The young man in question didn’t work for Homeland Security, officially. Unofficially, Doogan had provided whatever help the younger man needed.

Harley and Zoey were friends, though. They’d had a little spat a few days ago, Harley had laughingly told him. Zoey had come to his apartment and caught him with a young woman he shouldn’t have been with. She’d been outraged. But they hadn’t really fought, and she’d hugged him before leaving the apartment’s parking lot afterward. Harley had indicated it was no more than a friendly disagreement.

Someone was determined to destroy Zoey with it, though.

On the bedside table were the vials of blood he’d drawn as soon as he’d arrived and the syringe that held the drug he’d used to ease the pain while he worked with the hallucinogenic he was positive had been used to convince her she’d killed her friend. And as he worked to reverse the nightmarish images planted in her head, his chest had ached while a dark, burning fury grew inside him.

What was it about those pale, pale green eyes and Zoey’s pleas not to leave her, to keep her warm, that caused the break in his control and in the wall he maintained around his emotions?

Rubbing his hands over his face and blowing out a hard breath, Doogan forced back the regret, the stirrings of anger. If he was going to help her, if he was going to fix this, then he had to keep his head.

Without saying anything more to Zoey he rose from the bed, his movements drawing the detective’s attention. Before she could speak, he motioned her to the other room.

He didn’t want Zoey’s memories further influenced by anything they might say between them. Her mind was so completely open at the moment, the effects of the hallucinogenic she’d been given at its height. Any suggestion, any discussion in her hearing could influence her thoughts and memories detrimentally.

Closing the door silently behind them, he pointed to the door of the guest room across the living room and followed her into that room. Once again securing the door, he breathed out heavily, wearily.

“Harley answer your text yet?” he demanded, keeping his voice low.

She gave a quick nod. “He asked to meet in another hour at Ziggler’s All Niter, the convenience store at the north end of town. He said he was hunting at the moment.”

Hunting. He was no wildlife hunter. Harley, despite his youth, was one of the best human trackers Doogan had ever had the discomfort of meeting.

Sam cleared her throat then, her hazel-green gaze wary, heavy with fear for the young woman now sleeping in her bedroom. Sam had a soft spot for the other young woman. It wasn’t lust, or love, but her affection for Zoey ran deep.

“I checked her arm,” he said, pushing his fingers through his hair. “There’s evidence of several injection sites made in the past few hours . . .”

“Zoey does not do drugs, Doogan,” she hissed, furious. Gathering the long curls that fell over her shoulder, she pushed them behind her as though preparing to battle.

“You didn’t allow me to finish, Detective,” he pointed out, berating her mildly. “As I said, the injection sites were made in the past few hours. She has all the signs of having been dosed with a powerful hallucinogenic. It literally rips the mind open and allows someone with the right training to convince the person something has occurred that didn’t. In this case, that she killed Harley for trying to rape her.”

Sam flinched.

She crossed her arms over her breasts, the gray ribbed cotton wife-beater tank she wore with loose gray shorts attesting to the lateness of the hour. She’d been asleep when the sound of a vehicle stopping outside her neighbor’s small patio awakened her. At least, that was what she told her father, director of Homeland Security John David Bryce.

“Why?” she demanded.

To that, Doogan shrugged. “She’s a Mackay; according to Timothy, trouble shadows them. Where’s her sister Lyrica? Doesn’t she have the apartment beside you?”

“She’s staying the weekend with Kye Brock, Graham’s sister.” Sam paced across the room. Turning back to him she watched him suspiciously. “What the hell’s going on, Doogan?”

Doogan pursed his lips thoughtfully. Sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he leaned a shoulder into the wall and considered her question for a moment.

“You would know that better than I do. What could the Mackays be involved in that framing Zoey for the murder of a friend, would profit someone?” he asked.

“Murder?” the detective snapped. “I just talked to him by text.”

“But Zoey believes she killed him. Harley said he was hunting,” Doogan agreed. “Harley doesn’t hunt four-legged prey, Sam. Despite his age, Harley’s the best damned human tracker I’ve ever heard of. He came to me when he tracked a killer to Somerset. That’s why he’s here, tracking a monster no one has been able to catch.”

Should he have anticipated this, Doogan asked himself?

But how could he have? Neither he nor Harley were connected to Somerset. His agents were based here, but Harley hadn’t known the Mackays before following his target into the area. As for Doogan, he’d seen Zoey only once, five years before. The target he and Harley were chasing couldn’t possibly know she was a weakness to Doogan?

“Who?”

Doogan let a grin touch his lips. “That’s why he’s good, Sam. Harley doesn’t know what his suspect looks like, he just knows the human ‘tracks’ his suspect leaves. He’s been trying to identify him for over a year now. But framing Zoey for his murder wouldn’t serve any purpose.”

“He and Natches are friends,” Sam pointed out. “Zoey’s Natches’s cousin and he’d never believe she killed him. Besides, she has an instant defense in her belief he was trying to rape her.”

“Makes no sense.” Doogan shook his head, one hand reaching back to rub at the back of his neck, irritation beginning to slip past his normally cool façade.

“There has to be a reason. Something we’re not seeing,” he muttered.

“Damn, Dawg will lock her in a hole so deep and filled with Mackay brotherly love she’ll smother to death.” Sam grimaced. “Hell of a way to die. So you can forget figuring out why anyone targeted her.”

It was a running joke that the Mackay cousins, once the scourge of Pulaski County and surrounding areas for their sexual hijinks and penchants for troublemaking, made certain Dawg’s sisters lived totally different lives. Completely innocent, virginal lives.

“Dawg can’t know about this, Sam.”

She froze for long seconds, simply staring at him.

“Are you kidding me?” she almost wheezed with wide-eyed disbelief. “Dawg finds out we held this from him, Doogan, and he’ll kill both of us. And he will find out. Trust me.”

It amazed him how terrified everyone was of Dawg Mackay and his cousins. They were formidable enemies, agreeably, and no doubt, they’d be enraged when they learned Zoey had been in danger. But they’d never kill a woman.

“And when she dies of brotherly love and overprotection? Or whoever did this to her tonight finds a way to get to her again and ‘suggests’ she kill herself? Herself and her family? Her nieces? Is that a risk you’re willing to take?” he asked, barely managing to keep the cool, uncaring appearance he’d adopted over the past hellish year.

Could he bear seeing anything or anyone harming this innocent young woman? After all he’d lost, the thought of losing more threatened the hard-won control he’d managed to salvage in the past months.

Sam’s nostrils flared and she glared at him in silent fury and denial. It was evident she had no desire to risk their wrath in any way.

“Hate me all you want to,” he suggested, icy determination reflecting in his tone. “But before you go to Dawg, remember this. They got to her tonight. She’s in her pajamas, so she was obviously in her room, asleep. Right beneath Timothy’s nose they took her, Sam. They drugged her and tried to convince her she killed Harley Perdue. And if they convinced her, then she’ll confess to it. She’s a Mackay.” Swiping his fingers through his hair, he knew no matter what he said, Sam would still go with her gut. “It’s in their fucking blood or some shit.”