Page 69 of Blood Stone

It happened very fast.

Terry, amazingly, leapt for Gunther. It was a whole-body movement that lifted him off the ground in a gymnastic motion that covered the four feet and widening space between them.

Adrian was moving, too. Past Gunther and straight for her. She had no idea what he intended, but he slammed into her with an impact that lifted her off her feet. Then she knew.

There was no time to be shocked or horrified. Or protest. She couldn’t stop what he was doing because her feet weren’t touching the ground. She had no leverage.

Adrian was holding her, moving her out of the gunman’s way, using his body as a shield at the same time.

Presidential style.

The gun went off. It sounded a lot louder than she thought it might, but not nearly as loud as they rigged them to sound in the movies.Remember that for later, a tiny voice whispered.

“Whore’s son!” Terry exclaimed. His voice was somehow deeper and definitely angrier. Adrian came to a halt with her in his arms.

Outside, barely heard over the howling of the wind, she heard someone call out. “Was that a gun?”

For a long second or two, no one moved inside the tent. The only sound was the screaming banshee voice of the storm outside, making the loose sides of the tent snap and beat against the poles, testing the strained ropes and pegs.

Adrian put her on her feet. Kate realized she was shaking.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, lifting her chin to look at her face.

“Didyouhurt me?” She choked back her laughter, knowing it was a shortcut to hysteria. Instead she stepped around him, tamping down on the retrograde panic trying to claw its way out of her brain and heart.

Terry was on the ground with Gunther. Amazingly, he had him locked in a choke hold, his arms pinned. The gun was next to Terry’s hip, well out of Gunther’s reach.

“Who the fuckareyou, really?” Kate demanded.

Terry got to his feet, dragging Gunther up with him. It was a movement that should have required enormous amounts of strength, but it didn’t seem to tax the geeky computer whizz very much at all. “We don’t have time for that,” he said flatly. Firmly. “That shot was heard.”

Adrian gently squeezed her shoulder. “He’s right. We need to get this guy out of the way and pretend that nothing happened at all. With the storm, they’ll think they imagined it. Terry, is there somewhere you can stash him for a while?”

Kate looked from one to the other of them, feeling a touch of bewilderment and buckets of concern flooding her. “You don’t mean to cover this up, do you?”

“Yes,” Adrian said flatly. “I’ll explain later.”

She felt herself drawing backwards. She didn’t quite step back. Then she caught hold of herself. The time to wrestle with this was later. Adrian had proved, so far, that he understood her priorities and concerns at least as well as she did. She had to trust him at least for now.

After all, he’d just stepped in the way of what might have been a lethal bullet for her.

The fine trembling threatened to overwhelm her again, but she shook it off with another deep breath and grabbed Adrian’s arm. “You can’t let Terry try to handle Gunther all alone. You go with him. I’ll stay here and handle anyone who comes to find out about gunshot sounds.”

Adrian glanced at Terry. Terry wasn’t quite smiling, but Kate knew expressions and nuances of expressions. She spent all day behind a viewfinder studying them, waiting for just the right inflection of a smile or a frown or a wistful look to appear to know when she had got her perfect take.

Terry was trying not to smile, she’d bet her life on it.

Adrian shook his head. “I’ll get them out of the tent the back way. I’ll be back in less than a minute. Stay here.” He slipped sideways passed Terry and Gunther and around the rack of Byzantine warrior costumes, heading for the back of the tent. Kate assumed he was going to lift the bottom of the tent, to let Terry shove Gunther out under it.

Terry touched the gun with his sneakered foot. “Don’t forget to hide this,” he said. Then he force-marched Gunther around the end of the rack.

Kate picked up the gun and flipped it over to check that the safety was on. Then she shoved it down the back of her jeans and pulled her shirt over the top of it. It would have to do for now.

Barely ten seconds later a shadow crossed the opening of the tent. One of the lighting crew – Kate wasn’t even sure of his name, but she knew his face – took a step into the tent and saw her.

“Oh…hi, Kate. Sorry to bother.” He frowned. “Did you hear a gun go off, a minute ago?”

“A gun?” She raised a brow. “There are no guns on this movie.”