ONE

      Fog filled the valley in the Ozarks. Icy morning air chilled off-duty police officer Daniel Ryan to the bone. He’d been sent to the remote, deserted homestead for his own safety, or so his chief had claimed, but he knew there would be no true escape for him. Ever. Too much had happened.

      He tensed. Real threats could lurk out there in the fog. Assassins. Armed and deadly. He could almost see them, sneaking through the misty, overgrown fields to ambush him and collect the bounty on his head.

      “I am certifiable,” he muttered, shaking off the disturbing visions. If he hadn’t been forced into isolation, maybe his partner, Levi Allen, would still be alive and his former fiancée, Letty Montoya, wouldn’t be blaming him for Levi’s murder. Not that she hadn’t played a part in the mistaken-identity killing by inviting Levi to move in with her as soon as she’d had the opportunity.

      Daniel made a face and set his shoulders. All he could do at the moment was continue to lie low and let his coworkers in the St. Louis Police Department sort out the facts, no matter how frustrated he became. Chief Broderhaven already believed that Daniel was suffering from PTSD after being the victim of a near-fatal kidnapping. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d been put on leave and ordered into hiding after Levi’s murder. Okay. So maybe his reasoning wasn’t totally logical these days. That didn’t mean he’d make an easy target for assassins. Besides, the whole situation might be nothing more than a series of unfortunate coincidences.

      “Yeah,” Daniel huffed. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that somebody isn’t really out to get you.”

      He glanced at his dwindling stack of firewood, decided to add to it and stepped off the porch. Complete silence suddenly enveloped him. No birds called. No insects chirped.

      His pace slowed, his senses keen. His right palm reached for the grip of his sidearm. The holster was empty! He’d been cleaning the .38 when he’d decided to get some fresh Ozark mountain air. Stupid move. Careless. Foolish. The best defense available to him was, at that moment, lying in pieces on the kitchen table. A lot of good it would do him there.

      But he did have a long-handled ax on the splitting block. Common sense insisted he did not need to be armed every second he spent in such a peaceful, pristine place. His overburdened mind argued otherwise and easily won, just as something tightened around his ankle and stopped his forward momentum.

      He dropped like a rock. Caught himself with outstretched arms. Hit the ground rolling and came up next to the slab of log he’d