the fear were no doubt to blame.
Kendall drew in several hard breaths and forced herself to look down at the wound. At the gaping hole in her jacket. It turned her stomach, but she tried to make sure she wasn’t bleeding out.
She wasn’t.
There was blood all right, but there didn’t seem to be much more than when he’d initially shot her. That was something at least. A serious blood loss could cause her to miscarry.
The men finally led her out the front door, the same way they’d brought her in after one of them had jimmied the lock. Aiden had a security system, but it hadn’t been on. He probably hadn’t felt the need because he was the sheriff.
Too bad.
If the system had been armed, Aiden might have been alerted and could have nipped this in the bud.
They went onto the porch, down the steps and through the yard toward a thick cluster of trees to the right where the men had left the SUV they’d used to kidnap her from the parking lot of her law office. After they’d grabbed her, they’d stopped several miles outside town to change the license plates and to make a call. Kendall hadn’t learned a thing from that call, because they’d said only one thing to the person on the other end of the line.
“We have her.”
No names used. No hint of the identity of the person they’d called.
So, who had put all this insanity into motion?
Despite Aiden’s accusations and suspicions, it wasn’t Jewell or her daughters. Not Jewell’s stepson, Seth, either. Yes, the three of them loved Jewell, but they wouldn’t resort to this. Unfortunately, other than those three children, Kendall and Jewell’s lawyer, Robert Joplin, there weren’t many people who wanted Jewell to beat this murder charge.
But clearly someone wanted just that.
When they were about ten yards from the SUV, Kendall stumbled just to see how fast the men would react, and she got her answer.
Fast.
Both of them grabbed her, and within a second, she had a gun jammed against her left temple again.
“Keep it up, and you’ll be sorry,” one of the men growled.
No matter what she did, she could be sorry, but Kendall cooperated.
For now.
She continued toward the SUV and didn’t resist when the men practically shoved her inside. As they’d done on the drive there, they buckled her into a seat belt in the middle, and the man who’d spoken only a few words dropped down behind her. The one who’d been doing all the talking walked around the front of the SUV toward the driver’s side.
But then he stopped.
That certainly got her attention, but it got his partner’s, too. “What’s wrong?” the man asked. Unlike the other one, he had some kind of thick accent.
The man still outside raised his finger in a wait-a-second gesture and lifted his head. Listening for something.
Or maybe someone.
Kendall hoped and prayed that it was someone who could get her away from these goons.
“Don’t move,” the guy with the accent said to her, and he stepped out of the SUV. Not far. Just a few inches outside the open door, and he, too, listened. His gaze also darted all around the heavily treed area.
Kendall looked, as well. She tried to pick through the trees and underbrush, but it was spring with everything in full bloom, so she couldn’t see anything.
However, she thought that she might have heard something, like a twig snap. The men didn’t miss it. With their guns raised, they pivoted in the direction of the sound.
Again, nothing.
For several seconds anyway.
Then the shot zinged through the air. It hadn’t been fired by one of her captors but had instead come from the area of that dense underbrush.
It had to be Aiden.
He would have known to cut through the woods and come back after them.
Her captors immediately lifted their guns to return fire, and Kendall sank down into the seat as far as she could. She also looked for something, anything, she could use to cut through the plastic cuffs.
Outside, both men fired, their bullets blasting through the air. She quickly added another prayer that Aiden hadn’t been shot.
Both men continued to fire. Kendall continued to struggle, and even though it made the pain in her arm much worse, she managed to move her hand so she could pop the button on the seat belt. It slid off her, and she got to the floor. Not just for protection but so she could look under the seat.
There was a first aid kit.
She fumbled through it as best she could and found a pair of scissors. They were small, the kind used for cutting bandages and not restraints. Still, they would have to do.
It was hard enough just to pick them up with her hands behind her back. Harder still to try to make any cut. But she had to try.
Kendall glanced out. Both men were now at the front of the SUV and they were tearing up the woods with their bullets. Even though Aiden’s nearest neighbor was a half mile away, maybe he would hear the noise and report it if Aiden hadn’t already called for backup.
The man with the accent looked into the SUV. His gaze connected with hers through the gap between the front seats, and he said something to his partner that she couldn’t hear. But the man must have realized she was trying to escape, because he hurried toward the driver’s door.
Coming for her.
Her heart was pumping now. The adrenaline, too. Kendall worked even harder at trying to cut through the plastic. She could feel them giving way. Little by little. But the man was practically right on her.
The plastic cuffs gave way, finally.
Just as the man crawled across the seat and grabbed for her.
But Kendall brought up the scissors and stabbed him in the face. Because of the ski mask, she wasn’t sure what part of him she hit, but he howled in pain and came at her.
Kendall hit him again with the scissors. This time in his neck.
He made some kind of strangled sound, and she saw the blood. Nothing like her gunshot wound. There was lots of it, and the agonizing sound that he made sent his partner running to him.
Kendall knew she had mere seconds at best. The side door was already open, and she barreled through it. She hadn’t realized just how dizzy and weak she was until her feet touched the ground.
Everything started to spin.
And she would no doubt have fallen if someone hadn’t caught her by the arm. She could just barely make out Aiden’s face.
“Come
