Page 82 of Cowboy Heat

Instead, he waits for me to pass him, and then I’m a bloodhound on a scent.

I’ve only been to the Fulton’s old house three times. Once when the Fultons lived there and Mimi dropped in to check up on the elderly couple, a second time when they had an estate sale so the couple could move to live with their son out of state, and then when I helped Margaret stake the foreclosure sign in the front yard. That was two years ago.

And I certainly never went through the woods to get to it.

The trees start to thin after a few minutes, and I nearly cheer when I see the back of the neglected home.

Truly, that’s the right word for it too.

Neglected.

It doesn’t matter that it’s a nice twenty-four-hundred square feet, two stories, and has character molding and retro wallpaper throughout. From the back corner that we’re coming from, I can see parts of the siding that need replacing, missing shingles from the roof, and the screen from the back porch blown out and torn in several places. There’s a window somewhere on the first floor that I know Margaret had to get boarded up after an act of vandalism that took place a few months prior, but other than that, the old Fulton house hasn’t had any love since the original owners left.

I’d almost feel bad for the place if I wasn’t actively worrying about being shot from behind.

“Margaret was supposed to get a lockbox on the front door, but we ran out, and I don’t think she ever got around to it,” I tell Beau, guiding him around to the front door. “Butthere’s a spare key she used. She put it in a hidey rock thing.” I scour the garden bed area right past the porch.

Beau keeps his gaze at the way we’ve come, using the house as partial cover.

In our trek here, I didn’t catch one sound that wasn’t us hurrying.

I hope that means Grant and his gun-wielding friend haven’t followed.

The hidey rock isn’t too hard to find. It’s a bit bigger than the real rock pavers the Fultons bought from Lowe’s to make the garden look more appealing before falling behind on payments. I pick it up, flip it over, and am excited once again that I’m not wrong. The key falls out, no problem.

It goes into the front door with ease.

The deadbolt slides, and Beau goes past me inside the second the door is opened.

“I’m not sure they followed,” he tells me, shutting the door back. I flip the deadbolt in the other direction. “Still, I’d like it if we could find some place for you to hide in here.”

He turns and starts looking around the foyer. The house is older and definitely embraces defined rooms. The living room is boxed to our right, the next room attached the formal dining room. The kitchen is the back half. There’s a study to our left. Stairs straight ahead lead to three bedrooms and bathrooms.

“Is there no furniture anywhere in this place?” he asks.

“No. It was cleaned out after the bank took over the title.”

“So no power, either?”

I shake my head. “Just the windows for light.”

Beau makes a noise. I think it’s frustration. But then he takes a step forward and wavers.

I reach out to help steady him.

That’s when I see the blood.

“My God, Beau. You’re bleeding!”

Beau looks down at the spot. It’s under his rib cage on his right side. The blood is eating up his shirt around it.

Just like Alice’s wound did.

He tries to wave off my concern. It might’ve worked if I wasn’t looking at the beading sweat along his brow. “I need to get you somewhere safe, and then we can—can call my brother Lee.”

He takes another step, and it’s clumsy.

I realize then that he’s not holding his knife wound.