didn’t matter.
“Daed, he’s hurt!” Grace spoke louder, crawling back to her father. She pushed herself up on her feet, then cried out, crumpling back to the floor in pain.
Carefully moving to stand on the edges of her feet, Grace found her balance and caught her breath. “Daed, I have to go outside. The agent is bleeding.”
Grace remembered the grunt the lawman had given when he was carrying her. Had he been shot and never said a thing?
She glanced to the floor where he had placed her and taken care of her burned feet. He had lowered her father so gently, as well, all the while hurt and bleeding from his own wound?
The idea bewildered her. It was a gesture of charity even in the midst of pain. And now he was out there searching for the gunman.
Or bleeding out.
Grace felt at an impasse. Should she go out to look for him and help him? Or stay inside and risk him never returning?
Whatever she chose would put them in danger. But if she stayed inside, she would invite the danger in.
Grace’s eyes filled with tears at her father’s feebleness. Whatever she did, she had to make sure he was safe. That’s all that mattered.
“Daed, I’m going to go out for a while. I’ll be back real soon,” she said, in the most normal voice she could muster.
Benjamin squinted up at her and she knew he wasn’t placing her. She figured it was just as well. In a sad way, his brain was protecting him through this ordeal. When this nightmare was over, hopefully he wouldn’t remember a single gunshot.
Though Agent Kaufman would.
Grace limped over to the closet and found a pair of her father’s boots. She bound wet rags around her feet and gingerly slipped them into the boots. A careful test proved she could endure walking in them. At the door, she reached for a lantern to take with her, but thought better of it. A flame would only draw attention. Still, going out empty-handed seemed just as dangerous.
An idea flickered in her mind, one that seemed so wrong.
A glance in the direction of the closet, with its door still opened wide, showed her the long box with the shotgun was still there. She’d never fired it but had seen her daed load it enough times to understand the mechanics involved.
She looked his way, and it was as though her father could read her thoughts. His head tilted, and his green eyes sought hers for an excuse valid enough to go against the Amish way of no violence.
She had none.
With quiet acceptance, she opened the door and walked out into the dark of night empty-handed. She couldn’t use a weapon to help the agent, but Grace didn’t think there were any rules about creating a diversion.
She looked to the barn and the trailer. The thoroughbred kicked up a fuss against the steel sides. Grace headed toward the horses and thought that she just might have the perfect weapon, or weapons.
Three to be exact.
As soon as Jack left Grace’s house, he shot his truck’s tire to stop the thief from riding out with the vehicle and trailer. With a flat tire, the pickup couldn’t go anywhere, but by the time Jack made it there the driver’s side door was open and the cab was empty. The man had run off.
Jack scanned the tree line, knowing he would have to go in if he was going to catch this guy. The horse thief wasn’t leaving without the thoroughbred, and Jack wasn’t leaving without his thief—or thieves, if Grace Miller was really part of the operation. Although that was appearing to be not the case, he wouldn’t rule it out yet, especially since he’d witnessed her taking the horse at the track.
Jack reached under the dashboard and pulled apart the twisted strands that had hotwired the vehicle. With the engine killed and his gun up, he headed toward the base of the cliff for a game of cat and mouse in the woods.
Jack held his weapon in his right hand. His other palm was pressed tightly against his left side, where a bullet had clipped him during his run with Grace. “Thank you, God,” he muttered under his breath. The gash burned like crazy, but could have been so much worse than a missing chunk of skin. It still could be dangerous if he didn’t stop the bleeding, of course. Judging by the feel of the wound, the gunman had nothing bigger than a .22. Most likely why he’d missed his mark from out in the woods.
Jack pulled his hand away, only to find fresh blood on it. Well, maybe it wasn’t a complete miss. But at least the bullet didn’t get Grace. At least she was still locked up safely in her home. Jack would play hide-and-seek with this gunman all night if it meant keeping him away from Grace and Benjamin.
Jack pressed his hand over his side again and tilted an ear to his right. The sounds of leaves rustling in the breeze mingled with a few far-off crickets. Then he heard what he was waiting for.
The snap of a twig.
The gunman was off to his right, just as Jack had predicted. Moving stealthily, he followed the other sounds the thief made, and soon realized the guy wasn’t very smart. So far, he had moved in the same right, right, left pattern. Jack figured it was so he could find his way out of the forest. But that also meant he could be tracked.
And just like that, Jack became the stalker with the upper hand.
He readied his gun as he took silent steps to his right. At ten feet, he turned left to keep to the gunman’s right. Jack picked up his pace to outmatch his target’s. He took one more turn, this time left, and came face-to-face with a shadowed figure in the dark, his eyes wild at being caught.
“Who are you?” Jack asked into the night, his trigger finger ready to pull. He stepped closer and noticed a bandana covered half the man’s face.
Or more like a boy’s.
Jack huffed in disbelief. “They’re hiring them younger and younger these days. How old are you? Seventeen?”
“None of your business. I’m here for the horse, but you have inconvenienced me.”
Jack laughed aloud. “That’s a big word for such a little guy. That’s a good one.” He laughed again.
The gunman’s eyes narrowed with anger. “How would you like another bullet in you?”
Jack’s laughter stopped cold. “I let you take a shot at me once. It won’t happen again.”
The boy lifted his gun straight at Jack’s head. Jack wasn’t about to give him another chance to fire.
He jerked to the right as his left hand reached for the gun and pushed it away. The weapon blasted, but the boy gripped it firmly as they grappled together.
The sound of a horse running interrupted them. Then Jack heard the thud of several horses’ hooves on the hard ground.
“There’s more than one,” he said aloud.
“The horses!” the boy yelled frantically. “The horses are loose!” He took off in the direction of one of the running animals, then veered to go after another. “Which one is it?”
Jack could see the boy knew what was at stake if he didn’t return with the thoroughbred.
His life.
“Tell me who you work for, and I can help you,” Jack said. He hadn’t moved from his spot, just turned to watch the boy grow more and more frustrated.
“She did this!” the boy wildly yelled. “I knew she would be trouble. I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.”
“You think the Amish woman did this?” Jack asked, biting back an amused laugh at the idea. Then he gave the remark some thought. The boy had to be right. Only Grace could have released the horses and caused the confusion.