Chapter One

      Charlotte Reacher knew what it was like to be alone. Without a home or family.

      Unwanted. Unloved.

      That loneliness had inspired her to start her art program for teenage girls in Tumbleweed, Texas. This particular group of four were all foster kids and needed reassurance and love.

      She strolled through the studio smiling at the girls perched behind canvases that had once been blank slates, but now were being transformed. When they’d first organized the group six weeks ago, most of them had painted drab, colorless pictures, all grays and blacks, depicting the despair in their lives.

      Not every girl had a bikini body, liked makeup and glamour magazines or cheerleading.

      And not every girl had parents with the money to fix her flaws.

      The confident ones knew how to socialize, make friends and express themselves, while others wilted on the inside, withdrew and suffered from low self-esteem. Cruel classmates complicated the situation with teasing and bullying, and caused the girls to die a little with every mean word said.

      It had been the same for her, growing up in the system. Her port-wine birthmark had drawn cruel remarks and stares, killing her own confidence.

      She brushed her fingers over her cheek. Thanks to a gifted and generous plastic surgeon, who’d offered her services to needy kids when Charlotte was eleven, the skin was smooth now, the birthmark gone.

      Still, the internal scars remained. These girls had scars, too. Both physical and emotional.

      But here—in her studio, Expressions—everyone was free to paint or draw whatever they wanted with no judgment.

      She just hoped the small town of Tumbleweed embraced the teens. So far, the locals had been nice to her. She’d made friends with Honey Granger Hawk, the developer who’d built the small house she lived in. Honey appreciated her cause and had thrown in the studio renovation for next to nothing.

      Now Charlotte had a home, a friend and a business. And hopefully a family in this town and her students...

      She adjusted the volume of the music playing in the background. Early on, she’d discovered that music relaxed her and the students. Now she allowed the girls to select the CDs they wanted to listen to during their sessions. Today Evie had chosen an upbeat country song.

      “Ms. Charlotte, what do you think?” Fifteen-year-old Mae Lynn looked up at her with a mixture of apprehension and hope. She was shy and the most fragile of all of them, but she’d begun to warm up.

      “I like the way you’ve used the colors,” Charlotte said. It was obvious the sea of blues and grays represented her changing mood swings. Who could blame her, though? The poor kid had been in and out of more than ten homes in five years.

      Two girls who were horse lovers, sixteen-year-old Agnes and her fourteen-year-old sister, Adrian, chatted softly about their portrayals of a big ranch where they hoped to live one day, while thirteen-year-old Evie splashed pinks and blues and purples in a whimsical pattern. Despite the fact that she’d ended up in a group home, Evie had a perpetually positive attitude.

      Hopefully, her attitude would rub off on the others.

      Suddenly, the front door to the studio opened, and Charlotte glanced up, hoping to see Sally, another foster child she’d invited to the class, but instead four tall masked men dressed in black stormed in, guns raised and aimed at the girls.

      Charlotte froze, mentally assessing the situation. She had to protect her students no matter what. Pulse hammering, she stepped forward, placing herself between the men and girls.

      The biggest man turned the gun on her. “Don’t move.”

      She stared at the snake tattoo, then noticed a bolt of lightning tattooed on his neck.

      Behind her, the girls screamed. Charlotte raised her hands in a submissive gesture. “Please don’t hurt them,” she said in a choked voice. “I don’t keep much money here, but you can take it all.”

      “We don’t want your money,” the shortest guy shouted. “Get on the ground.”

      A sob echoed behind her, then another scream.

      “I said get down!” the one who seemed to be in charge barked.

      Charlotte dropped to the floor, her gaze scanning the room for something to use as a weapon, but her art supplies and brushes wouldn’t do any good against these guns. Semiautomatics. They weren’t playing around.

      Her phone was inside her purse in her office, too. She didn’t have a weapon or an alarm.

      Boots clicked on the wood floor as the heaviest man strode to her. With one quick grunt, he slammed the butt of the gun against her head. Stars swam in front of her eyes as the world spun. More screams rent the air, shrill and piercing.

      Panic shot through Charlotte. She had to do something. If the men didn’t want money, what did they want?

      “Leave us alone!” Adrian cried.

      “Don’t shoot!” Agnes said shakily.

      A bullet pinged off the ceiling, silencing them all.

      Evie ducked behind an easel while the sisters hunched together beneath a table. Mae Lynn pushed her easel over, paint splattering, and ran for the door, but one of the men grabbed her as if she weighed nothing.

      “Please don’t hurt me,” Mae Lynn cried.

      Charlotte pushed to her hands and knees, desperate. “Let her go. Take me if you want, but leave these kids alone.”

      A bark of sarcastic laughter, sickening in its sound, filled the air as the brute slammed the gun against her head again, then jerked her arm and flung her against the wall. Pain ricocheted through her head and shoulder and, for a second, she thought she might pass out.

      Then everything happened at once.

      The men charged the girls. Agnes and Adrian kicked and fought. Mae Lynn was sobbing, trying to wrestle free, while Evie scrambled toward the back room to escape, throwing chairs and paintbrushes, whatever she could grasp hold of.

      The man chasing Evie tossed the table aside, then snatched her up, laughing as she flailed and fought.

      One of them muttered something, but she couldn’t understand the words.

      Then the men dragged the girls toward the door to the outside. Charlotte couldn’t let them get away.

      Ignoring the pain in her skull, she grabbed the wall and pulled herself up, then staggered forward.

      A second later, a gunshot erupted, then pain seared her shoulder where the bullet had struck. Another bullet