LITMIR.BIZ

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Wolfe closed the door and wedged a chair under the knob.

      There was a bang in the kitchen, followed by a muffled curse.

      Silently, he crossed the room and waited beside the door as Kit’s intruder inched through the darkness. Moonlight touched the blade of a saw-edged hunting knife.

      Wolfe’s lips twitched. Bad move, pal. You just used up all your chances.

      With one sharp movement, he captured the man’s wrists and smiled coldly as he felt the bones begin to snap. Within two seconds the man was on his knees, begging to be released.

      “Who sent you?”

      “Nobody.”

      “Try again, peanut brain.” Wolfe increased the pressure on his wrists.

      “No more. It was just me and the boys, looking for—for that Apache gold that’s hid up here.”

      He was whimpering now, and Wolfe was inclined to believe him. The man didn’t look like a professional who could lie in the face of pain. As he pulled the man around into the muted light from the window, Wolfe recognized the troublemaker who had assaulted Kit that morning. Apparently he’d decided to return by night and complete the job.

      “Give me a name,” Wolfe repeated as he twisted the man’s hands, grinding bone against bone.

      “Nobody—I already told you. That’s the truth, damn it!”

      Wolfe considered the quickest way to tie up loose ends. He could kill the man without leaving any marks, then dump him off a ridge. After the body had dropped sixty feet and rolled down a wash, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was a simple hiking accident. For a second, the urge for murder pounded through his veins.

      He pulled himself back from the edge, and in one quick movement of his foot sent the man flying to the floor. Ignoring Kit’s muffled curses from the closet, Wolfe pulled up an image of the toughest, most frightening Apache warrior he could remember from his reading as a boy. Then he sharpened the image, adding streaks of color at face and chest along with a honed hunting knife.

      This was the exact image that the man on the floor saw bearing down on him. No amount of thought or argument would change the force of that vision later.

      “If you come back here, ever again, we will find you.” Wolfe figured that the words should fit the image, and he chose them carefully. “There are four of us here. Together we guard the ranch and this family. If you come back, we will find you. Then we will kill you. But first we will skin you slowly while you scream.”

      The man’s body trembled at Wolfe’s feet. He was crying openly now, consumed by Wolfe’s terrible vision. “I won’t. I swear it. Lemme go.”

      Growling, Baby and the other three dogs lined up around the intruder. Kit’s cursing from the closet was turning shrill.

      Time to dispense with Einstein here.

      “Go back to your town. Tell your friends what I have told you tonight. Know that if any one of you returns, we will be here waiting.”

      “We won’t come back,” the man blurted. “None of us will, I promise.”

      Wolfe wasn’t going to take any chances. He focused the man’s fear, shaped it. Then he drove it deep inside his head to fester and grow.

      The intruder’s face was slack with terror when Wolfe finished. As the man staggered to his feet, something fell out of the front pocket of his shirt.

      Wolfe caught the torn piece of paper with one hand.

      The faint, irregular lines appeared to be some kind of drawing. He realized the marks were a clumsily drawn map of Kit’s ranch.

      But there was no time for closer investigation. Wolfe shoved his stumbling captive back toward a broken window in the kitchen. The dogs were still growling when the bulky shadow plunged through the window and dropped out of sight. Footsteps drummed, a car door opened, and then a truck’s engine roared to life.

      The big dog, Diesel, circled back to the closet where Kit was locked, while Baby jumped up and rested her front paws carefully on the window, looking out into the night. The only sound in the house was the furious sound of Kit’s fists as she hammered at the closet door.

      Wolfe figured the safest thing to do was engineer exactly what she would remember in the morning. He’d have to clean up outside and then replace the broken window so the dogs wouldn’t be hurt. He could easily have blocked Kit’s memory entirely, but he would have to make an appearance sometime, and it might as well be now. He couldn’t guard her effectively if he stayed hunkered down halfway up a hill outside.

      Kit’s curses stopped. The sudden silence was broken by the crack of shattering wood. What the hell had the woman done now? But Kit would have to wait until he checked out the house.

      Quickly, he scanned the courtyard. There was no sign of the last intruder or any accomplices. Standing motionless, he feathered his senses through the darkness in search of Cruz’s energy trail.

      Nothing even close. Not here or in any of the other rooms.

      At least one worry was dispensed with. When he crossed the first floor hallway, he heard Kit’s urgent shouting from the closet. He figured she’d be pretty surprised to see him after all this time, but no matter. Surprise, he could deal with.

      Outside the closet, he pulled the chair away from the door, which immediately shot open against his hands. She came out fighting—aimed a savage left hook at his face, rammed something heavy into his stomach, then shot past him toward the door.

      Hell.

      Wolfe sighed, following her down the dark hallway. A barrage of metal pots caught him at the far side of the kitchen. He ducked and nearly tripped on a bench she’d overturned near the door.

      When Wolfe stepped over the bench, the dogs were positioned around his feet. Diesel rammed his leg, forcing him to jump sideways to avoid stepping on Baby and Sundance.

      When he again looked up, there was a rifle pointed at his forehead.

      “Hands up where I can see them.”

      Wolfe cursed silently, glaring at the dogs. He hadn’t expected that last stunt by Diesel, which was pretty damned amazing.

      In any case, it was time to cool her down before she shot him.

      “Lower the Winchester. It’s me, Kit. It’s Wolfe.”

      The rifle stayed right where it was. “Someone breaks my window and invades my house, he’s going to regret it.” The kitchen was dark and Wolfe realized she still hadn’t seen his face.

      “I had some leave and Trace told me to drop by and look in on you. Sorry I drove up from town without calling first, but I never figured I’d get a rifle in my face for forgetting my manners.”

      In the darkness, she reached back to run her hand along the wall. “When I count to three, I expect you to be sitting in the chair next to your right hand. Meanwhile, if I see anything I don’t like, I’m going to fire. Are we clear on that?”

      Wolfe’s lips twitched. She had spirit to burn, his little Katharine. Except she wasn’t little anymore, and those long legs of hers looked damn good under her nightshirt.

      Slowly Wolfe raised his hands in the air, just the way she’d ordered. He wasn’t about to give her a reason to shoot him. “Hell, Kit, don’t you recognize me? Your brother was supposed to call and let you know I was coming. It’s Wolfe.”

      She stopped moving. Wolfe thought he heard her breath catch.

      She blew out an angry breath. “Shut up and keep your hands in the air.”

      In the dark he listened to her stalk toward him. “Whatever you say. But all you have to do is turn on the lights and you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

      “I just tried the lights, and they’re

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