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A glance to her left, and she saw the church’s back door. She calculated the distance from where she stood. And she felt confident she could get there before he did, but if the door was locked, she’d be screwed. Her other options weren’t any better. There was lots of open ground past the cemetery, and her other option was to run into the open streets behind her in Old West Town.
Marcus sniffed again and drew her attention.
“Go ahead and run. Try to get away.” He tossed the large rock in the air and caught it. If he managed to hit her in the back of the head with it as she ran away, she’d go down hard and fast like a lemming diving off a cliff.
She thought she heard her name being called but decided it was a fear-induced delusion. Nathan was unconscious, and Gabriel hadn’t had time to return, had he?
Fury settled in her bones as she regarded Marcus with his cavalier expression, tossing a rock up and down.
With one last thought of Nathan, Gabriel, and their safety planted firmly in her mind, she screamed at the top of her lungs and made her next hopefully surprising move.
* * * *
Gabriel ran toward the end of town. He didn’t see her. Didn’t see any sign of her. Had he taken her out of town? Were they even now speeding down a highway? There were literally four roads, one in each of the major directions out of town. No way to cover them all.
Panic rode high in his gut. Nathan stumbled more than once as they traveled on either side of Old West Town’s main street.
Nathan paused and screamed, “Suzanna!”
Gabriel didn’t hear anything. He joined in. “Suzanna!”
They continued moving down the street. Nathan stopped at his blacksmith’s shop and opened the door. He motioned Gabriel to keep moving as he disappeared inside. Gabriel knew he had a few weapons tucked away in there.
From the direction of the church at the end of the street, Gabriel thought he heard something. He started his feet moving faster toward the sound.
When he got to the church, he was at a dead run. He heard Suzanna scream at the top of her lungs and spurred his legs even faster.
As he rounded the corner of the church, Gabriel saw Suzanna wrestling what looked like a mannequin with a rubber mask on. She moved quickly toward another man with his arm raised and a surprised look on his face.
Suzanna shoved the mannequin at the man, just as he lowered his arm and struck her shoulder with whatever was in his hand.
She screamed and stumbled backward, clutching her upper arm with one hand.
Gabriel had grabbed his gun belt from the sheriff’s office. He drew his gun and shot it into the air. Boom. The sound reverberated across the cemetery, and lots of smoke rose around his head.
As he moved closer, he saw that the guy, Marcus, had a jagged rock in his hand. He startled when his gun went off and promptly froze as Gabriel lowered his weapon toward the man’s chest.
“Back up. Get away from her.”
Marcus laughed, which annoyed the hell out of him. “Why? What are you going to do, shoot me?”
Gabriel took several steps closer, but Marcus got a strangely amused look on his face. “I don’t believe that you’re carrying a real gun,” he said with a smirk. “That looks exactly like the fake gun I saw back at the sheriff’s office. Back where I popped that other guy in the back of the head with my shovel.”
Gabriel cocked his gun and aimed for the center of the lunatic’s chest. “Are you sure you want to test your theory? Because it looks to me like you just brought a rock to a gunfight. I don’t believe this is going to end well for you.”
“That shot in the air was a blank.” He lifted his arm again.
“Maybe so,” Gabriel said with a nod. “But if I get close enough, it can still make a dent in your sorry ass, or your head if you choose.” Which was a blatant lie because he wasn’t even shooting a traditional weapon filled with blank ammunition.
The weapon he held was nothing more than a sophisticated and very expensive cap gun. The sound was actually an amplified recording made to sound like a gunshot. It was very realistic for the things they did for the tourists, but nothing ever discharged from the barrel.
The sound of a gun cocking to his right sent both of them looking to one side. Nathan stood there stock still, arm raised, with his replica Colt revolver in hand, cocked and ready to shoot.
