Gone: An Emma Caldridge Novella: Part Two of Three Read Online Free Page B

the goggles to binocular vision.
    Shaw’s yard sprang into focus. It was still empty. Small bulbs attached to the high stone wall every twenty feet threw weak pools of light, the windows in the house dark except for the same one she’d seen the light reflection in earlier. Pulling the goggles off, she rose to continue down the path. She wore Brink’s gun in the waistband holster, her running shoes, cropped running tights, and a tight-fitting black running tank with the denim vest over it. The desert night air now chilled her.
    She followed the path through a narrow slot just wide enough for one. Rock formations hemmed her in on either side. Her steps made a rhythmic crunching sound that she wished she could control, but there were too many small stones to avoid it. The noise seemed magnified in the still air.
    She was five hundred yards above and away from the stone wall perimeter when the back door of the house burst open. Two men dressed in jeans and cowboy boots held a bound and hooded figure who struggled in their grasp. The figure wore a long shapeless dark brown robe, like a monk’s robe, and stumbled every couple of steps when the hem got in the way.
    Too small for Ryan, Emma thought. Perhaps a young boy or girl? The very idea sickened her.
    The men dragged their victim across the lawn toward the stables.
    Emma began sprinting. By the time she’d covered three hundred yards the men had reached the stables and continued past them, toward the garage or storage structure at the far end. She stopped, planted her feet, raised her gun and sighted a spot to the side of the three. Knowing she wasn’t a good enough marksman to take out one without hitting the victim, she inhaled and prepared to shoot.
    Before she could, she heard the sound of a rifle racking behind her and froze.
    “You shoot them and I’ll shoot you.” The man’s voice was low and gravelly, from either age or cigarettes.
    “That could be a child they’re dragging,” she said. “Whatever is going on down there, it’s not good. Even if you’re one of them, you have to understand that it’s illegal.”
    She heard the now familiar sound of shoes crunching on stone heading toward her. Her neck tingled with the primeval knowledge that danger was at her back; mixed with that was a sense of urgency, because the men in the area below were almost to the garage. Her opportunity to stop them would soon be gone.
    The man behind her came level with her right shoulder, and the muzzle of his shotgun was twenty inches from her ear. She kept her gun aimed and took a sidelong look at him. He was in his late forties, with graying hair tied in a single braid, a heavily lined face, and skin that was tanned and weather-beaten. His eyes were a bright blue and shone with determination.
    “I ain’t one of them,” he said. “That’s my horse you got tied up there.”
    Emma exhaled in relief. “Cowboy Leon? Brink rented Lily to me. I’ll tell you the rest later, but first I’ve got to stop those men in Shaw’s yard.”
    “Don’t do it,” Leon said.
    The men below were ten feet from the garage door. Emma returned her full attention to the yard.
    “I’m telling you, don’t,” Leon said again. Emma shook her head without looking at him.
    “If those two get that child into the garage it will be ten times harder to spring him,” she said.
    She’d never lowered her arm, and now focused on the pistol’s front sight. Cowboy Leon used the barrel of his shotgun to nudge her arm off target. Emma glared at him, took a step to the left and aimed again.
    “You interfere again,” she said, “and I’m going to hold you personally responsible for what happens. Are you just going to stand by and watch?”
    The men were steps from the garage door, and the hostage was kicking and twisting in a frenzy.
    “I can’t help and you can’t either,” Leon said. “Shaw’s got fifty followers on that compound ready to hunt you down, and that storage shed to the right of