Snowball's Chance by Cherry Adair Page B

…
    Kendall took the window of opportunity and shoved and pushed Treadwell off her. God Almighty! Instead of running , she surprised the hell out of Joe by jumping on top of Treadwell with a banshee scream of rage. Straddling the man’s waist, she started beating the hell out of his head and shoulders with her fists.
    Twenty feet … ten … Kendall— Joe grabbed her arm, flinging her aside just as Treadwell’s knife arced toward her chest. He grabbed the killer’s wrist, placed his weight on the knee he applied to the man’s chest, then dug the muzzle of the H&K hard to the underside of the guy’s chin. “Play with me , dick,” Joe said, his voice low and feral as he applied pressure to a tendon in Treadwell’s knife hand. The grip should have caused the person’s fingers to release whatever he was holding. But Treadwell’s fingers, slick with blood, remained fisted around the hilt of the cheap ten-inch kitchen knife. Joe dug his knee into the man’s chest and exerted more pressure on his wrist.
    â€œTalk to me, Kendall,” he yelled, keeping his eyes fixed on the killer. “Talk to me, sweetheart!”
    â€œI-I’m okay,” she replied, out of his line of sight.
    â€œI won’t go back there,” Dwight Treadwell told Joe vehemently, eyes wild. His brown coat was splotched with blood. It sure as hell better not contain one drop belonging to Kendall. “You can’t make me.” He attempted to jerk his hand free. Not going to happen. “I won’t go back.”
    Joe kept up the pressure of his thumb on the man’s wrist, but the knife remained firmly in Treadwell’s bloody but bloodless hand. In one lithe move Joe surged to his feet, dragging Treadwell up with him. The fingers he had around the knife hand remained there like a vise, his weapon stayed put under the weak jaw.
    â€œOh, you don’t have to go back if you don’t want to,” Joe assured him with silky menace. “In fact I insist that you d—”
    â€œOh, God! Joe, watch out!”
    He felt the sharp jab of pain in his side a second before Kendall’s warning. Damn it to hell! Treadwell surprised the hell out of him by producing a second knife—smaller and considerably more effective—and stabbing him right through the hide of his coat. Ah, crap. The other man was also left-handed.
    Twisting to deflect the depth of the strike, Joe lifted the H&K. Pop. Pop.
    Pop.
    Treadwell’s eyes widened in surprise as he crumpled to his knees, then slowly toppled to his side. His sightless eyes stared at the dawn-flooded sky as bright arterial blood drenched the snow at Joe’s feet a satisfying crimson.
    Joe plucked both knives from Treadwell’s limp fingers. He’d only fired two shots.
    Kneeling, he felt for a pulse beneath the other man’s jaw. Dead. Perfect. He turned his head to see Kendall, eyes narrowed, still standing in the classic firing stance.
    She looked like an avenging angel with her red hair blowing in the breeze, the golden glow of a new day backlighting her. “Is he dead?”
    â€œAs the proverbial doornail.” Joe assured her as he rose. He kept his gaze on her face as he tossed aside both knives and walked toward her.
    â€œI’m not sure exactly what that is,” Kendall said with only a small tremor in her voice. “But if it’s very dead I’m all for it.”
    â€œVery,” Joe assured her, touching the blood on her face. Her coat was slashed. He wanted to strip her and check every inch of her skin. “Did he cut you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œLiar. How bad?”
    â€œBet I won’t need one stitch,” she assured him, clutching the front of his coat in both hands as she stood in the circle of his arms. Her casual tone was hard won, the terror was still clear in her expressive eyes.
    An unfamiliar aching tenderness gathered inside him. He had to clear the