I didn’t stop to think. Just shoved my feet into a pair of my sister’s boots that sat on a rack near the door, thankful that she wore a size larger than my own as my stitches protested the action.

But I pushed the pain aside because the barn door was wide open. The lights were blazing.

My sister had been raised better. She knew to close the door behind her, to flick off the lights.

My daughter, on the other hand, did not.

And Allie’s words from the day before were suddenly blazing through my mind.

“I want to ride, Mom!”

“I can do it myself.”

“I don’t need Aunt Kelly.”

Part of me hoped that I was wrong.

The rest of me knew I wasn’t.

So I took off across the lawn, my commandeered boots hurting worse than a sugar burn and the hems of my pajamas getting soaked by the wet grass.

I wasn’t entirely familiar with the horses and who should be in what stall. Hell, I didn’t even know exactly how many Kel owned at the moment or how many were boarding.

I did know that there was a sign near the tack room with each horse’s name and their stall number, and so I went there first.

Which is probably why I didn’t notice the open stall doors at first.

At least not until I’d noted where Allie’s favorite horse was supposed to be and then hustled down to number twelve.

“What the—” I muttered, seeing that the doors at four, six, eight, and ten were all pushed open. I checked twelve just to be sure. I could have read the board wrong. Maybe Kel had moved the horses somewhere else? Maybe—

Hell. Who was I kidding? My sister was never more thorough or organized than she was with her horses.

Still, I checked twelve.

Because that was where Allie had to be.

Twelve was empty.

My eyes slipped closed, and I took a breath. My stomach was crawling with panic that I was desperately trying to swallow down. I didn’t even know if anything was wrong yet.

I spun around and felt the toe of Kel’s boot catch on something.

I bent and a wave of frost shot down my spine.

Mr. Tails was on the floor of the stall.

I didn’t have time to think of a cooking curse word substitute. I couldn’t come up with anything except . . .

“Fuck me.”

And my phone rang.

This time my fingers fumbled to answer it for a completely different reason than Tammy’s call from just fifteen minutes earlier.

This time I knew if I answered it, everything was going to go to hell.

I just knew it.

Yet, what other choice did I have? I needed to pick up.

After swiping my finger across the screen, I lifted it to my ear. “Hello?”

“You’re a bitch, you know that?”

My voice had disappeared. I blinked dumbly. Both because the insult had taken me by surprise and also because I felt faint prickles of familiarity at the voice. It was female. Cold. And filled with hate.

Had I heard it before?

“Answer me!” the woman screamed.

My throat unclenched. “I’m sorry?”

“Damn right you should be,” she hissed. “Or you will be. If you don’t do exactly what I tell you.” A pause. “Say you fucking agree, you dumb slut.”

I closed my eyes, forced my pulse to calm. It was pounding so loudly in my ears that I could barely hear the woman. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You’d better. If you want to see Rob again.” Her laugh wasn’t maniacal, but it was damn near close. “Or your precious Allie.”

There it was.

The reason I’d run to the barn instead of staying inside the house. The reason my palms were sweaty and my hands shook.

Allie.

I clenched Mr. Tails in my fingers, feeling the material strain under my grip. But I couldn’t loosen it because . . . Allie.

“If you want to see your daughter alive, you’ll saddle a horse and ride straight out from the barn. You’ll go over the hills and then follow the old cattle trail south. From there you’ll receive another phone call.”

“But there aren’t any horses—”

This laugh was maniacal. “There is one horse left. And he’s a mean sucker.”

My gaze flashed down the corridor to the odd-numbered stalls, and I saw one door was indeed closed.

Three. I frowned, trying to remember which horse would be there—which, I got was a really stupid thing to consider when the animal was the means to my daughter’s safety, but my brain was my brain, and it was rapidly trying to digest everything that had happened in the last twenty or so minutes.

And that was a dream coming true followed by a hell of a lot of fucked up.

So I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Theodore popped his head over the door.

“Oh. There he is now,” the voice in my ear said. I’d nearly forgotten about the phone, but now I whipped around, half expecting to find the woman in the barn with me.

How else had she known that Theodore had appeared?

“Look up,” the woman said.

I did.

“Now wave to the cameras,” she sing-songed. “And know that if you do anything except saddle that horse and ride out, your daughter will pay the price. No phone calls. No texts. No running into the house for some more of those security guards.” Her voice went chiding. “Rookie mistake, by the way, letting Rob pull off the exterior guards for his rescue mission. The company should have known better and sent more men to cover the holes.”

“They’re—” I bit off the rest of my words, mentally kicking myself for almost telling her what Rob had planned for the security.

More guards were coming. Actually, they would probably be there soon. Justin had said they would be at the ranch near daybreak.

She laughed and I realized I really didn’t like the way she did that. It sounded like shards of icicles were piercing my eardrums, even through the call’s airwaves. I didn’t like how cold it felt, how unhinged and frenetic.

And my daughter was with this madwoman.

“Who are you?” I asked, despite myself.

Another cackle. “You’ll find out soon enough. Now you’d better move. Your fifteen-minute timer begins now.”