feet away. I could get inside if Jace needed me. Together we could take care of whoever else was with him and knock Lance out, then carry him right out the back door and into the forest.

But what if Lance wasn’t in there? Maybe that’s why Jace hadn’t made his move yet. If I went in and Lance wasn’t there, the whole thing would be ruined.

Marc would tell me to wait. To get back into the woods with him and watch and listen. My father would say the same thing.

So I would wait.

Half-frozen, I squatted in the gravel, then ran hunched over past the first two cars. I was about to break for the rental car when footsteps thumped rapidly behind me. Someone was running, coming around the first outbuilding from the direction of the main house.

I dropped onto my knees in the gravel and for one anxious moment was sure that the crunch of my landing had given me away. Then I realized rocks were still crunching. The footsteps were coming from the gravel drive now and had covered my own noise.

My pulse thudding in my ears, I rose carefully and peered around the front of the second car just in time to see Alex Malone pass behind the row of vehicles, headed for the front of the last outbuilding. His jaw was firmly set, his mouth a straight, grim line. He was a man on a mission.

He’d come to kill Jace.

Shit. Hinges squealed, then the front door of the trailer thumped closed. I whirled on the gravel to face Marc, my back against the front bumper of the rental car. Glad none of the windows faced the row of cars, I waved one hand frantically. I couldn’t tell if Marc saw me, but I was sure he’d heard Alex approach; his cat ears were much better than my human ones.

Hoping he was still watching, I pointed toward the back door of the trailer in an exaggerated motion, then walked hunched over in front of the first two cars until I reached the corner of the building. Now out of sight from the rest of the compound, I stood against the wall, scanning for any sign of Marc in the woods as I listened to the muffled voices from the trailer at my back.

The windows were all closed against the winter chill, and while that had worked in my favor while I was crunching on gravel, closed windows were a definite inconvenience for eavesdropping. Desperate for information, I inched my way along the wall, the brick ledge catching on my jacket, and the indistinct voices inside grew clearer with each step. I stopped next to the first uncovered window, my heart beating a frantic, staccato rhythm against my breastbone.