Hunter got out of the Jeep, with Kelly still not looking up, and she said, “Hey?” The girl stood and jumped in her arms, wrapping her legs around Hunter’s body and burying her face in Hunter’s neck.
Kelly rocked both of them with her sobs, saying, “I…I couldn’t save her. I tried, hard, but I couldn’t.” She sobbed again, shaking her whole body.
Hunter’s eyes welled as she held the child and attempted to comfort her. She was in such pain, my gosh, Hunter couldn’t imagine what Kelly had been through. ‘I’m here now. I’ve got you.”
Looking over the crying girl’s shoulder, Hunter recognized one of the women coming their way. Nadine, from the ranch.
She carried Kelly to the passenger side of the vehicle and attempted to put her down, but Kelly clung to her, saying, “Please.”
Hunter said, “Nadine and two others are coming this way, honey. I have to stop them. I won’t leave you, I promise.”
Kelly slowly removed her arms from Hunter’s neck and stood by the Jeep Cherokee. “She has a gun.”
Anger flashed through Hunter, “Did she shoot at you?”
“Yes, Anita and me.”
“Okay, what I want you to do is get in the back seat and keep your head down.”
“Okay.” Kelly got in, but didn’t take her eyes off Hunter, as if losing sight of her would leave her alone.
Hunter glanced at the women approaching, noticing they’d slowed. They stopped completely at about seventy yards distance.
She held her pistol, the one she’d taken off the man at the ranch, and kept it at her side, her hand hanging loose with it. She said, “I don’t have time to mess with this. You three give up, right now!”
The women looked at her. Then at their surroundings. No one else showed, except for an occasional vehicle on Bell Street. “We think you better give up, to us!” Nadine said.
Hunter thought about the child in her back seat, and all that she’d been through. “You come any closer and I’ll shoot.”
“At this range? Good luck.” All three raised their weapons to show off.
Hunter took aim at the woman next to Nadine and shot her in the thigh.
The .40 round was loud, and sent the woman to the ground, hands flying to the side and her pistol sliding away on the pavement.
Hunter hopped in the driver’s seat and took off, checking her rearview mirror to see the other women kneeling over the wounded one. “That’ll keep them busy for a while.”
Kelly sat up and climbed over the back seat into the passenger seat. She reached across and put her fingers lightly on Hunter’s arm, just to be touching. She said, “Suretta has Anita, and Ramona. They were here right before you showed up.”
“Do you know where they’re going?”
“Maybe to the house where they kept us.”
“Tell me how to get there.”
Kelly pointed, “That way.’
She guided Hunter to the street, and then the house. No vehicles were parked in front, but Kelly said, “They always park in back.”
Hunter slowed and stopped her Cherokee right in front, then said, “Stay in the car.”
She went around the corner of the home, easing along with the pistol in her hand. A dog barked down the block, and she smelled someone grilling hamburgers outside over a Mesquite wood fire, the distinct smell stirring her appetite.
She reached the back edge and peeked around it, then stood and relaxed. No vehicle was there.
A man’s voice came from next door, ‘They loaded up all the kids and took off like they were scalded. The old man almost didn’t make it inside before she drove off.” He wore a cook’s apron and had a spatula in his hand. “Kind of glad they left. They were popping firecrackers around here and down by the river. We don’t need them catching the place on fire; there’s lots of dry wood down there.”
“Do you know where they were going?”