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ran her fingers over Hooch’s head.
    “I understand. Let’s move to your phone call with Mr. Coleman. What time did your conversation start?”
    “Eleven ten.”
    “Can you tell me what you talked about?”
    “No. But only a minute into the conversation Malik told me to hold on, that someone had opened his back door.” Sienna closed her eyes and felt her grip tighten on Hooch as she recounted the conversation. “Can you now tell me what happened to Malik?”
    Detective Braxton put her notepad down and frowned. “I’m sorry to tell you this but . . .”
    Sienna’s hand flew to her mouth. Deep down she knew what was coming, but knowing it didn’t prepare her for being told.
    “He was strangled. We dusted the phone for prints, but the attacker must have had gloves. Only Malik’s fingerprints were on it. I haven’t been able to unlock the phone yet,” Detective Braxton told her as she reached into her purse and pulled out the phone in a plastic evidence bag. “Dr. Ashton, I need you to call Malik’s phone.”
    “Why?” Sienna asked as she stared horrified at the phone. She heard the heavy breathing and whipped around to make sure it wasn’t real.
    “I need to see what the killer saw,” she explained.
    Sienna tapped Hooch on the butt and waited as he hefted himself off her. She reached for her phone on the coffee table and pressed Malik’s name. The phone rang and Cole and Detective Braxton both leaned forward. At the same time they cursed and looked at each other.
    “What is it?”
    Cole looked up. “It says, Dr. Sienna Ashton . The killer knows who you are.”

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    A ringing phone at three in the morning was never good news. Ryan was awake instantly and already reaching for the phone before the second ring. He saw Dad show up on the caller identification and worried something bad had happened to his mom, brother, or sister. Jackson was his twenty-five-year-old brother and was training to become a member of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team. His twenty-year-old sister, Greer, was in college. If some jackass hurt his sister, he was going to pay.
    “What is it, Dad?” Ryan didn’t bother to say hello.
    “Sienna’s in trouble.”
    “What kind of trouble?” Ryan asked. Sienna had been his ideal woman for a long time. He had loved her since they were kids. But that was the trouble. Sienna only saw him as a child, and he’d gotten sick of it. Suddenly, eight years ago she became interested. Women . . . she had only become interested because he wasn’t. Ryan had pushed aside the nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, it could be more than that.
    Ryan heard his father sigh. If it was three in the morning in California, it was six in the morning in Keeneston. “She heard a murder over the phone. The killer picked up the phone and heard her tell him she wouldn’t rest until he was caught. The phone had her full name on it. He knows who she is.”
    Ryan cursed and then cursed again for good measure. “What do you need me to do?”
    “I need you to come home,” his father told him in his “I’m a higher-ranked FBI agent than you, and this is an order” voice.
    “I can’t just leave—”
    “Yes, you can,” his father cut in. “I’ve already talked to Arnie.”
    “And if I don’t?” Ryan didn’t appreciate being the last to know his assignments and liked it even less that his father wasn’t asking.
    “I’ll tell your mother you were shot again.”
    “Damn, Dad. That’s below the belt.”
    “Sienna needs someone to watch out for her. The detective and I feel she needs someone out of uniform to do it. The person who killed Malik—”
    “Malik? Malik Coleman?” Ryan asked in surprise.
    “Yes. He knew the person who killed him. He and Sienna work with all the same people. If it’s someone in the organization . . .”
    Ryan didn’t need his father to continue. If it was someone inside the Thoroughbreds, Sienna had no hope of being safe. “All right. I’ll be on the next