34

A naked, possibly dead man lay in her foyer. Now what?

Ashley peeked from the kitchen, shivering against the cold that poured in the open front door. When she’d rushed off to save him, she hadn’t thought this far ahead, what she would do once she found him. She hadn’t thought he would attack her.

Maybe she hadn’t been supposed to save him. Maybe he was the same kind of man as whoever had put him into that shallow grave, one criminal taking out another, eliminating competition.

She held on to the broom she’d grabbed as the first possible weapon she could think of and inched toward him. When she reached close enough, she poked him in the side. He didn’t move.

Whoever he was, he was well built, had seen either plenty of physical labor or regular exercise. He had a well-proportioned body she might have been tempted to paint another time and place, under different circumstances. He hardly looked ready to be painted just now.

His face was swollen and bloody, like the rest of him. An arrange