Snowball's Chance by Cherry Adair Page A

landscape farther and farther from the house.
    She saw the snowmobile up ahead between the dark skeletons of the trees, black against the brilliance of the snow.
    No! Nonononono!
    â€œThis has been fun, Kendall.” He spun around, grabbing her by the throat, squeezing hard enough for brilliant stars to explode before her eyes. “But you’re boring me now. Time to say b’bye.” Her weight was balanced against his chest and he used his knee as a wedge between her legs, freeing his hand to grab her hair at the scalp as he brought the knife to her throat.
    Paralyzed, Kendall stared at the knife inches from her face. “Not again. Damn you, not again.” Despite the pain in her scalp where he’d fisted her long hair, she wrenched her arm up, the small gun clutched in her bloody hand. She had no idea how many bullets were left. Or God, if any bullets were left.
    She pointed the barrel over her left shoulder and pulled the trigger.

9
    J oe pushed through the snow following the blood trail deeper across the south paddock. Kendall-KendallKendall. An insistent mantra in his brain. Fear was a new experience for him. But it was real and physical. He’d heard her cries on the way back from the disabled chopper. Heard them, and known immediately that Treadwell had her. And if Treadwell had her, the men he’d assigned to protect her were dead. Ah, Jesus.
    Every breath was an effort in the icy air. His heart pounded with helpless frustration at his slow progress in the fresh, calf-deep snow.
    Uncharacteristically bloodthirsty images kept flipping through his mind as he ran, weapon drawn in his gloveless hand. He’d learned some interesting techniques with a knife himself over the years. So far those lessons had been purely academic. He relished the idea of demonstrating his skill on Treadwell. Let the son of a bitch feel the terror of finding himself on the other end of a knife wielded by a madman. A madman who’d been trained in the art of knife fighting and wasn’t afraid to use those skills to fight dirty.
    The wind whipped Joe’s hair about his face and batwinged his coat about his body as he ran. Kendall’s cries, echoing in the isolation of the remote area, pierced him to the heart. She was alive. At least he had that to hold on to. He doubled his effort to reach her as fast as humanly possible as powder skipped and danced across the surface of the drifting snow, trying to obliterate Treadwell’s footsteps.
    He felt the beat of chopper blades overhead before he heard them. Three coming in fast, spotlights strafing the snow-covered landscape. The cavalry after all. Snow whipped up, blinding him. Damn it to hell!—he pointed in the direction of the tree line. Not that they would be able to land here. The terrain was hilly, and there were just too many damn trees. The three beams of light rose; the choppers moved off, taking their lights with them.
    Kendall cried out again.
    â€œI’m coming, sweetheart, hold on. I’m coming.” Correcting slightly to the west, he battled across the snow drifts, chest heaving.
    He was close. Two hundred yards and closing.
    Go. Go. Go.
    They were twined as closely as lovers, two indistinguishable silhouettes against the stark whiteness of the snow.
    Faster. Faster.
    A gunshot cracked through the predawn quiet. Joe’s heart jerked in response. Kendall …
    A hundred and fifty … forty … thirty … twenty … He saw the fiery blaze of her hair, the brilliant yellow of her coat, as she and Treadwell fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs and started rolling about. Joe saw the glint of a knife.
    Run, faster, damn it, run. Ninety feet … eighty … He took aim. Treadwell and Kendall rolled just as he was about to squeeze off the shot. Shit. She was blocking. They rolled again; this time Treadwell was on top. Joe fired. The other man jerked with the impact. He tilted.
    Sixty feet … forty