Page 71 of Trail to Trouble

“Hunter?”

“Yes. Han...Katrina,” he stuttered.

At the rate he couldn’t seem to remember to call her by her new name, it would take some work to convince her he could live with her new identity. He had to pull it together before he lost her again.

“Katrina, I know we have some things to deal with, but I need to see you again. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

There, he laid it on the line. He held his breath, waiting—preparing for a rejection.

“It’s gotten worse, which is why I answered your call.”

She sounded defeated.

He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and let out his breath. Then, he opened his eyes and lifted his head into the normal position.

“What happened?”

“I just found out that Sebastián received an early release.”

“What?” Hunter squeaked out.

“I guess the Minnesota prisons are overcrowded and the state, in its infinite wisdom, released anyone with less than two years left on their sentence and who’ve already served five years. Sebastián was due for release in a few months.”

“Are you sure he’s out? And if so, when was he released?”

“I haven’t verified it with anyone yet. I just saw the news article this morning. It’s Sunday. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to call...I don’t know who to call.”

She sniffled.

Dammit. She was crying, and he wasn’t there to comfort her.

“Let me come to you. We’ll figure this out. What’s your address?”

Her hesitation worried him. She was going to shut him down.

“There’s more,” she replied, ignoring his request for her address.

“What is it?” he dreaded asking.

She sniffled again.

His hand tightened around the phone.

“The assistant district attorney who prosecuted his case has gone missing.”

Of all the things she could have said, he hadn’t expected to hear that.

“You think he has something to do with that?”

“Well, the timing works. All these prisoners are being released, and now she goes missing.”

“That doesn’t mean it was Sebastián. It could be any of them, or even someone else,” he tried to assure her.

A burning sensation and sharp pain shot through his right shoulder, and he pressed his left hand to it. It wasn’t warm to the touch, yet his skin burned. What in the hell? Why did it hurt suddenly? Then he realized the exact spot of the pain. It was where the bullet had ripped through his flesh atop Lover’s Leap Falls. Strange. The phantom pain in that spot had disappeared years ago, but now, at the mention of Sebastián’s name and the disappearance of the assistant district attorney had caused it to return.

“I know it could be, but still, it’s a possibility. We’re talking about the cartel here.”

“That’s just it. The cartel. Certainly, if they wanted to do something to the assistant district attorney, they would have done it long ago.”