"Good," Ty said. "That wasn't you blowing up. The shack?"

"That's my guess." Manny spoke calmly, explosions and shots fired in the woods apparently not enough to ruffle him-or North and Callahan. "There are two shooters, at least one back at the shack. I couldn't get close enough to any of them for a good description."

"I have binoculars you could have borrowed," Carine said.

He grinned at her. "But they were shooting at you, kiddo."

"Not necessarily at me-"

"Yes. At you. They just didn't want you dead. Scared, paralyzed, maybe. Otherwise, they wouldn't have missed, not that many times. They were using scoped, semiautomatic rifles." His tone was objective, just stating the facts, but his eyes settled on her, his gaze softening slightly. "Sorry. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't target practice gone awry. They didn't mistake you for a deer."

"I get it." She tried to be as clinical about her near-death experience as the three men were, but she kept seeing herself crouched behind the boulder, hearing the shots, feeling the rock shard hit her head. The bullets had been flying at her, not them. "Maybe they saw me taking pictures, but-" she took a breath "-to me it was just a hunting shack."

"That's enough for now," Ty said. "We can speculate later. You have a cell phone on you?"

Carinenodded."Idoubtthere'sanycoverageouthere."

She took her day pack from him and dug out her phone, but she was totally spent from dodging bullets, diving behind trees and boulders, charging through the woods with two military types, all after tramping around on her own with her camera. She hit the wrong button and almost threw the phone onto the ground.

North quietly took it and shook his head. "No service. Hank and Manny, you take my truck. I'll go with Carine." He turned to her, eyeing her pragmatically. "Can you drive, or do you want me to?"

"I can do it."