Under His Protection

“I want to know what the meaning of this is right now!” she bellowed the second he opened the door to her. “If you think you can scare me into leaving, then you’ve wasted your time.”

Surprised, he scowled. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“This!” she snapped, and waved a piece of paper in his face.

Without a word, he snatched it out of her hand and read it, only to glance up at her sharply. “Where’d you get this?”

“On my pillow,” she replied. “And don’t pretend you don’t know anything about it. You had to do it. You’re the only one here.”

If she thought he would deny it, she was doomed to disappointment. Instead, he walked straight to the phone on the table next to the couch and dialed 911. “I need the sheriff,” he told the dispatcher curtly. “There’s been a break-in at the Broken Arrow Ranch.”

“Is the intruder still in the house?”

“Not that I know of,” he retorted, “but I can’t be sure of that. I don’t even know how he got in.”

“Is anyone hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

“No…just the sheriff and a couple of his men to search the place. I could do it, but—”

“No!” the dispatcher said quickly. “Please don’t take that chance. There’s a deputy on the way—he should be there shortly. In the meantime, do you have any weapons?”

“I’ve got a shotgun and I’m not afraid to use it,” he retorted. “Right now, Ms. Wyatt and I are in the foreman’s cabin behind the barn. If anyone touches my front door, I’m shooting first and asking questions later, so make sure the deputy knows to come in with sirens blazing.”

“I’ll pass that message along,” she assured him. “Someone should be there any second.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth when the sound of sirens cut sharply through the night air. Glancing out the window near the front door, John watched as a county patrol car skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust before his cabin. He didn’t unlock the door, however, until he saw who stepped out of the car.

“Looks like we got the top dog,” John told Elizabeth. “The sheriff himself. Not,” he added, “that that means a hell of a lot. From what Buck told me, law enforcement around here’s nothing but a joke. I guess we’re about to find out.”

He opened the door at the sheriff’s sharp knock and held out his hand to him in greeting. “Glad you could get here so quickly, Sheriff. I’m John Cassidy. And this is Elizabeth Wyatt.”

“Glad to meet you,” the other man said amiably, shaking his hand, then stepping over to Elizabeth to do the same. “I’m Sherm Clark, Ms. Wyatt. What’s this about an intruder?”

“I found a note in my bedroom warning me to leave while I still could,” she said grimly, nodding to the single piece of paper John had laid on the lamp table by the front window. “Since John and I are the only ones on the ranch, someone else was obviously here.”

“Did you see anyone else?” he asked as he stepped over to the table and carefully picked up the paper with a pair of tweezers. “Hear anything?”

“Nothing,” she retorted. “I’ve been working in the ranch office all day. I saw the note when I went up to my room to collect some things for a bath. The note was on my pillow.”

“And where were you?” he asked John.

“Here in my cabin. I worked on the tractor all day and had just finished taking a shower myself when Elizabeth showed up at my door with the note.”

“So neither one of you saw anyone.” Frowning, he slipped the note into an evidence bag, then glanced up sharply at John. “Did you touch the note?”

He nodded. “But just on the right hand corner. Both of our prints are on there.”

“Then I’ll need you both to come down to the office tomorrow and have your fingerprints taken. Then we’ll send the note to the state lab and see who else has been handling this.”

Studying him shrewdly, John said, “You don’t really expect any other prints to be on there, do you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t have any expectations one way or the other. I’m just doing my job and following up on the evidence. Speaking of which, I need to dust the doors and Ms. Wyatt’s bedroom for prints. The exterior doors to the house were locked, weren’t they?”

When both men looked at her, Elizabeth wanted to sink right through the floor. “Not yet,” she admitted huskily. “I usually lock them right before I go upstairs at night, but I was distracted and completely forgot about it.”

“Elizabeth! You know what’s been going on around here—”

“I know. I wasn’t thinking. It was stupid—”

“You were lucky this time,” the sheriff told her. “This is a big house. If someone wanted to harm you, they could slip in through an unlocked door, hide out until nightfall, then slit your throat while you’re sleeping. Keep your doors locked at all times.”

Blanching, she pressed a hand to her throat. “I will,” she said huskily.

“You don’t have to scare her to death,” John said, scowling.

“She needs to know what can happen,” the older man said flatly. “Don’t underestimate people, especially someone who wants what you have.”

“Trust me, I won’t,” Elizabeth said. “I’m going to keep everything locked. I’ll carry my keys with me everywhere I go in the house and on the property, even if it’s just outside to the chicken coop to collect the eggs. I’m not going through this again.”

“Good,” Sherm Clark retorted. “Now show me your bedroom.”

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