Defiance: A House Divided (The Defending Home Series Book 2) by William H. Weber

she saw Dale standing a few feet away, his facial features twisted in puzzlement.
    “Dale, you scared the heck out of me.”
    “What’s going on here?”
    “What do you mean?”
    Dale’s patience was wearing thin. “Who were you speaking with?”
    There was a pregnant pause. “My uncle up in Scottsdale,” she said at last. “I was just checking up on him.”
    “You’re lying,” Dale said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Don’t play the offended one with me,” he snapped. “Unless you can talk to ghosts, that wasn’t your uncle. Walter already told me everyone in your extended family is either dead or missing.”
    And in a horrible flash, Dale suddenly understood what was going on. She was talking to Sheriff Gaines, or at the very least to one of his men, revealing details about the defenses they’d erected and ways to overcome them.
    The person on the other end of the radio could only hear you when you depressed the button and spoke into the mic, which meant whoever was on the other end was deaf to the conversation he was having with Nicole.
    “Ask them something,” Dale ordered her.
    “What?” The tremble in her voice rose sharply. He could hear the way her tongue was sticking to her palate, a clear sign of dry mouth and an obvious indication of nervousness and guilt.
    “I wanna hear their voice. You say it’s your uncle, then I want you to ask him about the weather in Scottsdale.” The gun was in Dale’s hand. He wasn’t prepared to use it, not just yet, but she didn’t need to know that.
    Nicole hesitated before doing as he asked. “How’s the weather down there?” she asked, wincing.
    “Weather?” The voice on the other end let out a distinctive-sounding laugh, one Dale had heard many times before. “What are you talking about, babe?”
    And with that the blood drained from Dale’s face and the strength went out of his legs. He knew who she’d been speaking with. Knew it wasn’t Randy or one of his deputies.
    The man on the other end wasn’t her uncle from Scottsdale.
    It was Shane.

Chapter 17
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    D ale woke everyone in the house by banging a pot with a metal spoon. The sound of cursing—nearly all of it emanating from Zach and Dannyboy—rolled down at him from the rooms upstairs. Sleepy-eyed and grumpy, they slowly assembled in the living room, the early-morning sky still a darkened mass.
    “For the love of God, this better be important,” Zach complained. “I was on a beach in Acapulco sipping Mai Tais and chatting with a redhead in a bikini.”
    Dannyboy chuckled, wiping the gunk from the corners of his lips.
    “I was being chased by Mayor Reid’s corpse,” Sandy said, cupping her elbows and shivering.
    “A shrink would have a field day with that one,” Zach told her. His gaze then shifted over to Nicole, who was sitting in a chair facing the rest of them. “Someone’s in trouble. Lemme guess, she used a bucket of water to flush a number one instead of letting it mellow.”
    Even Colton couldn’t help but smirk at that one.
    “Quit screwing around,” Dale barked uncharacteristically, his thundering voice devoid of any humor. “I wouldn’t have called you all out of bed if it wasn’t serious.”
    He started to explain what had happened. By the time he arrived at the part where Shane was still alive, one side of the room was sitting in stunned silence while the other erupted into a volley of questions and comments. 
    “I mean, how’s that even possible?” Colton asked, his hands at eye level as though he were trying to pluck something out of thin air.
    Sandy shook her head in astonishment. “We buried him.”
    Their confusion was understandable. Dale himself was still trying to understand what had happened and, more importantly, why. Not surprisingly, Nicole wasn’t saying much. 
    “So the two of ’em are working with Sheriff Gaines,” Zach said with disgust.
    “It appears so,” Dale replied. “You can see now why this isn’t the time for