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was thinking was I can’t believe this is happening again!
    * * *
    7:10 p.m.…
    I can’t believe this is happenin’ again! Maddy silently screamed.
    She’d already been held hostage once. Surely that was enough for any one lifetime. And later—that is if she lived through this and had a later—she planned to have a very stern conversation with Fate or Destiny or the Big Man Upstairs, whichever one of them was responsible for this horseshit. But for right now, she had to concentrate everything she had on staying strong for the girls. Staying calm so they would cue off her and stay strong too.
    Oh, and she also needed to keep from revisiting the corned beef sandwich she’d had for lunch all over the beach…
    When Louisa glanced at her, Maddy rolled in her lips and nodded, hoping to convey confidence. Concerned confidence, but confidence nonetheless. She must have come close to hitting the mark because Louisa dipped her chin, squared her shoulders, and tightened her hold around Sally Mae, who was quietly sniffling and trying her best not to flat-out cry.
    “Stop blubbering!” one of the four men who’d stormed the island thundered at Sally Mae. For a couple of seconds after the fishing vessel dropped anchor, Maddy and Ranger Rick had simply stood there like a couple of lollygaggers wondering who the new arrivals could be. Well… Rick had stood there wondering. Something had told Maddy it wasn’t Bran. And since it wasn’t Bran, any curiosity she’d had about the newcomers was overshadowed by the large crack of disappointment that opened up in her heart.
    That large crack of disappointment had quickly been replaced by a huge fissure of terror when, through the gathering darkness, she’d watched four hooded figures board a dinghy and zoom toward her, white water rooster-tailing from their outboard engine and the sound of gunfire echoing across the beach as they aimed their weapons in the air.
    “Get to the ranger’s station!” Rick had yelled.
    Despite a heart frozen with fear, Maddy had sprung into action, racing after him to the spot on the beach where the girls had been in the process of setting up their gear. She’d herded them in front of her on the mad dash to the tiny cottage at the end of the beach. They’d just piled through the front door—Rick making a beeline for the satellite phone in the corner—when the scary-looking masked gunmen wielding even scarier-looking machine guns burst in and ordered them all to halt.
    “Run!” Maddy had screamed to the teens, throwing herself in the line of fire as the girls raced for the back door. But Louisa was the only one who made it out of the cottage. After a ten-minute chase around the tiny island, she’d been marched back to join the group already under guard. A few minutes after that, the gunmen had paraded them all back to the beach. Now the girls were huddled together, kept in a tight mass by two of the balaclava-wearing assailants.
    They’re just kids! Maddy wanted to scream, rage boiling in her chest like a teakettle getting ready to blow. Stop pointin’ those things at them! But she wisely kept her mouth shut because a third gunman was keeping her dead center in his sights. As for the fourth masked man? Well, he was busy aiming the business end of his weapon at Rick.
    “On your knees!” Masked Man Four yelled at Rick. “Get on your fucking knees!” He punctuated his order by jabbing Rick in the kidney with the barrel of his weapon, causing Rick to cry out.
    “Lord Almighty! Take it easy!” Maddy yelled, unable to stop herself. “He’ll do what you say! Just give him a chance!”
    She nodded at Rick as he sank down, hands still raised above his head. Each of her breaths came hard and fast. Her knees felt as liquid as the tepid wave that crawled up the beach to swirl around her ankles for a couple of seconds, leaving a crab to scuttle after it when it retreated back across the sand.
    “All of you, put your hands behind your backs!”