range, but even goonboys got lucky. They’d take turns laying down cover to dart up the side of the road, getting closer…maybe getting close enough.
Rio knew it, too. “I’m going to draw them off,” he said. “I doubt I can get their interest more than once…better not waste it.”
Blam! Blam!
“Won’t,” Kimmer told him. Won’t waste anything.
“What the hell?” Hank growled loudly from the SUV between gunshot volleys. “Don’t play games with these people, Kimmer! Just…do something!”
Blamblamblam!
“Nice,” Kimmer told him, her cheek still pressed against smooth bark. “You don’t even have the guts to say it. What is it you want me to do, Hank? Exactly?”
Blam! Blamblamblam!
“Whatever it takes!” Hank’s voice crept toward panic. “Just stop them!”
Uh-huh.
Blamblam—click!
“Reload,” she said, but Rio was already away, running crouched just behind the crest of the hill and heading for another tree. He made a god-awful amount of noise and then took position behind the tree, holding the tire iron up to his shoulder so the sun glinted along its length.
They took the bait. They turned toward him, revealing themselves to Kimmer, and as one BG slammed a new magazine home, the other raised his pistol at Rio.
Kimmer aimed between them and took a deep breath. No turning back now. Once she drew blood, she’d be explaining herself to the local law; she’d also drag Hunter into the mess. From this distance the pellet spread meant she’d hit them both without truly damaging them. It wouldn’t end this confrontation unless they took it as the warning it was and withdrew.
If only the cops were closer.
But now it was more than Hank in trouble. Rio stood within their sights, drawing fire for her. Drawing it from Hank, who deserved no such sacrifice.
Kimmer pulled the trigger.
They both went down, tumbling away in surprise, losing ground downhill away from the road. Good. That bought some time for the cops to close in. Not much time, but—
She and Rio startled in unison as the Suburban’s engine revved. Hank! That puny-assed—
Rio reacted immediately, running for the vehicle with long strides, dirt sticking to his socks and the tire iron in hand. The SUV swung past him, building speed, and with a grunt of effort he managed to draw even to the open tailgate and fling himself into the back. For an instant Kimmer thought he’d bounce right out again, but he must have found something to grab on to; his feet disappeared inside.
And that left Kimmer. Kimmer, sitting in a tree and staring stupidly at her stupid brother’s stupid break for it. So much for the plan to sandwich the BGs between Kimmer and the cops she’d so fervently hoped would arrive in time.
No way in hell was she leaving Rio to take this one alone. Not when she had the only gun.
Though maybe while he was bouncing around in the back, he’d find those shotgun shells they needed so sorely.
The shotgun had a sling strap. She pushed the safety on and ducked through the strap, freeing her hands so she could climb swiftly out on the branch and then down the rope to the tire. She could just barely push off the side of the hill while crouching in the tire and she did it, swinging back closer to push harder, propelling herself into the open air over the road as the BGs struggled to pull themselves together, smarting and bleeding but still well-armed.
And here came Hank, hauling the Suburban around the hairpin turn from the clearing, forced to slow down for the rutted section. Kimmer adjusted the arc of her swing, leaning to the side and pushing the tire around until she hung precariously out over nothing, high enough to see nothing but sky.
Time to let go. And if her timing was off, to go splat.
Kimmer landed with a painful klunk, denting the roof under the luggage rack. The shotgun smacked her in the back of the head, the metal smacked her bare feet and palms, and her forehead made contact with…something. She squinched her face up as if that would clear her head, clinging to the luggage rack as the vehicle bounced beneath her.
“Kimmer?”
That was Rio’s voice, filtered through metal and glass and creaking shocks, and she thumped the roof twice in affirmation. She wanted to bellow to Hank that he should slow down—hell, he should just plain stop—but he’d already scraped the Suburban by the sedan in a painful screech of metal and she knew better than to think he might give her shouting a second thought. Best to just hang on.
Yeah. So much for Plan A.
The road grew a little smoother, giving Kimmer the wherewithal to turn around and watch their back.
And here came the sedan. Backing down a road it hadn’t been built to climb in the first place, and doing it with the careless haste that said the driver had already decided it would be sacrificed to the cause.
Which was killing Hank. And now, killing Kimmer and Rio.
She flattened out over the luggage rack, wrenching the shotgun around into a useable position. Eventually the road would get smoother. Eventually she wouldn’t have to hang on with all her fingers and toes just to keep from being jounced over the side.
They hit pavement. The sedan lost ground with a hasty three-point turn but then more than made up for it with the increased speed of forward movement. Hank responded with a lead foot, and they screamed downhill toward the residential area far too quickly for the sake of playing children or loose livestock. You fool. I took us away from this area for a reason. From inside the vehicle came the sound of raised voices, Rio’s emphatic and Hank’s shrill and defiant. The Suburban wove back and forth, wildly but briefly, and then continued as it had been. Kimmer, a little vertiginous at the landscape speeding backward past her, took the activity to mean that Rio had tried but failed to wrest some sort of control from Hank. And then they hit a series of turns for which she could only clutch to the luggage rack, grateful for its presence and cursing centrifugal force.
He couldn’t have any idea where he was going.
Nor did Kimmer, until she finally got a glimpse of the Dairy Queen on the way by and knew the road they traveled, and where it went.
Where it stopped.
The docks.
Kimmer could only imagine Hank’s cursing when he realized he’d driven into the asphalt equivalent of a box canyon. Quaint, bobbing wooden docks all around them on this little jetty, populated by a plethora of gently rocking boats—sailboats, pontoon boats, a speedboat or two. No launching bay; this area was meant for cars to back up and unload. Not even enough room for the Suburban to turn around without backing up to the wider parking, bait sales and gas and propane refill area they’d just passed.
No time for that.
The Suburban rocked to an uncertain halt. Kimmer gave two sharp knocks on the roof beneath her, letting Rio know she was still aboard. She uncrimped her fingers from the luggage rack and pushed up
