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longer, I’ll truss you up like a Christmas turkey, and Cain here”—the short man indicated his tall black companion—“will carry you over his shoulder.”
    She must not be tied up, Kiernan thought. If she had any chance at all of escape, she couldn’t be tied up. “All right. I’ll walk down the stairs,” she said.
    “Wait!” Lacey cried. “If Kiernan goes, you’ll have to take me too.”
    “No, Mrs. Donahue, we don’t want you!” Cain, the black man, spoke emphatically.
    “Lacey, please stay here,” Kiernan said, staring at Lacey and praying that the woman would understand that she would be better off without her.
    “But Kiernan—”
    “Lacey, please.”
    Lacey stepped back, her small mouth pursed indignantly. She was holding up rather well, Kiernan decided.
    Better than I am at this moment, she thought.
    “Miss Mackay.” Cain stepped back politely for her to pass by. Kiernan did so, walking by him. She still held the parasol. She was wonderfully dressed, she thought to herself, with her laced and smocked white cotton nightgown and small blue parasol. She wasn’t even wearing shoes.
    “Fine,” she said curtly. She stepped past them and started down the stairs. If she could leave the house ahead of them, perhaps she could run. These men seemed to know a lot, but they couldn’t possibly know this town as she did—the alleys, and where the trails led almost straight up to the heights.
    She moved quickly, but they were right behind her.
    She came into the parlor. In the growing light of dawn, she could see the poker by the fire. A much better weapon than a parasol! she thought.
    Not that it could stop a bullet either.
    She hurried through the parlor to the office. The shattered glass lay before the door. She stopped in her tracks.
    “Gentlemen, since you won’t allow me shoes, I’d appreciate it very much if you could sweep up the glass before we proceed.”
    “What!” the white man demanded belligerently.
    “My feet,” Kiernan said flatly. “If you want to impress the rest of the world, you shouldn’t have your hostages bleeding and in pain.”
    “There’s no need to hurt the girl now,” Cain said.
    The other shrugged. “Oh, hell!”
    The two of them stepped around her to collect the broken glass. Kiernan waited until they were bent over at their task, then turned and fled back through the parlor for the back-porch door.
    She could hear swearing behind her. When she reached the back door, she found it bolted. Swearing to herself, she slid the bolt and rushed through.
    She stood on the back step for a moment, surveying her options. She was almost dead center in the town, and the cliffs rose high above her. The Roman Catholic church jutted out almost straight above her, and the climbing pathway to Jefferson’s Rock and the cemetery were straight above that. She knew the area well—knew that a treacherous path hewn out of the foliage led precariously up the path.
    She could leap from the steps and run quickly around the house for the street.
    Or she could run for the footpath up the hill and try to disappear into the jutting cliff and dirt and the foliage that clung tenaciously to it.
    The footsteps were close.
    She threw the parasol behind her and raced across the yard, painfully aware that she was barefoot. She found the overgrown path up the steep cliff and began to climb, hoping that the foliage would fall back around her and hide her. She grabbed for bushes, for handholds as well as footholds, moving as quickly as she could.
    “She’s started up!” one of them shouted.
    “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” his companion warned her.
    Was it an idle threat? She had a feeling that the two of them had been ordered to bring her back alive. She kept climbing.
    An expletive rang out in the cool dawn.
    And then someone was following her, climbing up behind her.
    “Kiernan!”
    Her name was called from the street. She could hear the sound of horse’s hooves. Someone was out there, calling to