tore out down the mountainside, careful to take the route she’d chosen on her ascent. The daylight was waning and she didn’t want to risk falling.
By the time she’d reached her vehicle the man had rousted the two boys back through the rear gate, but he hadn’t closed it. Cocky bastard.
Gabrielle jumped into the Jeep and drove as close to the house as she dared for fear of being heard. She bounded out of the vehicle and crept covertly onto the property.
Even before she’d edged up to the corner of the building she’d assumed might be a garage she heard the man with the gun ranting at his captives as well as his partner in crime.
“Tell me when your father will call!” he screamed, simultaneously ramming the muzzle of the weapon into the older boy’s skull.
The boy told the man to go screw himself and Gabrielle couldn’t resist a smile. “You tell him, kid,” she muttered under her breath.
“Maybe I’ll just kill you now, smart boy!” the killer warned.
“No!” the woman cried, only then moving away from the downed man. “You promised no one would die. What are you doing, Manuel? I don’t understand!”
Gabrielle shook her head. Women could be so stupid when they were in love. She braced herself to take down the bastard with the gun.
She’d been training for a moment like this for weeks. She was the best in her class back at the firing range in nowhere Montana.
The sound of a weapon discharging exploded in the air.
Gabrielle’s mouth dropped open and it was all she could do not to scream.
He’d killed her.
The man with the gun had shot his girlfriend.
He ordered the boys to get into his truck.
For ten, maybe twenty seconds, Gabrielle couldn’t move. Her body felt paralyzed by what she’d seen. None of her training had adequately prepared her for this.
By the time she’d pulled it back together. the truck was driving out through the front gate.
She swore and rushed toward the two downed victims.
The man was dead for sure.
The woman gurgled and frantically flung one arm.
Damn.
Gabrielle surveyed the damage. The bullet hole in her abdomen was pouring blood. The one in her chest was a little too far to the right to have hit her heart, but maybe a lung. Gabrielle shook her head. How the hell did she know?
She needed help.
How did she get an ambulance way out here?
Her gaze zeroed in on the blood pooling on the ground around the woman’s waist. Gabrielle swallowed hard. This girl wasn’t going to make it.
Gabrielle pressed her left hand over the gut wound since it appeared to be the worst and tried to staunch the flow. “How do I call for help?” she asked the woman who still writhed desperately.
A dark brown gaze collided with Gabrielle’s. “Stop…him…” The words were scarcely a breath of choking sound.
Gabrielle glanced toward the gate. “I don’t…”
Icy fingers wrapped around her wrist with surprising strength. Gabrielle’s gaze jerked back to the woman.
“I am…dying…” she gasped. “Help…the children.”
Her voice was barely audible now.
What did she do? Let the woman die or go after the children?
Gabrielle’s heart pounded so fiercely she couldn’t think.
“Take the…chi-children and hide…”
“What?” Hide? Panic tightened around Gabrielle’s chest. What did she mean hide?
The woman’s mouth worked but no words came out.
“Oh, God.” Gabrielle lowered her head closer to the woman’s face. Strained to make out her words. “I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?”
“Hide…the children…more bad men will come…”
Gabrielle reared back at the warning. “Your friend isn’t alone in this?”
“…many more will come…”
The woman stilled. Her eyes lost their desperate appeal.
Gabrielle’s breath caught. She stared at the wounds that still oozed blood, but the force was much less now.
“Look, lady, I don’t know—”
The woman remained completely, unnervingly still.
Gabrielle felt for a pulse. Nothing. Damn! She tried to get the woman’s heart beating again, but it was no use.
The kids.
Dammit all to hell.
Gabrielle glanced at the gate, then back at the woman.
Someone had to save those kids.
There was no one but her.
Without taking a moment to second-guess herself, she bolted toward her Jeep.
If Sloan’s residence was tied in with any kind of security monitoring system then maybe help was already on the way. It was too late for those two, but someone needed to know what had happened here.
One thing was certain, if Gabrielle was going to catch up with the son of a bitch who had the kids, she had to move fast. She jumped behind the wheel of her Jeep, wiped her bloody hands on a T-shirt lying on the passenger seat and twisted the key in the ignition.
The motor started and she released the clutch, allowing the vehicle to lurch forward. She sped out over the sandy landscape, dust flying behind her. But that was good because it was flying behind the other guy, too, and that was the only chance she had of keeping him in sight.
The sun had almost completely set, leaving only the thinnest purple hues reaching across the barren desert in front of her.
She couldn’t turn on her headlights. She needed to get close enough to shoot out this jerk’s tires before he noticed her approach.
She would figure out what to do next after that.
Chapter Four
Gabrielle slammed on the brakes.
The Jeep skidded to a halt and she bailed out.
Feet wide apart, she took aim. Her heart hammered against her sternum but she ignored
