Free Spirit of a Hunter by Sylvie Kurtz Page A

was.
    But things could never be the same. She could never let the Colonel have that much control over Scotty—orher—again. She didn’t know how she would do it, but she had to take her son away from the prison of the mansion.
    Sabriel had survived his attack. She could, too.
    The bracing air of this cold October night licked at her bare skin. She reached for Anna’s things and thrust into them as if they were armor. The arms and legs were an inch too long, and the top and long johns fit a tad too snugly.
    Anna had been tall and wafer-thin—like her mother. Nora had never quite managed to attain the Camden-perfect figure. She liked food too much. Another tick against her in the Colonel’s eyes.
    Nora slipped on a pair of thick gray socks. She’d never met Anna. Her sister-in-law had died three weeks before Nora had met Tommy. Tommy had admired his sister’s strength to turn her back on family expectations and do what she wanted to do, damn the Colonel and the consequences. The Colonel had cut her off without a penny, disowned her, and refused to let any of the family attend her funeral.
    She couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Sabriel to endure Anna’s death alone, shunned by the family that should have supported him in his grief. Even Tommy hadn’t had the strength to defy the Colonel to go to his best friend’s side or mourn his sister.
    Yet Anna was one of the reasons Nora and Tommy had connected so deeply and so fast. Loss had a language of its own, and they’d both understood it.
    She zipped up the last layer of fleece and warmth enfolded her for the first time since she’d left the estate. Maybe her sister-in-law’s courage would seep into herbones and complement Sabriel’s strength to see her through this ordeal.
    Hang on, Scotty. I’m coming for you
.
    * * *
    S ABRIEL STEPPED onto the weed-choked path outside old Will Daigle’s shack, glad for a reprieve from Nora. Her stubborn insistence and vulnerability were wearing on him like a fresh blister. Having lived under the Colonel’s influence for so long, he hadn’t expected her to have so much steel left in her spine.
    He let habit navigate him around the perimeter of the clearing so he could give Nora privacy and him a chance to arm the early-warning system the paranoid codger had set up years ago.
    He’d racked his brain for a safe place to protect Nora until he could bring her son and Tommy back. No place was safe around here. Not while the Colonel was bent on one of his “missions.” Taking her back to the Aerie would eat up too much time. And he couldn’t put anyone else in the path of danger.
    He glanced at the jagged outline of old Will’s shack. It was really nothing more than four walls and a roof that barely offered protection against the elements. Yet the memories of Will and what he’d taught two runaway boys were more precious than the rising real estate values, and neither Sabriel nor Tommy could bear the thought of selling the land Will had left them after he’d died.
    Still, coming here was hard. Between Will, Tommy and Anna, memories stuffed every crack of those drafty walls. Breathing room for all of them.
    Do
not
open that Pandora’s box
.
    Keeping a watchful eye on the shack, he whipped out his phone and placed a call to Seekers.
    Kingsley answered.
    “Shouldn’t you be out dancing with that pretty blonde I saw you eyeing at the church?” Sabriel asked, putting off the inevitable, hating to drag anyone else into his personal business.
    “Yeah, I was just getting ready to put on my big move when some jerk called for intelligence.”
    Leaning against a tree, Sabriel laughed, taking the jibe in the playful spirit it was meant and gave back in turn. “You know that cool deejay ploy doesn’t work.”
    He imagined Kingsley in his court, as they jokingly called the command center. Computers, monitors and a myriad of electronic gadgetry jammed every inch of desk and wall space, and Kingsley conducted them all like an