Crossing the fingers of her left hand, she mouthed a prayer as she plucked up four large pebbles in her right and all the while strained to keep a weather eye on the guard. He wasn't moving.
Just as she was looking for the best target for her first throw, Kitty heard the unmistakable cracking pop of a rifle firing somewhere in the hills to the north. Her head shot up, her concern for secrecy forgotten as she scanned the horizon for a sign of the shooter. In other circumstances, she might have dismissed it as a hunter, but the time of day, and the fact that she knew Max had perceived a threat in the stranger Nick had reported in the area, made her wary. It didn't help that the sound of the guard's sharp curse reached her just before he thrust his radio back in its loop at his belt and sprinted into the rocks at top speed.
This was her chance. Crouching low, Kitty sprang from the raised floor of the gazebo and over most of the surrounding gravel. She swore as her right heel came down with a crunch, but she didn't have time to check to see if the guard had heard. Hopefully he'd rate the shot more important than a possible footstep near the house. She'd taken two running strides westward, intending to round the house and head for the road beyond the drive, when a thin, high sound snapped her to a teetering halt.
Lord almighty, that had sounded like a child.
Heart pounding with a combination of adrenaline and nerves, Kitty strained her ears and prayed her mind had been playing tricks on her, but no. A few seconds later, the sound came again, muffled as if the youngster were trying to be quiet, but it definitely sounded like a child's sob, and this time it was accompanied by the sound of something scraping against rock.
Kitty didn't hesitate. Faced with the choice between freedom and the safety of a child who was probably lost and was definitely frightened and in danger from whoever was shooting, she spun on her heels and raced toward the sound.
The rocks soon forced her to slow down, but she still climbed over and around them faster than was likely wise. She knew her hands were taking a beating from scraping against rough stone as she braced herself over a couple of uneven patches, but she didn't stop to think of it. She just kept concentrating on the occasional quiet sounds of fear that drifted toward her from the hidden child.
In the distance, she could hear the sound of pounding footsteps as the guard obviously chose speed over stealth in his pursuit of the shooter, and it took a great deal of concentration to block out the distraction. She needed to tune into the smaller, closer sounds the child was making if she wanted to find it unhurt. She hoped the guard was on the right track in chasing the shooter away from her and the child, but she didn't plan to take chances. The quicker she found the child, the quicker she could hustle them both back to the house and safety.
Kitty wanted desperately to call out, but she feared the child would be too scared to respond and might even run away from the sound of her voice. Cursing the speed it cost, she made an effort to quiet her own movements in hopes of preventing such a startled reaction. She knew she was too late, though, when a tiny gasp was followed by a long stretch of quiet. She'd already scared the child, and now he or she had stopped moving and done something to stifle the sobs Kitty had been following.
Clenching her teeth in frustration, Kitty froze and listened hard. Nothing. She had to give the kid credit, whoever he was, he'd obviously be a champion hide-and-seek player. Without the clues of sound, it had become almost impossible to track him down. The ground around here was too rocky for footstep impressions, and searching every nook and cranny where a child might be hidden defined the term "futile." The time had come for a few tactics.
Lifting her face to the bright clear sky, Kitty blanked her mind, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply.
At first, all she could smell was her own scent, along with dirt and rock and a hint of old wood and musty vegetation, but on the third sniff it came to her. The barest, faintest, sweetest whiff of peanut butter she'd ever detected.
She turned her head back and forth, trying to decide where the scent was strongest before she opened her eyes and followed her nose.
She moved quietly this time, carefully checking for loose rocks or twigs before each footfall, her eyes alternately scanning the ground in front of her and the rocks around her. She thought for a minute that she might have been deluding herself in imagining that familiar scent, but when a draft of milk accompanied it on the next breeze, Kitty all but felt her ears perk up. Turning to the right, she walked into the wind a few more feet before a flash of color caught her eye. Tucked into a crevice between two large boulders, she saw a scrap of bright yellow cotton and sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Less than five seconds later, she lowered herself to her knees in front of the tiny alcove and smiled at the small figure within.
"Hi," she whispered, trying to convey calm and reassurance even as her instincts reminded her of the urgency of returning to the house. "My name is Kitty. What's yours?"
A girl of about five stared up at her from a pair of greenish-gray eyes set in a smooth round face and framed by a pair of straggling braids bound with yellow elastics. She didn't answer, just pulled back into herself and clutched a battered and stained pink backpack in front of her.
"I was here visiting Mr. Lowe down at the big house when my friend had to leave to do something important," Kitty continued, speaking softly and quietly. "Did your friends leave you, too?"
The little girl stared at her silently for a long minute before her head moved in a tentative shake.
"Did you get lost?" Kitty asked. "I remember when I got lost in a department store, once. I got real, real scared."
"I losted my teacher," the little girl whispered.
Kitty's mind raced. Before Max's high-handed stunt, Nick had mentioned something about a kindergarten class being out on a nature walk in the area where the intruder's camp had been spotted. She'd thought the area was farther away, but either Kitty had guessed wrong, or this little girl had wandered for quite a ways looking for her classmates after she'd gotten separated from the group.
"That must have made you pretty afraid," Kitty offered. She had to fight against the instinct to scoop the girl up and run back toward the safety of the house, but she'd rather the child wasn't calling attention to them by screaming when they made their escape. "I remember that I was real afraid before my mamaw came and found me."
The girl chewed on her lip and inched forward a touch. "What's a mamaw?"
Kitty smiled and prayed this was a good sign. "That's what I called my grandmother. Mamaw. And I call my grandfather 'Papaw.'"
"I call them gramma and grampa," the girl whispered, her little hands twisting around the straps of her bag.
"And what do they call you, honey?"
"Sometimes they call me 'baby,' but mostly they just call me Maisie. Unless I been bad. Then they call me Mary Elizabeth."
"Is that your name? Mary Elizabeth?"
"Uh-huh. But I only get called that when somebody's mad at me." Her lower lip quivered and her gray-green eyes filled with tears. "Mommy and Daddy are gonna be real mad at me now."
Kitty felt her heart melt in her chest. "Aw, Maisie, I don't think they'll be mad. I think that when they see you, they're going to be so happy, they won't even think about calling you Mary Elizabeth."
"I wanna see them now!" The little girl broke down, her little face scrunching up as the tears began to stream down her reddening cheeks. "I wanna go home!"
"Oh, I know you do, baby girl." Reflexively, Kitty reached out to the sobbing girl and felt a surge of relief when two little arms crept around her neck and clamped down like a vise. Maisie's fists clutched Kitty's T-shirt in a death grip, smashing the backpack between them until whatever hard, pointy object was inside threatened to impale Kitty through the navel. At the moment, Kitty couldn't have cared less.
"I want my mommy!" Maisie bawled, her words barely understandable through the gasping, whimpering, and hiccupping that accompanied her tears. Not to mention the fact that since she had buried her face against t
he side of Kitty's neck, the little girl's voice sounded slightly muffled.
"Sh, I know, sweetheart," Kitty soothed. "I know you do. Why don't you hang on tight now, you hear? We'll go straight back to Mr. Lowe's house and call your mama on the phone to come get you. You'll see her in just a little bit, I promise."
Maisie continued to sob, soaking Kitty's top, but she nodded her little face against the fabric at the same time.
"Okay, here we go," Kitty said, tucking the girl closer against her and rising into a crouch. "Wrap your legs around me and hold on tight, okay baby girl?"
Another watery nod provided an answer.
Carefully, Kitty stretched to scan the area around them, but saw nothing. She could hear movement in the distance, but she hoped it was the sound of the guard pursuing the shooter. Either way, she didn't have time to check. She needed to get herself and the child back into the house just in case she was wrong and the shooter had doubled back toward them.
She tried to keep low and use the terrain for cover, but the soft, crying weight in Kitty's arms made that difficult. The best she could do was to keep one eye on the landscape and the other on the ground in front of her, trying to strike a balance between awareness of the danger from the shooter and the danger from tumbling down the rocky hill with a five-year-old in her arms.
When she came around a large boulder and saw the bottom of the hill and the more level ground ahead, Kitty gave a wordless prayer of thanks. Picking up the pace, she began to jog toward the side of the house. She didn't think she could manage the vertical ladder down to the cellar with the girl in her arms, and she didn't want to take the chance of finding the back doors of the house locked. At least if she went around to the front, she could keep the building between herself and the shooter and alert the guards out front about what had happened.
The only problem was the stretch of level, open ground between them and the nearest corner of the house. It looked to be no more than a couple hundred feet, but that was a lot of ground to cover when someone with a rifle was in the rocks behind you. Still, it was Kitty's only choice.
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
Taking a deep breath, Kitty tucked her shoulders, tightened her grip on Maisie, and broke for the house at a dead run. A noise behind her made Kitty look over her shoulder just in time to see a flash of movement and feel a wave of answering fear. Instinctively, she dove for the ground, twisting her body to spare the child from the impact just as the crack of a gunshot echoed in the clear desert air. It was a good thing she had shifted, because Kitty landed hard enough for the wind to exit her body in a hard rush, leaving her dazed and gasping on the ground, still clutching a very frightened little girl to her chest.
Blinking against the shock and pain of muscle and bone meeting rock and more rock, Kitty thought she heard a roar come from nearer the house. She shook her head to clear it and felt a rush of air as several large objects rushed through the air above her head just as a second shot sounded. Panicking, she tried to scramble to her feet even while her lungs fought for air. Hard hands closed over her shoulders and pressed her back to the earth.
"Shit. Can you stay where I tell you for one damned minute, you little idiot?"
The sound of that familiar growl opened Kitty's airway like a breathing tube, allowing rich oxygen to rush back into her chest.
"Someone… out there," she gasped. "Shot… before… guard… chased…"
"Shut up," Max ordered, but his hands were gentle as they ran over her arms and legs and those of the girl in her arms checking for injuries. "It's being taken care of. Some of the security team tracked him here from the campsite, and Nick, David, and I doubled back around via the road when we guessed where he might be headed."
When he'd satisfied himself that neither of them was seriously hurt, he leaned down until his nose nearly bumped hers and spoke in a voice so low and menacing it actually sent a shiver coursing along Kitty's spine. "I want you to listen to me and listen good, Kitty Jane Sugarman," he said, his copper eyes glowing with an unsettling light. "The next time I put you in a safe place and tell you to stay there, you're going to do it or so help me God, I will paddle your ass so hard you'll cry every time you look at a chair, do you understand me?"
She opened her mouth to protest his dictatorial tone—not to mention the words themselves—but he pressed a finger against her lips to shush her.
"Nope," he said in that same ominous tone, "no arguments. It's either that or I put an armed guard on you every time you get farther than arm's length away from me. Which is the lesser of two evils?"
He turned away before she could catch her breath, but now she wasn't so sure that the impact of her fall was what made the process so difficult.
"And as for you, young lady," he said, his growl softer though still stern as he scooped Maisie out of Kitty's arms and propped the little girl up against his chest. "You've had an awful lot of people out looking for you, and they were very sad about not being able to find you. Ms. Avery especially. Didn't she tell you to keep with your classmates?"
Kitty tilted her head so she could watch as Maisie ducked her head and stuck two fingers into her mouth before nodding reluctantly.
"Then why did you wander off by yourself?"
When the little girl just shrugged and hunched her shoulders up around her ears, Max drew his brows down into a frown. "Mary Elizabeth," he warned.
"Ahfwnnddufeedaunneewnnt."
Max turned his scowl on Kitty. "Did you catch any of that?"
Kitty nodded and pressed her hand to her chest. She continued to breathe hard, but it no longer felt like an elephant was sitting on her ribcage. "She wanted to see… a bunny rabbit."
"That's no reason to leave your class, Miss Mary, and you ought to know better."
Kitty opened her mouth to plead the child's case, but once again a loud noise startled her and drew her attention toward the rocks.
Actually, this one was a series of loud noises, beginning with a shout, followed by a woman's scream, a gunshot, and several men bellowing in rapid succession. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she reached out and caught Maisie when Max thrust the child against her chest and took off without a word to her for the second time that day. As he sprinted toward the uneven, rock-strewn slope, Kitty heard one bellow rise above the others.
"Max," a man was shouting, "It's Liv! She's hit!"
KITTY CLUTCHED A PAPER CUP FULL OF WEAK, cooling tea against her chest and tried not to fall asleep in the waiting room chair Max had shoved her into as soon as they'd reached the hospital. Even if she hadn't been too tired to argue with him by that point, she'd decided she would still have let the arrogant action slide. After all, the man had been forced to explain to the man he loved like a father that Martin's niece had been shot while struggling with the assassin who had meant to break into the Lowe house and kill the Felix of the Red Rock pride.
Under the circumstances, Kitty could cut Max a little slack.
Liv, Kitty had discovered, was named Olivia Anderssen and she was the daughter of Martin's sister who had died when Liv was a teenager, leaving her in the care of Martin and Drusilla just before they divorced. When the couple split, they had decided Olivia needed a mother's influence, and Dru had taken custody, raising Olivia alongside Nadia, who was younger by about four years.
Whether Olivia shared her female relatives' feelings about the sudden appearance of Martin's long-lost daughter Kitty didn't know, because while Drusilla and the kids were trying to nail Kitty to a tree, Olivia had been volunteering at the community center. Apparently, she worked as a lawyer for the firm that represented Martin, and she donated time to help low-income pride members with routine legal matters. She'd still been at the center when the news of the intruder came in, and when the pride had learned about the missing kindergarteners, Olivia had been among the first to volunteer to join the search party.
She had been following Maisie's trail when she ran into the armed man everyone had been searching f
or and nearly been shot herself. She had tackled the stranger, and in the struggle for the gun, both she and the shooter had taken bullets. Olivia's injury turned out to be a relatively superficial graze through the muscle at the top of her arm, while the man had died almost instantly when the shot pierced his skull and destroyed half his brain.
Superficial, though, hadn't meant anyone took Olivia's injury lightly. Kitty had barely caught a glimpse of the woman's pale, striking face before they had her hustled into the house and then into a car for the trip to the hospital in Vegas.
The sound of footsteps made Kitty raise her head. Max strode toward her, looking intolerably masculine in his dirty, torn clothing with his dark hair mussed and the day's growth of stubble shadowing his chin.
"She looks good," he rumbled, halting in front of Kitty's chair to scowl down at her. "So now it's your turn."
Kitty shook her head. "I've already gotten my door prize." She pulled aside the collar of her T-shirt to show off the edge of a gauze square held in place with white adhesive tape. "A nurse checked me out while you were talking to the doctor. A couple of bruises and a few scrapes. No breaks, bends, or bullets. I got some antibacterial cream and a bandage and was told to leave the emergency room to the people who really need it."
Max's scowl didn't lighten, but he didn't force the issue. Kitty could tell it was a struggle for him and hurried to change the subject.
"So how come Olivia came to the hospital?" she asked. "Why didn't she just shift? I thought that could heal almost any wound faster than stitches."
Walk on the Wild Side Page 14