Early Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

in horrified disbelief at the murdered man’s sprawled legs. How could a life end so quickly?
    The towheaded child behind them began to cry again. Eden heard Helen frantically trying to shush him. The bandit who manned the middle of the car waved his gun in a threatening manner.
    “Jewels and money, and be fast about it if you don’t want no holes in your hide!” He extended a bag toward an older woman two rows forward. “I said everything !” he barked when the matronly lady failed to hand over her earrings. Then, without waiting for her to comply, he jerked the gold loops from her ears, tearing the flesh of her lobes in the process. “Your fault, not mine. Stay quiet, hand stuff over, and there’ll be no trouble.”
    The woman’s husband surged to his feet. “Dad-blast you to kingdom come, you miserable excuse for—”
    The robber fired his Colt, burying a bullet right between the poor man’s eyes. And just that quickly, another person was dead. Eden was now trembling violently, one litany repeating in her mind: God help us, God help us, God help us.
    To her horror, the robber’s attention shifted to the shrieking child behind her. Timothy. Eden’s heart caught. She heard Helen’s breath snag in terror.
    “Shut that little shit up!” the gunman snarled. “Or I’ll plug him, too!”
    Glancing back over her shoulder, Eden recognized Helen’s paralyzing fear because she felt it herself. Instead of soothing the little boy, Helen clutched him rigidly to her bosom, her eyes as large as nickels, the pupils dilated with terror. Frightened by his mother’s stiffness, the child screamed more loudly. The bandit stomped closer, raising his Colt as if to shoot.
    “I told you to shut him up!”
    Helen began petting the boy, the flutter of her trembling hands frantic, her softly uttered reassurances unconvincing. The child shrank closer to her torso and let loose with an ear-piercing wail. The robber stopped and took deadly aim at the back of the toddler’s head.
    Eden sprang up from her seat, spun, and threw herself over Helen and the boy. “No!” she cried. “He’s only a baby!” Spreading her arms and legs to provide the mother and child with more cover, Eden heard heavy footfalls advancing on her. “Please, no! Don’t hurt him. We’ll make him be quiet. We will . Just give us a moment.”
    The next instant Eden’s scalp exploded with pain as the gunman’s hand closed over her chignon and jerked her erect. She stumbled and nearly fell backward into him. As terrified as she was, she shuddered at the stench of his unwashed body, a nostril-burning blend of urine, soured sweat, and whiskey. The force of his grip on her hair inflicted such pain that she turned to relieve the sting and found herself looking up into his unshaven countenance and hard gray eyes.
    “Well, now,” he sneered, running his gaze from her face downward to take measure of her person, “ain’t you a purty little thing. Be nice to me, and maybe I won’t kill the squallin’ little snot.”
    Bile surged up the back of Eden’s throat. This animal had just killed two men. She wanted to spit in his face, but fear tempered the urge. As if he guessed her thoughts, he twisted his fist in her hair and rammed the barrel of the Colt against her cheekbone. Eden braced herself, convinced that he meant to pull the trigger. In some distant part of her mind, she registered that the little boy had stopped screaming, and thanked God that his mother had managed to silence him.
    “Don’t . . . hurt . . . her!” Dory pleaded, her words interspersed with sobs. “Please, mister, don’t . . . hurt . . . her. She’s done nothing to you, nothing . Just . . . take the valuables and leave her . . . be. Please! ”
    Eden straightened her shoulders and met the man’s gaze. She saw no mercy in those stone gray depths, and in that moment, she knew she was going to die. Fear made her legs quiver, and she almost wet herself. She wished her mother would be