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As soon as he was hugged against the edge of it, Cat pulled the string, switching off the overhead light. She backed up a couple of steps and bumped against the shelf door. Hearing the clink of jars, she reached around until her fingers touched smooth glass. As she eased the jar off the shelf, the slanted door was raised up. A moonlit sky showed the bulky silhouette in the opening. Cat knew she had only seconds before he turned on the light and saw her. She prayed she could distract him long enough for Quint to get away.
His hand reached for the string. Cat heard the slide of the chain and closed her eyes against that first blinding glare. It flashed against her eyelids.
“What the hell—” Rollie stared at her in openmouthed shock, then took an angry step forward.
Cat threw the jar at his head. “Run, Quint! Run!” She grabbed for another jar, her heart soaring at the sight of Quint darting into the open doorway.
Rollie looked back in time to see him scamper outside. He charged after him, bellowing, “Lath! Get out here! The kid’s loose!”
Cat ran after him and jumped on Rollie’s back, hammering at his head with the second jar. A door slammed. With an angry roar, Rollie threw her off. She landed hard and struggled to get up. She had one short glimpse of her barefoot, pajama-clad son running as fast as he could over the rough ground. But a little boy’s ‘fast’ wasn’t fast at all. Rollie could catch him easily, and he had already started after him.
“You fool, get her!” Lath yelled. “She’s the one that can get us the death penalty. Here.” He threw something to Rollie. Cat saw the flash of moonlight reflecting on metal and knew it was a gun. “I’ll grab the kid.”
In those seconds while Rollie caught the gun, shifted it into his grip and turned toward Cat, she scrambled to her feet and raced for the tree-covered hillside five yards away. Footsteps pounded after her. As she ducked behind the first tree, Cat heard that sharp crack of sound. Bark chips flew. She ran to the next tree.
“Throw down your weapon, Anderson!”
Logan. Cat swung toward the sound of his voice. Lath let loose with his automatic, raking the brushy edge of the clearing with a spray of bullets. At almost the same time, a skinny pajama-clad boy scurried into the concealing brush.
“Keep running, Quint. Keep running,” she whispered.
Twigs snapped not far from her location. Cat instantly changed directions to lead Rollie away from Quint. But it was Logan she was worried about, conscious of the silence that had followed Lath’s gun burst.
Logan melted back into the trees, away from the yard, placing each foot carefully and angling to intercept Quint. Once he had his son out of harm’s way, he could concentrate on Cat.
Somewhere Lath moved along the tree edge. Once in a while, Logan could hear a faint rustling. The trailer door opened a crack, letting out a sliver of light. “Lath,” a woman’s voice called softly. “Did you get him?”
“No,” came the answer far off to Logan’s right. “But stay inside. I’ll let you know when it’s safe.”
The heel of his foot touched a rock. Logan shifted silently off it, then picked it up and hurled it as far as he could to the right, where the voice had been.
It landed with a thud, drawing another spate of bullets. Logan used the masking noise to sprint closer to where Quint should be. He spotted him just ahead, running awkwardly in his bare feet, the moonlight picking up the paleness of his light-patterned pajamas.
“Quint,” he whispered.
The boy stopped and turned his tear-streaked face toward him. “Dad,” he sniffled, his face crumpling.
Logan scooped him under his arm and angled back toward the ranch lane and the waiting patrol car. Seconds after he intersected the rutted tracks, he heard footsteps running toward him, coins jangling in a pocket.
“Garcia,” he called out softly.
The stocky deputy puffed to a stop. “Logan, thank God. I heard gunfire.”
“Is our backup here?”
“Not yet.”
“Take Quint back to the patrol car.” He handed him into Garcia’s arms.
“Dad, no.”
“I’ve got to go get your mom.”
When he made his way back to the ranchyard, Logan saw that all the lights had been turned out inside the trailer. He scanned the area, trying to locate Lath’s position, sweat beading along his upper lip.
A partially muffled outcry came from high on the hillslope, followed by scuffling sounds. Abandoning caution, Logan broke toward it, fully aware that Cat was a bigger threat to the Andersons alive than she was dead.
Gunfire exploded again, bullets chopping the brush directly ahead of him. Logan skidded to a stop, going to the ground in a feet-first slide as a shower of leaves and branches rained on him.
