out of her spine. 'I used these on Julie when she tried to run away, back in the beginning. I knew they'd come in handy again.'
'What are you going to do with me?'
'Me? I'm not going to do a thing. However, those dogs of mine, they know it's about time they were let out, and they're not going to be too happy about you trespassing.'
Kate heard another jingle, and she looked back, to see him thumbing through a key ring. He selected what looked like the key to a padlock and began to move toward the cage and the quivering dogs.
'Marsh,' came the voice again.
'Julie, go back in the house,' he said without looking up.
'Marsh!'
'Julie,' he began in a growl, and then stopped. 'Baby, we won't need that. This lady's leaving on her own.' Kate turned and saw Jules in the doorway. She had a revolver in her hand that looked as if it belonged in a Western, but it was clean and looked well cared for, as had all the rifles on the wall. She had it in her right hand, pointing at the ground.
'You can't hurt her, Marsh.'
'Julie, this is Daddy's business. Take the gun and put it away before you hurt yourself.' He sounded as if he were talking to a six-year-old, but then Jules was acting strangely young, as well.
But determined. 'Let her go, Marsh. Don't let the dogs out.'
Both adults stood still, squinting into the late sun at the thin young girl in ill-fitting clothes, hanging on to a gun that probably weighed more than her arm did. Kate stared not at the gun, but at the tear that was trickling down the young face.
'Julie, you're going to be in big trouble, girl. It'll be the belt for sure if you don't get yourself inside right now.' His anger at her disobedience was under thin control.
'Marsh,' she said around her tears, 'I can't let you hurt her. Let her go. I'll stay here with you. Just let her go. Please!'
That was when Marsh Kimbal made his mistake. Had he simply walked up to Jules to take the gun from her hands, she would certainly have let him, but he lost his temper. He pivoted around with the shotgun coming up, centering it on Kate.
'Daddy!'
It was more a scream for help than a warning, but Marsh Kimbal's entire body jerked in reaction. He whirled, and Kate turned, and they saw Jules standing on the ground now, thirty feet away, the big revolver held in her trembling hands in the position Kate had taught her on the shooting range, pointing straight at her father. Tears welled up and no doubt obscured her vision, but she was biting her lip in concentration, and Kate knew that if Jules fired a shot, there was a good chance that she would hit him. Kimbal knew it, too.
'There's a bullet in the chamber, Daddy. I know how to shoot. Let her leave.'
He wavered. If she had been anyone but his daughter, he might have turned the shotgun on her, but this was the daughter he had sought for over ten years, and he could not bring himself to kill her. At the same time, had she been anyone but his daughter, he would have known that if he simply approached her, talking calmly, he could have had the gun for the taking..
But this was his own child defying him, and the step he took toward her was not conciliatory, but furious. She saw it, and she closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.
The shot almost hit him. Had she kept her eyes open, it would have, but it went wide - not by much, but enough. It tore his left shirt sleeve in passing, then went zinging and bouncing against the wire of the dog cage before raising a long plume of dust out into the floor of the scrub desert. One of the dogs went yelping for shelter; the other snarled and leaped at the wire.
But Kate did not see the results of the shot; she only saw that for one brief instant, Kimbal had forgotten her. Hoping fervently that Jules would not continue to pull the trigger in her panic, she threw herself against him.
The shotgun went off, deafening Kate and- taking out half the windows in her rental car but drawing no blood, and Kate continued to shove against him with her head and shoulder, butting him off balance and backward, knowing full well that, cuffed as she was, there was a point at which he would regain control, and then either he would kill her or Jules would shoot him, and Kate didn't know which possibility caused the greater panic. So she shoved hard against his stumbling body until she felt the jar as he fetched up against something solid. She leaned into him hopelessly, knowing it would be over in a matter of seconds, and then, inexplicably, he screamed. Startled, she drew back slightly; he screamed again, and looking up at him, she saw that he had flung out his left arm to catch himself as he hit the wire cage. Half the hand had gone through the wire and the excited dog, growling murderously, had seized it between its teeth.
She moved half a step back, braced herself, and with all her strength swept her left foot against his legs. The momentum unbalanced her and she went down on one knee, but he, too, fell, screaming again as the dog's teeth tore free. While Kate struggled to her feet, he cradled his left wrist in agony, started to rise, and then fell limp and silent as Kate's conservative leather shoe connected with the side of his skull.
Pain shooting up her arms and down the leg she had landed on, bent over double, her arms behind her back, Kate looked around for Jules. She found her standing as before, unhurt, lowering the heavy gun to the ground.
'Hey, J,' she panted, and felt a grin begin to grow on her face.
'I knew you'd find me, Kate. I knew it.'
TWENTY-SIX
'Jules, sweetheart, where are the keys to these handcuffs?' she demanded.
'I don't know.'
Kate racked her brain, trying to visualize the key ring that Kimbal had taken out and probably dropped back into a pocket when he was interrupted by Jules. She couldn't remember seeing a handcuff key, and there had only been half a dozen keys on the thing, but then she'd only seen it for a moment. She looked at the man speculatively.
Jules spoke up. 'He doesn't keep them on his key ring. They're somewhere in his room.'
No time, then; he was stirring already. The wound in his hand, though dramatically pumping dark red blood all over him, would not be enough to keep him unconscious, and Kate was loath just to keep kicking his head until her backup arrived. She wavered; he stirred again; and she knew that she could not be standing there helpless when he came to. Jules could tie him - but one look at the girl's face and Kate knew she couldn't ask her to go near the injured man. That left two options: awkward flight, with the dogs behind them as soon as Kimbal woke, or Kate's freedom.
'I have to get these cuffs off. You're going to have to shoot them.'
Jules tore her eyes from the man who was her father. 'There was only one bullet in the gun.'
Kate paused for a look of admiration. 'God, girl, you sure made it count. Okay, there'll be another shell in the shotgun; that'll have to do.' She gently nudged the shotgun across the uneven ground until it lay at Jules's feet. 'Now, you haven't shot one of these before, so I'll talk you through it.' Words, Kate thought; words would keep Jules moving as nothing else would, her only tool to keep the shock in the girl's face from immobilizing her completely. 'Our word for the day is ballistics, okay? First of all, sit down, on the ground with your legs apart. That's right - we don't want you to shoot your nose off here. Now, pick up the shotgun and point it at the sky, kind of jam its butt into the ground to keep it stable, because it has quite a kick. Fine. Now, I'm going to try and get the chain of the handcuffs over the barrel, and you're going to pull the trigger.'
Kate bent down close to Jules, facing the opposite direction, trying to look over her shoulder and see her hands, trying at the same time to put as much of herself as possible in front of Jules to protect the girl from stray shot.
'Maybe I should go look for the keys.'
'There's no time, Jules. He's waking up.'
'I don't think he'll —'
'Jules! We have to do this now or he's going to bleed to death!' Kate didn't think it likely, but she needed Jules to keep going. 'Hold the butt steady and ease the trigger back slowly.'
'I don't think —' Jules started to say, but over her voice and the noise of the frenzied dogs Kate thought she heard a groan, and cold panic shot through her.
