NORTHERN ARIZONA

AUGUST

MIDNIGHT

Something was wrong.

Heart beating wildly, Modesty Breck sat up in bed. Listening over the pounding of her pulse, she tried to understand what had jerked her out of her sleep.

The wind blew hard, swirling around the old ranch house. She ignored the sound of rushing air. In the high, desolate reaches of Arizona’s northern strip, the wind always blew.

The noise came again.

The front window groaned as someone pushed it up in the old wooden frame. Like her, groaning at every movement of her dry, brittle body. With fingers gnarled by arthritis, she found her glasses on the bedside table and shoved them into place, grateful that her hearing was still plenty good.

She fumbled under her narrow bed for the.22-caliber snake gun that was older than she was. Its lever action jammed more often than it fired, but the prowler wouldn’t know that.

When she struggled to her feet, the cold rose through the old wooden floor into her thick wool socks. Over the protests of stiff muscles and joints, she walked quietly to the bedroom door, her long flannel nightgown ragged where it touched the floor. The kitchen door was open, always, taking advantage of the residual heat from the oil stove.

A muffled thump came from the living room. Footsteps crossed the groaning wooden floor. Then a scuff when an old throw rug slipped underfoot.

Modesty smiled grimly. She didn’t need any fancy burglar alarms when she was surrounded by an old house whose every creak was as familiar as her own breathing.

From beyond the house came the triumphant yowl of one of the barn cats parading a fresh kill in the moonlight. Like everything else living on the old ranch, the feral cats earned their keep.