Free Mending Hope (Contemporary Western Romance) (License to Love Series:Book 2) by Amelia Rose Page B

don’t hear from her.  Let me worry about everything else,” Melinda finished and touched his arm. 
    “What about Shad and Clara?” he asked.
    “As soon as I let them know that Sanders had escaped Shad said that they were dropping off the grid.  I don’t expect to hear from them for the immediate future.  As soon as I do, I’ll let them know about Alyssa.”
    Woody felt his head nod in agreement, but it was as if he were watching it from outside his body.  As he walked to the car, the other deputies and crime scene people gave him a wide berth.  He could feel them staring at him but he didn’t care.  It took every bit of energy to put one foot in front of the other as he walked to his car. 
    He climbed in and Melinda rounded the driver’s side door.  It wasn’t until he was sitting in the driver’s seat that he realized the key was in the ignition and the car was still running.  He had been in such a state when he got there that he hadn’t even bothered to turn it off.  Turning his head, he realized that Melinda was saying something to him.
    “…stop by the house later and give you an update.”
    “What?” he asked not having heard what she said.
    “I said that I would come by later and fill you in on the case,” Melinda repeated.  She paused and studied him closely, her eyes squinting against the sun.  “Are you sure you’re okay to drive home?”
    “I’m not sure of anything right now,” he said as he shifted the Thing into reverse and backed away from Melinda.  She stood there for a moment staring as he backed out before she turned and marched back into the house. 
    Woody breathed a sigh of relief.  He had been worried that she would try to stop him or put him under watch by one of the deputies.  There was too much he had to do and Melinda would have taken exception to most of it. 
    I’m coming, Alyssa.  Just hang on.
    *
    The dull thud of the pain was a constant one that flared rhythmically with each heartbeat causing brilliant flashes of red and orange to pop behind her eyelids.  Alyssa could hear movement but she was afraid to open her eyes to alert him that she was awake. 
    As she lay there she tried to assess her surroundings through closed eyes.  Her hands were bound behind her back and so were her feet.  The floor was solid, cool and gritty so she guessed that she was on concrete somewhere.  For a moment she thought the overwhelming odour of musty hay and mildew was going to make her sneeze but she managed to quiet the urge.  Straining against the darkness of her eyelids, she struggled to find any other clues that might help her piece everything together but for a long while she could not hear anything.  Just as she had settled back down and given up on hearing anything else, a chair scraped across the floor right next to her head and she jumped.
    “I thought you were faking it,” Sander’s voice cut through the darkness.  A moment later Alyssa felt him grab her wrists and yank her up into the air.  A scream was torn from her mouth as her arms were wrenched backwards in their sockets and the resulting pain flared bright white hot against her eyelids. 
    When she did open them, all she could see was his face leering down into hers.  That look of hatred and contempt that she had first seen in the courtroom wasn’t masked at all now, and she felt the panic welling up within her, threatening to drown out everything else. 
    “Now see here, its better when we aren’t playing games, isn’t it?” he laughed and pulled back, walking across the room.
    Alyssa looked around and noticed that they were in some kind of old barn, but it wasn’t one she was familiar with.  The hay she had smelled before, seemed to be strewn throughout the barn in small random stacks, as if someone had started to sweep it into piles and then forgot to pick it up.  The room they were in had different cinderblock wall dividers that formed some kind of makeshift stalls.
    Against the wall was