LITMIR.BIZ

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see there was no one behind him, so he slowed down. George Plum pulled his ranch truck up beside him and the two men rolled down their windows.

      “Anything?” Trip said, his breath condensing.

      George shook his graying head. The seriousness of the situation was manifested by the fact that George, for once, wasn’t puffing on a pipe. “You didn’t see nothing, either?”

      “No. She described a chase of some kind, but it’s obviously over. Did you run across anyone else between here and the ranch?”

      George shook his head. “Not a thing. But if you know the area, there are any number of little roads to use to get back to Highway 67 before you get to the ranch.”

      “Yeah. Okay, I’ll head to the ranch, keeping an eye out in case he ran her off the road. You go toward the Tyrone Gardens exit. We’ll meet back at the Triple T.”

      “You got it,” George said, and rolling up his window, he drove off.

      Trip flipped his headlights back to high beam and started searching the side of the road up ahead as he drove slowly along the highway. He found a spot with what looked like fresh tire marks on the grassy edge and got out to check it with a flashlight. Nothing there, so he got back in the truck, fighting a sinking feeling that wouldn’t go away.

      The tracks were new. How new he couldn’t tell, but new enough it was possible they were made by Faith’s car, and they brought home the reality of her situation. The icy night, the slick road, the frightened children, the panic.

      What was going on? Could this be the work of Neil Roberts? The timing seemed too tight to finger Roberts. The man was brighter than your average serial killer, but he wasn’t psychic. So how could he have connected Faith to Trip, unless he’d been trailing Trip, seen Trip depart the school alone, then stayed around to see Faith leave with the children. How had he put it all together?

      It seemed a long shot. But, oh, God, if that man got his hands on the kids or Faith…

      He found another spot in the frozen mud, with deep tracks that looked pretty fresh. His gut told him this was it. He took a moment to unlock the shotgun from the back window and load it. He labored up an incline, slipping and sliding with each step. The ground was torn, mud oozing like dark blood from a fresh wound. Upon reaching the top, he shined his flashlight in an arc and found himself staring at a gray sedan about thirty yards away. The passenger side of the car was pressed up against three or four pines and a pile of rocks.

      He slid down the incline and ran across the ground to the car, reaching it before he’d so much as taken a breath, his heartbeat thundering in his head. If Noelle had been on the passenger side in the backseat she’d be crushed against the trees.

      The sharp sound of a baby crying reached his ears as he yanked on the front door. Locked. He yelled and banged, his usual calm in a crisis fleeing in the face of the fact that these children were his responsibility—

      He shined the light in the window. Faith Bishop, Noelle and Colin all looked back at him, eyes wide, mouths open, their combined screams penetrating the glass. And then a tiny beam of light hit him on the face. The front door lock popped open and they tumbled out all at once, as though glued together. With tears running down each of their faces, they all looked as though they’d faced a firing squad and the guns had misfired.

      He gathered them into his arms, crushing Colin against his chest, his gun arm wrapped around Faith’s back, Noelle pressed against his legs.

      “Are you okay? Are you all okay?” he asked, straining to shine the flashlight, looking for cuts and bruises.

      “We’re just so glad to see you,” Faith gasped. “I didn’t know if I should chance taking them out of the car. My tank was almost empty and I didn’t smell gasoline, but—”

      “You did fine,” he interrupted. “You’re all okay, it’s a miracle.”

      “I think my cell phone hit Colin in the forehead and Noelle says her arm hurts.”

      He leaned down and shone the light in Noelle’s eyes. She blinked and turned away. As he stood back up and reached for Colin, the little girl flung herself at Faith who lifted her from the ground and hugged her. The beam from the tiny flashlight still clutched in Noelle’s hand pointed heavenward as their breath misted around their heads.

      Colin’s bump looked superficial in the wavering light of the flashlight, and there was nothing weak about his grip on Trip’s jacket. The baby nuzzled Trip’s neck, his nose like a little ice cube against Trip’s warmer skin.

      “Retrieve what you need from your car,” he told Faith as she set Noelle on the ground. “Let’s get out of here.”

      “Before he comes back,” Faith said, her voice trembling.

      “He’s not coming back, not tonight.”

      “But—”

      “Trust me,” Trip said, jaw tightening.

      No, a coward like this man would not return to finish the job, especially not when he saw Trip’s truck. Whoever did this had to know he’d run his victim’s car off the road. If he’d been intent on murder, he would have come after it, not driven away.

      And that didn’t sound like Neil Roberts.

      

      FAITH SHARED THE FRONT SEAT with both children. Colin was very quiet, his body heavy and limp. Noelle’s head drooped against Faith’s arm.

      Faith, on the other hand, was so wired she almost shook. She strained against her seat belt to peer ahead into the night and glance in the rearview mirror attached to the passenger door, ready to jump out of her skin if she caught sight of approaching lights from either direction.

      Beside her, Trip called someone named George and told him everyone was safe, to come back to the ranch. Safe? She didn’t feel safe, not even enclosed in the big, warm truck, not even with Trip less than a foot away. She doubted she’d ever feel safe again.

      She was so wound up in the lingering effects of the terrifying last hour or so that she jumped as the truck rattled over a cattle guard and under a huge wooden arc announcing the Triple T Ranch. Looking out into the dark fields, she said, “Where are all the cows?”

      “Most are down in the winter pastures,” Trip replied.

      As he spoke the headlights illuminated a pair of giant fir trees looming like sentinels on either side of the road. Trip drove past them into a large paved area flanked by a sprawling ranch-style house ablaze with lights. An equally well-lit barn and the dark shapes of a half-dozen other buildings loomed in the distance.

      Trip hadn’t yet shut down the engine when the door of the house sprang open and a handful of people rushed outside.

      “I take it they know about the car chase,” Faith said.

      “Looks like it,” Trip said as a heavyset woman with graying red hair opened the passenger door. Bypassing Faith, she crooned assurances to Colin in a lilting Irish brogue as she lifted him from Faith’s arms. An older man asked Noelle if she was all right as he liberated her from the seat belt. Holding the children in protective embraces, they moved off with the others, voices raised as they reentered the house, leaving Trip and Faith alone in the sudden hush.

      Trip slammed the truck door and came around to her side. “You’re awfully quiet, Faith. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

      “Just shaky,” she said.

      His fingers were warm and strong as they grasped her hand and gently pulled her from the truck. She landed in front of him. She found his closeness both reassuring and frightening; that much raw male energy was unsettling, but in a totally different way than David Lee’s proximity.

      “Thank you,” he said as he released her hand.

      Blinking her eyes, she looked up him. “Thank you for what? For almost getting your niece and nephew killed?”

      “No,

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