Jenny joined him. They’d started across Main Street toward the stairs up to Clark when a shot rang out from somewhere above them. Blood erupted on Will’s back as he grunted and went down, and Jenny screamed.
She turned to run back into the saloon, but a man blocked her way. He was tall, lean-muscled, and wiry, Jenny noticed, as he jerked her against him and clamped a white rag over her nose and mouth. Lashing out, she tried to fight him, tried to scream, but she only sucked in more of the brain-numbing drug. She continued to struggle, but his hold was too tight, and the rag left no room to breathe.
Her legs and arms were going weak, her head spinning. She swayed, gripped the man’s shirt to stay on her feet. She was beginning to lose consciousness when the man holding her knelt next to Will and stuffed a note in his pocket.
That was the last thing she remembered as the darkness at the edge of her vision closed in, and the world slowly faded.
* * *
Will stirred enough to see a group of people clustered around where he lay on the sidewalk. He could feel blood leaking out of a wound in his back.
“An ambulance is on the way,” a heavyset man with a short beard said. “The EMTs will be here any minute. Just take it easy.”
Will stirred, tried to sit up. “Jenny . . .”
“Just take it easy, sir,” a young woman said.
“Get . . . Barrett.”
“Barrett?” someone said. “Cain Barrett?”
“He owns the Grandview Hotel,” a woman added.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Someone was shouldering his way through the crowd, tall, barrel-chested. It was Cain. Will felt a wave of relief, followed by a sweep of nausea, and fought the lure of darkness.
“Jenny . . .” Will said as the big man knelt beside him.
“The EMTs are on their way,” Cain said. “I can see them from here. Just hang on.”
“Sniper . . . shot me. Second man . . . took Jenny.”
Cain felt a rush of fury that had his hands balling into shaking fists. “We’ll find her. You just stay alive.”
“Sir, you’ll have to step away.” EMTs had just arrived, this one young, fresh-faced, and anxious to help.
Cain started to rise, but Will gripped his hand. “Note in my . . . pocket.”
“Sir, this man is bleeding very badly,” the young tech said. “Please step away.”
Cain shoved the young guy off him long enough to search Will’s shirt pocket and pull out a white piece of paper. He rose and moved out of the way.
“Take good care of him,” Cain said.
The young tech relaxed. “We will.”
Cain wanted to stay, make sure Will was going to be all right, but for now, finding Jenny had to come first. His rage swelled as he read the note.
I have Jenny. You want her back, you’ll have to figure out where I am.
It was signed,Your old friend, Bart.
Fucking Bart Harwell, once his partner, never much of a friend. He hadn’t believed Bart would want payback this badly. Cain wanted to crumple the note and grind it into the dirt with the heel of his boot, but instead he stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.
The police were arriving on the scene. He recognized the two deputies, Jerry Simmons and Neal Gibbons. The Verde Valley ambulance was less than fifteen minutes away. He left the EMTs working over Will and phoned Nick Faraday as he walked back to the Jag.
“Bart Harwell’s got Jenny,” Cain said. “He’s working with a partner. One of them shot Will Price in the back, while the other took Jenny. Will’s alive, but he’s badly injured. The EMTs are with him. The ambulance should be here any minute. I’ll be at the Grandview till I can figure out where Harwell’s taken Jenny.”
“I’m on my way,” Nick said.
