“Stop right where you are.” The voice came from behind her. Turning, she saw a man in a ski mask standing next to Billy, pointing a semiautomatic pistol at his head.

Shock and fear tightened a knot in her stomach.

“Ellie . . . ?” The boy stood frozen, his blue eyes big and anxious.

“Just stay calm, Billy. Everything’s going to be all right.” Her heart beat frantically. She looked at the man with the gun. “What do you want?”

“My car’s up the trail. We’re all going to take a little drive.”

Adrenaline poured through her. She thought about the gun in her luggage. No way to get to it. Her phone was in her purse. She looked at Billy, whose face was the color of sun-bleached straw. The gun pressed to his head didn’t waver.

Running wasn’t an option. If she screamed for help, Maria and Dolores would rush to her aid, and both of them could be killed.

“Who are you?” Her pulse hammered. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out what was going on.

“You’re the detective. You figure it out.”

“Let him go, and I’ll do whatever you want,” Ellie said.

“You’re both going to do exactly what I tell you. You don’t, and the kid dies.”

A low sound came from Billy’s throat. Ellie realized he was thinking of making a move, doing something to take the gunman down.

Her pulse leaped. “Billy, listen to me. Do what the man tells you, and everything is going to be okay. All right?”

Seconds passed.

“You hear me, Billy? We need to do what he says.” If he didn’t, one or both of them was going to get shot, maybe killed.

“Billy?” she pressed, her eyes locked with his, silently relaying a message—at the first opportunity, they would resist.

“Okay, fine.”

The thoughts whirling around in her head began to slow and point in one direction. He knew she was a detective? Was this the man who’d shot Frank and Earl? Was he one of the men at Mountain Ore she and Kade had talked to? With the mask on, she couldn’t tell anything about him. Still, there was something familiar about his voice.

“Put your hands behind your back,” he said to Billy.

Ellie cast the boy a warning glance, and he complied. Pressing the pistol into Billy’s side, the gunman dropped a zip-tie loop around Billy’s wrists and pulled it tight.

“Now you,” he said. “Turn around.”

She wanted to fight him. But she didn’t have an opening, and there was every chance he would kill them both. She needed Billy safe before she could resist. She felt the barrel of the gun press into her ribs, put her hands behind her back, but kept her wrists slightly spread, a trick she had learned in self-defense class.