Page 95 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

Which clearly meant that they couldn’t go over.

This time when Will kicked her, it was so hard that she had to screw her eyes shut to keep from shouting. She glared at him as best she could out of the corner of her eye, not wanting to turn her head and get that gun slammed into her back yet again.

Will caught her gaze, out of the corner of his. And almost without moving at all, his hands taped behind his back, he indicated the floor at his feet. Kate looked down.

To see the flare gun he was half covering with his trussed-up feet.

A flare gun in a watertight bag with what looked like at least three cartridges.

Kate’s heart began to beat in that hard, low way that meant adrenaline was moving through her. She knewAlaska Force would be looking for them. For her. What she didn’t know was whether they’d be checking the water.

But they would certainly see it if she set off a flare gun.

She could hear her mother and cousins talking in the back. She could feel Will tense beside her. Far off in the distance, she swore she could hear the faint whirring of helicopter blades, but she couldn’t tell if that was wishful thinking.

So she kept her eyes on the flare gun, not the sky, because the sky couldn’t save her. But the flare gun might.

There was movement from the back, and the boat rocked.

Will threw a glance at her, and she nodded.

And she guessed he’d finally chosen his side, because he surged up to his feet, making the boat rock alarmingly.

“I’m ready!” he bellowed toward the back, turning around so Kate could see that he’d worked his hands out of his duct tape but was holding them there anyway. “I’ve been ready for years. You were in prison, Aunt Tracy, but I spent all this time waiting. Wondering.”

“You’re a traitor,” one of the second cousins spat at him.

“That’s for the elements to decide,” Will threw right back. “Not you.”

Convincingly, Kate thought.

But she wasn’t about to waste her opportunity. The next time the boat rocked, she rocked with it, falling down to the bottom of the boat, slimy and smelling of low tide and rust. She fumbled with the slippery plastic, yanking the closure wide. She pulled out the gun, then a cartridge, cursing the one second—then another second—it took her to fiddle her hands around into the right space. And then to get the job done.

“This land makes its own choices!” Will wasshouting, sounding so much like his own father and hers that if she let herself, Kate could have tumbled back in time to yet more terrible memories she didn’t want to revisit.

Not while she was in the middle of reliving one.

She blocked him out. She listened. And this time, she didn’t think it was wishful thinking—she was sure she could hear helicopter blades in the distance. And when she looked, she could see a searchlight dancing along near the shore, as if they were scouring the waves.

Her mother hadn’t seen it yet. But she would.

It was now or never.

Kate surged to her feet. She kept Will between her and her mother, and she shot the flare gun into the sky.

She didn’t wait or watch. She loaded another cartridge, almost dropping it as she tried to work with her tied-together wrists, and shot off another. Then loaded the third, final cartridge.

It took seconds.

The flares lit up the sky above them, broadcasting their position in no uncertain terms. Someone screamed— probably her mother. Kate didn’t look to see if the helicopter’s spotlight was headed this way.

She had to believe it was.

She had to believe in something, and it was this.

Will shouted out some kind of noise and threw himself down the length of the boat, body checking the cousins like he was bowling with his whole torso. One cousin fell overboard. The other fell down hard but came up swinging.

Will freed his hands and fought back.

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