Why had she chosen the big, luxurious failing hotel with hardly anyone staying in it instead of the beat-up motel closer to downtown? The only other person staying on this floor had checked out yesterday. The manager was four floors below her, probably asleep at his desk like he had been last night. Screaming was useless.
Fighting back panic, Kensie practically fell out of bed, groping for her cell phone. Colter. His number popped up first, the last person she’d texted.
Need help right now, she typed frantically, even as she wondered if she should call 911. But Colter knew exactly where she was, knew who was a threat to her in this town. Had Danny Weston been let out of jail already? Why wouldn’t the police give her a heads-up?
She’d call the police as soon as she finished texting Colter. Please hur—
There was another thunderous bang, and this time the door burst inward, splintering away all around the lock.
Even knowing it was useless, Kensie screamed. Dropping the phone, she grappled blindly for anything she could use as a weapon, her gaze locked on the man backlit in her doorway.
Not Danny. Henry Rollings.
He rushed into the room, igniting a million fragments of memory in her mind. Alanna glancing back and smiling at her as she danced. The tire swing her dad had hung in the front yard. A big dark sedan rolling slowly down the street toward them. A quick hand reaching out and yanking Alanna away.
Everything suddenly sped up, in her memory and right in front of her, as Henry darted around the foot of the bed.
He was older than he’d been fourteen years ago, more gray in his hair, more lines on his face. But he still outweighed her by a lot, still had ropey muscle in his forearms and a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
“You never should have come here,” he said, his voice low and deadly.
Kensie stopped groping for a weapon. Instead, she leaped on top of the bed. Running instead of fighting suddenly seemed like her best option.
He changed direction, reaching for her, but she jumped over his arm, landing awkwardly on the floor on the other side of the bed.
Something pierced her bare foot and pain exploded in her arch, but Kensie ignored it, her focus solely on the door. She could hear him behind her, catching up, and she ran faster, tears pricking her eyes at what she realized was a splinter from the broken door in her foot.
She was so close. If she could just get through the door, the emergency exit for the stairs was a straight shot down the hallway. There was a fire alarm right next to it she could pull on her way, maybe attracting attention from the hotel staff who knew she was up here.
She’d almost cleared the door when a big hand closed like a vise around her elbow and yanked her back into the room, hard enough to send her to the ground. Her head smacked the floor and even the thick carpeting wasn’t enough of a cushion to stop the shock. The air whooshed out of her lungs and her vision wavered briefly.
Then he was kneeling over her, one knee on either side of her hips, and a new kind of panic exploded in her chest. What was he going to do to her? What had he done to her sister?
Tears filled her eyes, but rage almost instantly overtook the fear as she thought of Alanna. Where was her sister right now? Was Henry planning to get rid of Kensie so he could continue hiding here with her sister?
But it was too late for that. Colter knew about him. Even if she was gone, Colter would search for Alanna.
It wouldn’t come to that, Kensie vowed. Yanking her arms upward before he could pin them down, Kensie used her nails and went straight for his eyes.
He jerked out of the way just in time, but before she could use his shifted position to her advantage, he was back, leaning closer. Blowing rancid breath in her face, he snarled, “I don’t know how you found me, but you’re not taking me down.”
With his face so close to hers, Kensie instinctively tried to shift her head away. Then she realized her mistake and went after him again, this time getting her nails deep in the skin of his cheek as he jerked backward.
But it wasn’t enough. Calling her all kinds of names, Henry pressed his big hands around her neck. They closed around it with ease and then he was pushing down, stealing all her air.
“I didn’t even know she had a sister,” Henry growled. “You should have let her go. Let me go.”
Kensie gagged, grabbing his hands with hers, trying to peel them off. But he was even stronger than he looked. Spots formed in front of her eyes, even as she kicked up, trying to knee him in the groin.
He moved his knees inward, pressing her legs together, keeping them pinned to the ground. His hands closed tighter around her neck, his lips moving into a satisfied smile before his face started to blur.
Kensie flailed, a last desperate attempt to break his chokehold, but it was no use. She couldn’t breathe; she could barely see.
She was going to die.
She would never know what happened to her sister. She was going to put her family through the trauma of losing another member. She was going to put Colter through the grief of losing someone else who mattered to him. Because, as gruff as he acted, she knew he cared for her.
He’d never know how much she cared about him.
Kensie’s hands shook as she tried to peel Henry’s fingers away from her neck, tried to gasp in another breath. But none came.
Her hands stopped working. She felt them hit the carpet beside her, useless, as everything went dark.
Chapter Fifteen
Kensie wasn’t
