"Yeah, I—"

Lucas threw up a hand for silence as a pile of brush suddenly drew his attention. Something about the way the limbs lay around the fallen tree trunk struck him as subtly unnatural. It looked like somebody had stacked them…

The wind shifted. Both dogs began to bark as if they'd suddenly caught a scent as they charged toward the brush pile.

"Ray, shut those dogs up," Lucas snapped. The last thing they needed was to spook an armed man into killing his hostage.

Ray whistled sharply. The dogs instantly went quiet, except for soft whines of excitement. They really were well-trained.

Pointing his nine-millimeter Glock at the pile, Lucas moved toward it. "Come out with your hands—"

A gun barrel thrust through the branches. In the split second that followed, Lucas realized he didn't dare fire into the brush—he'd hit the kid. He dove for the ground to the thunderous boom of a .45, then scrambled aside as the shooter fired again. One of the dogs yelped in agony, and the other howled.

Brush flew as the kidnapper leaped to his feet, jamming the muzzle of his gun under the jaw of the little girl he held in front of him. The child hung limp, head lolling. "Get the hell back, or I'll shoot!"

Lucas leveled his gun, rage boiling through him. "Looks like she's already dead, you son of a bitch!"

"She's just out!" He hauled the child higher until her shoulders blocked the head shot Lucas was contemplating. "Just gave her a little chloroform, that's all. Don't mean to kill her."

"Yeah, right, asshole." Lucas lowered his gun and pointed it at the guy's crotch, just below Jennifer's dangling sneakers. "Maybe I ought to make sure the world's little girls have nothing to worry about."