If you haven't bought Book 2 yet, here's how it starts. Soon to come (i.e., when I remember to do it between correcting papers and attacking the crabgrass in my yard) will be the beginning of Book 3.

Prologue

Her senses had gotten used to the dark two miles back.  Or three.  It was hard to tell.  Rachel had always been good at tracking her own progress in the woods – even without GPS or compass – but these woods were different.  And besides, it was night.  The light from the moon and its stars flickered in and out behind trees that stretched too far into the sky, making what brightness there was remind her of a low-burning candle in a shadow-box.  Sounds flickered in and out with it.

Adams would have said that it reminded him of tuning in a radio dial, and then he would have mentioned his old ’68 Impala back home, working it into the conversation like he always did at least once a day.  But Adams was gone now.  He’d been gone since that morning when she’d woken up alone in their car.  In the only place they thought they’d be safe.

“It’s not a house,” he’d said the night before, his eyes pinballing between all the windows, back and forth, back and forth.  Just watching him had made her nauseous.  “It’s not a house, so it has to work,” he’d said.

Rachel heard twigs snapping, leaves swishing, felt wind that hadn’t been there a minute before, and thanked it.  She was in the woods – because the houses weren’t safe and neither was the car – and she couldn’t lose her focus.  There was no path to follow, so it was easy to get lost, especially since she was walking through brambles now, thorny stalks of what was probably still green shooting up into the air.  She’d walk around it, but it was hard to see where “around” was.  And she wasn’t about to turn her flashlight on.  They’d done that once, in town, in a basement, and the seconds after that all ran together.  Ran together – Adams would have elbowed her for coming up with that one, since blood ran together and that’s what those seconds had been covered in.

She was losing it again.  Losing her focus.  Getting it back, she strained her neck to look up.  Fixing her location by stars was something Adams had taught her one night during a very long surveillance back in the beginning of their partnership, back before she’d known exactly what she’d been getting into.  Judging by the stars, she was still going north.  She’d keep going north until she hit what had to be the town line, and then she’d go east to find a road.  But only after she’d crossed that line.

Again, she’d lost her focus.  And what was worse, she was starting to hear things.  That was the only way the tree in front of her could have barked.  Rachel backed up.  It had to have been the leaves.  There were some dead ones on the ground, lots, and it had to—

No.  Not leaves.  That was ridiculous.  Horses, not zebras, she told herself.  It had sounded like a bark because it was one.  A dog had run from its home in town (totally understandable) and it was hiding out here.  It had heard her coming, and because it knew what humans sounded like, it thought she might have food. 

“Hey,” she whispered.  Whispered – why bother?  She said it again, louder but not by much.  No need to tempt fate.  “Hey, where’d you go?”

She wished she had a goddamn flashlight, but all she had was her badge and her gun.  If only she hadn’t left in such a hurry.  Not that she’d had a choice.

And then the moonlight caught a shiny, tiny black nose edging out from behind the tree trunk.  Dropping to her knees, letting them sink into some mud, Rachel thought she’d never been so glad to see a dog in her life.  And this one – matted fur, but still unmistakable as it inched toward her – was an exact twin of the Pomeranian her family’d had when she’d been a little girl.  It even had a bow in its hair, pink when her dog’s had been yellow, but still.  Maybe she did have some luck left.

“Come on,” she said, holding out her hand, “I won’t bite.”

She stood up.  Stupid thing to say, especially in her line of work, where some things did bite.  And why was a shiver working itself up the back of her neck?  The dog was still making its way over to her, its tongue hanging out because it was probably thirsty, its eyes looking like big, brown, quintessential pools of love.

And then it broke into a run.  It ran right past her.  She spun around to follow, but it had gone under some brush again.  Was she supposed to follow anyway?  Was it taking her somewhere, like some kind of Lassie?  Rachel turned back to where it had come from – maybe it was running from something.

She screamed.  The pain that ripped through her ankle made her scream.  And then it ripped through the other one and she was on the ground, her mouth still open, but too out of breath to make a sound. 

The dog was next to her, sitting on its hind legs, still panting but not thirsty now that its mouth was dripping saliva tinged red.  She could swear it was smiling at her.  Telling herself that she should have fucking known, she reached for her gun – her hand quick because of the pain – and felt nothing.  It must have fallen when she had. 

The dog left her line of sight.  Springing up into a sitting position, she saw it put its mouth on something, its furry dog butt high in the air as it bettered what should have been an impossible grip.  She lunged after it, but was too late – the dog had taken her gun and made off into the woods with it.

Panting herself now, sitting up, she knew it was only a matter of time before it came back.  Her Achilles’ tendons might be mangled, but she could still crawl, and she would, to the base of the goddamn tree the dog had been hiding behind.

Dragging herself there took seconds she didn’t think she had, but she made it, and then she realized why it had let her do that.  She couldn’t climb without her feet.

Turning around to look for some kind of branch – maybe she could use it to kill the thing – all she saw was the dog.  There was blood on its bow.