Defensive Action. Jenna Kernan

like fat dropped on a skillet and she pressed herself back into the seat. Her stomach hurt.

      He drove with one hand now, and she saw the other was black and blue, as if someone had beaten him with a stick or a pipe or a sock with a roll of quarters or one of those...

      Her phone chirped as it came back online.

      “Rerouting,” said her phone’s navigation program. She snatched it up and saw she still had no service, but the GPS system was working.

      “Huh. We’re only five miles from the camp,” she said. She had been heading in the right direction after all.

      “You own a place up here?”

      “No.” She stared at her phone. “I’m enrolled in adventure camp for a week.”

      She glanced from the screen to him. He squinted at her, as if trying to determine if she was kidding.

      Her dad thought the wilderness experience would stir her emotions and bring back the girl he had known, but that girl was gone. Dead gone.

      “We can’t go there,” he said.

      “Why not?”

      “They have your plates.”

      “It’s not my car. I rented it.”

      “Doesn’t matter. These men can trace it to you.”

      Fear filled her belly like chips of ice. If her work hacking systems taught her anything, it was how ridiculously easy it was to gain useful information.

      His gaze flashed to the rearview and his jaw clenched, making the muscles there bulge. She knew what he saw. A turn of her head confirmed her fear. Behind them was a pair of halogen headlights.

      “Is that them?”

      He inclined his head and scowled at the road ahead.

      “They’re gaining,” she said.

      “Four cylinders,” he grumbled.

      She’d been offered an upgrade but she’d turned it down.

      The lights blinded her, illuminating the cab as the sedan closed the distance between them. The impact of the sedan slamming into their bumper sent Haley heaving forward. She was prevented from striking the dashboard by the cinching of her shoulder restraint. The Taurus skidded off the road, pushed by the sedan. Headlights skittered over a wall of pine-tree trunks. She had one instant to hold her breath and close her eyes before impact. The metal pounded the solid wood, collapsing as both front and side airbags exploded against her.

       Chapter Three

      Haley blinked her eyes open. Everything was white. She punched at the inflated airbag that gradually deflated. A fine dust swirled about the cabin, bright as chalk dust in the glow of the overhead cab light. She turned her head toward the driver’s seat and her neck gave a sharp pang.

      “Ouch,” she whispered to no one. She blinked at the empty seat beside her and the open door. Where was Detective Insbrook?

      She couldn’t open her door. Finally, she unfastened her safety belt and wiggled across the console to the driver’s seat. For once it was an advantage to be only five feet tall.

      Haley pressed the starter button but heard only a click. The smell of gasoline aroused her dulled senses. She had to get out of the vehicle. She planted one foot on the floor mat and it rolled off something metallic. Glancing down she found her thermos. She gathered it up and then thought to collect her purse. Her mobile phone was no longer connected to the charger and her initial search yielded nothing. That was when she heard the first gunshot.

      She hunched and half fell, half crawled out of the compartment, landing on hands and knees. The wet loam of pine needles immediately soaked the denim of her jeans and the ground felt soft and prickly, all at once. She scented moist earth and pine. Her voluminous purse fell forward, sliding under her chest and dragging on the ground before her.

      What was happening?

      She saw him then, the detective, crouching at the front fender holding her golf umbrella in two fists like a batter waiting for a pitch. Into her view stepped a pair of legs draped in cuffed trousers. The person wore the sort of expensive lace-up leather shoes she associated with Wall Street types and politicians. The fine brown leather was never intended for this sort of terrain.

      She glimpsed the bottom of a dark wool overcoat and then Insbrook straightened and swung the umbrella. The blow hit the man’s arm as he fired a shot into the side of the Ford near Haley’s head. As the two locked together and grappled for the weapon, Haley scuttled on all fours in the opposite direction.

      From behind the tangle of pine and crumpled front fender came the men grunting, coupled with the thud of them falling against the mangled auto and then the ground. She pressed her hands to her ears and then realized she still had her index finger looped in the handle of the cup fixed to the top of the metal thermos. A quick glance back showed her that the detective held her knife in a hand clasped by his attacker, who held a pistol in a hand captured by the detective. What neither of them saw was the third man, who made his way forward from the sedan to stand behind the wrestling pair with a raised handgun. He was similarly dressed to Insbrook’s opponent, had light brown skin and seemed to be waiting until he could get a clean shot at the detective, currently on his back on the ground. He sidestepped the grappling pair until he stood just beyond the pine tree where she crouched.

      Haley’s heart seemed to have moved to her throat and each beat ached. She pressed herself to the tree trunk, using its solid support to help her rise. Then she weighed her options. If the second man turned now, he’d shoot her dead. She glanced to the forest. She could just run into the woods. Find a place to hide. He might hear her and come after her. That thought made her throat ache even worse. Could she hide in the darkness until the men were dead or gone?

      She closed her eyes as she fought against the urge to help Insbrook.

       Don’t be stupid. You’re not a cop. You’ve never even seen a gun.

      But they were going to kill him. She knew it in her heart. They would shoot him down and then they would find her. What if he had a family, children? What would happen to her mom if she lost her only surviving child?

      Haley drew in a deep breath and clamped her jaw tight. Her sister had fought for her life. Haley would do the same.

      She gripped the thermos in two sweating hands and crept along the opposite side of the rear bumper, inching toward the tall brown-skinned man still trying for a shot at the detective.

      The metal exterior of the thermos felt cold in her hand as she hoisted it high. She had a moment’s hesitation as she stared at the stubble of his shaved head and the large shiny patch at the crown where hair no longer grew. It was enough time for the man to sense her there. He turned his head. She was out of time. Haley rose up on her tiptoes and swung. Her right hand clutched the thermos and her left gripped her opposite wrist. The sound at contact and the reverberation hit her simultaneously. Blood spurted from the gash she created in his scalp with the bottom edge of the bludgeon.

      “Oh, gosh!” she said as the man completed his turn and sank to one knee. He used his free hand to reach up to the top of his head and pressed it over the wound. Then he drew it away and stared silently at the blood that smeared his palm. He never looked at her. The gun dropped from his hand and she snatched it up by the barrel.

      She glanced toward the detective to find he had his legs wrapped around his opponent’s neck and held one of his own ankles to increase the force of the choke hold. The man gasped and struggled, his purple face illuminated in terrifying color by the cab light.

      Haley staggered back two steps as the man went limp.

      “Get their keys,” said the detective.

      She shook her head and continued to look between