Page 96 of Diagnosis Attraction

He was about twenty feet from her captor when he silently shouted,now.

Elizabeth went limp like the frightening situation had made her legs give out. The man scrambled to get control of her, but part of his attention had to stay on Matt. With only a small window of opportunity before the guy was in contact with her again, Matt shot out a jolt of energy, hitting the thug in the shoulder.

He yelped and reared back.

Elizabeth regained her footing immediately and dodged to the side, giving him another shot at the man.

The guy bellowed and went down. Elizabeth kicked him in the face, marveling at her new attitude toward violence. When he stilled, she bent to get the gun and took it out of his hands.

Do we keep this?she asked as she drew up beside Matt. He wanted to reach for her, but there was no time for anything but escape.

I’ll take it.

He clicked the safety on and tucked the weapon into the waistband of his slacks.

They ran for the scraggly underbrush, disappearing into the trees. But a shout followed them, and Matt knew the other man had seen where they went.

No, not just one man. There were two others now.

One stopped by their fallen comrade. The other stayed behind Matt and Elizabeth.

Stephanie turned to Rachel. “Are you following what’s happening?”

“Yes. They got away from the bad guys, but armed men are chasing them along the side of the bayou.”

Frustration bubbled inside Stephanie. She’d been in a similar situation not so long ago.

Craig put a hand on her arm, trying to calm her.

“Is there anything we can do?” she asked.

“We can try.” Rachel closed her eyes, her face a study in concentration as the two other women reached out to touch her. Stephanie felt Rachel trying to direct a surge of power toward the pursuers to slow them at least, but at this distance, the task was impossible.

“We have to get closer.”

Rachel looked toward Jake, but everybody in the van knew he was driving at a dangerous speed.

“We can’t fly. And we aren’t going to be any use to them if we crash,” he muttered.

Matt and Elizabeth plunged farther into the wilderness area, dodging around cypress, tupelo trees, and saw palmettos. They splashed through areas of standing water, mud clinging to their shoes and making it almost impossible to run.

Both were breathing hard, and he wondered how long they could sustain the pace. But they had to keep going because behind them, he could hear the men getting closer, making no attempt to hide their progress through the underbrush.

Elizabeth looked back in panic, then pointed to their right.If we go farther into the swamp, maybe they won’t follow.

We can try.

Matt veered off in the direction she’d suggested, and they worked their way farther into the dense foliage.

When the sounds of the pursuers grew louder, they both went completely still.

“Where the hell did they disappear?” one of the men said.

Sounds like three men. The one who captured me must have joined the others again.

“You beat the bushes around here. We’ll keep going. Widen the search.”

They’re splitting up.

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