She reached the bottom step and a bullet flew past her, tearing up the wooden planking by her right foot.
She ran harder, veering to her left around a corner where she caught her foot on the leg of a bistro table, part of one of the many wrought iron sets placed around the boardwalk. Unable to catch her balance, she fell on her face, stunning herself for the first few seconds. Scrambling to right herself, she saw a smoked-glass office door straight ahead with a light glowing inside the office. She ran for it, grabbed the handle and pulled. It didn’t budge.
“Help!” Desperate, Caroline pounded on the door with one hand while continuing to yank on the handle with the other.
Was there even anybody in there? Terror and frustration burned through her blood like fire. She raised both fists, feeling a sharp pain in her left shoulder, and pounded on the glass door as hard as she could. “Help! Someone’s trying to kill me! Let me in! Please!”
In the door’s reflection she saw the gunman round the corner and jog up behind her, grinning and raising his gun.
A couple of people somewhere in the maze-like complex started yelling, but they sounded too far away to help her in time.
It ain’t over till it’s over. It was one of her dad’s favorite expressions. He had a lot of them, and she could almost hear him in her head. Don’t you ever quit.
She whirled around.
Do whatever it takes.
Options. What were her options? She could run, but continuing down the boardwalk along the straight, long stretch ahead would make her an easy target if the gunman knew what he was doing. She could jump into the water if she had to, but she’d never been a fast swimmer. And Cobalt was a deep lake. Besides, the water in late September was too chilly for swimming. Cold muscles would slow her down.
But jumping into the lake was the only reasonable choice she could find—the one with the best shot at keeping her alive. Too bad she’d taken so long to decide. The gunman was now just a couple of steps away from her. It was too late.
Never give up.
She frantically looked around, and then jammed her hand into a big urn-shaped planter beside the office door. She grabbed a handful of dirt and decorative rocks and threw it in the guy’s face, hoping it would be enough of a distraction for her to get away.
It didn’t faze him.
Ignoring the small projectiles, he snatched her arm before she could get away. “Stop fighting. It’s over.” He lifted his gun and pointed it at her forehead.
Someone in the office behind the locked door screamed.
Her attacker glanced in that direction. Caroline did, too, and saw three witnesses who had moved close enough to the door to be visible and were watching the struggle playing out in front of them.
Maybe in his reflection on the glass the gunman saw what Caroline had just noticed. In the chase, his collar had flattened out and the bottom half of his face was now uncovered. His beanie had also ridden up a little. His appearance was not as well hidden as it had been when he’d started. And even if she was killed, there were other witnesses now who had seen him.
Still clutching her arm, the gunman dragged her away from the door, down the boardwalk and around the corner, back toward the bottom of the stairs. Maybe it was a precaution in case he got caught. None of the witnesses would be able to testify that they’d actually seen him kill her.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Anger at the situation flared up alongside the fear coursing through Caroline’s body. She wasn’t going down without a fight. She twisted her arm, trying to break his grip. When that didn’t work, she kicked out her foot and tried to trip him.
Dear Lord, she prayed, forcing her thoughts away from anticipating the shot that would end this battle. Please protect Dylan.
Who would take care of him if she was gone? Caroline’s mom experienced lingering damage from a heart attack that made her tire more easily than she used to. She could look after the boy for several hours a day now while he was still small, freeing Caroline to take care of all the necessary legal matters, but it wasn’t a permanent solution. The task of raising him as he grew older would likely be too much for her mother, meaning she wouldn’t be able to take custody.
Dylan’s biological mother, Michelle, had decided after eight months of motherhood that she was wasting her youth and missing out on too much fun. She’d walked out on Owen and Dylan, severed all ties and filed for divorce. Through friends in town who’d seen her, Owen knew she’d fallen in with an unsavory crowd. He’d told Caroline that while his ex-wife had never been convicted of a crime, her boyfriend had been locked up on several occasions for a variety of offenses. Most involved drugs.
Owen had mentioned to Caroline that he suspected his former wife used drugs. For that reason, and because he realized their mother’s health was fragile, he had requested in his will that Caroline be given custodianship of Dylan should something happen to him. The court system had agreed.
The poor kid no longer had his dad. And he hadn’t seen his mom or anyone in her family since he was an infant. He had his grandma, but he needed Caroline, too. She couldn’t die—not here, not today. Not when that precious boy needed her.
“No!” Exhausted from running and fighting, Caroline somehow summoned up the surge of strength she needed to twist her body away from the gunman and finally break free of his grip.
Then something happened. She couldn’t see what it was because the action was behind her. But suddenly the full weight of the gunman—plus more—was pressing on her and she was knocked down to the boardwalk. She smacked her head and saw a few sparkles of light. A feeling of drowsiness threatened to overtake her but she fought against it. If she allowed her heavy eyelids to drop shut, that would be the end of everything.
* * *
Zane Coleman kept his focus on the man’s gun. Two tours in Afghanistan had trained him well, guaranteeing he’d never lose sight of a bad guy’s weapon.
Hearing a woman scream “No!” he’d dropped the ranch expansion permits he’d just picked up at the Jefferson County building department and raced to the stairs. He’d run down the first four or five steps before taking a flying leap and tackling a man who was grabbing a woman and holding a gun. His hard landing knocked the wind out of him, but he could tell it did the same to the bad guy, too.
The woman, also knocked down when Zane landed on the guy, was likely getting her face pushed into the boardwalk. But there wasn’t anything he could do about that right now. His focus was on shoving his left hand onto the back of the man’s left shoulder to keep him pinned in place while he reached with his right hand to yank the handgun from the man’s grip.
Unfortunately, the gunman recovered faster than Zane anticipated. Still gripping his gun tightly, the man squirmed and shifted until he’d made enough room to bend his right arm. Zane wanted to punch him and knock him out, but he didn’t dare release his grip on the guy’s shoulder or his gun hand. With just a couple inches of room for movement, the jerk could easily kill the woman he’d attacked. Or he could shift the angle of the gun a little and shoot Zane instead.
Struggling to hold the bigger, heavier guy down, Zane managed to draw in a deep breath of air. Slightly more energized, he pressed harder on the guy’s left shoulder and grunted as he tightened his right hand, determined to wrestle the gun from the man’s grip. This time his fingers touched metal and then he felt the textured surface of the gun’s handle beneath the heel of his hand. He just about had it.
The guy jerked his arm and flung the gun. It slid until coming to a rest precariously balanced on the edge of the boardwalk,