Lorie O - Strong, Sleek and Sinful

“He ran in between a couple houses. I’m calling in for more backup. He’s a white male, late teens, blue jeans, and red baggy T-shirt. Dark hair, shoulder length.”

“Ten four.” Perry walked quickly up the street, looking in between each house. “East or west side of the street?”

“West.”

“Roger that. Where are you?”

“I see you. I’m on the corner. He disappeared about four houses up from me. He runs a lot faster than I do.”

Perry snorted. Barker was in pretty good shape. He continued glancing in between houses as he worked his way up the block and spotted a cruiser heading slowly down the next street. Pausing at a double driveway, he thought he saw something move behind overgrown hedges that ran the length of the property line. At the same time, the sound of children laughing grabbed his attention.

“Shit, Barker,” he hissed under his breath. “Kids in the yard. And I think I see our guy.”

“Crap. Not in the same yard?”

“How intoxicated is our man?” Perry asked, glancing at both homes on either side of the double driveway.

“I arrived at the scene and walked up to his car when he bolted. The man in the other car that was struck said the kid never got out of his car. He stayed in his car, too, and dialed nine-one-one.” She wasn’t at the end of the block anymore, but her voice was clear in his ear. “Do you see him?”

“Stand by,” Perry whispered, reaching the end of the hedges and moving behind them. A chain-link fence lined the property line, and the unruly hedge grew along it. There wasn’t much space to crawl behind the bushes, and the hedge grew on both sides of the fence. It offered a natural blockade to prevent neighbors who lived on top of each other from seeing into each other’s private lives. Perry dropped to his knees and squinted past branches and leaves. “I see him,” he whispered. “He’s toward the backyard and we’ve got children at play.” Perry stood and glanced at the front of the house. “The address is Sixty Ten. Get down here and have those kids pulled inside. I’m going after him.”

“Ten four.”

Perry palmed his gun at his waist. He didn’t want to use it. Not with children laughing and playing. Their young voices sounded happy and innocent. He moved silently, coming closer toward where the suspect squatted behind the hedges, and where the children played. Before Perry reached the back of the house, he heard a car pull up on the street. He glanced over his shoulder, noting the squad car before returning his attention to the hedges. He bent over, caught sight of the man’s shoes and legs at the same time that a woman appeared from the back side of the house.

“Oh God,” she screamed, surprised to see Perry and clasping her hands over her mouth.

“Get your kids inside,” Perry ordered, pointing to his badge on his belt.

The woman dropped her attention to his waist and her eyes widened as she froze and turned pale.

“Do it now,” he ordered.

At the same time the man leapt out from behind the bushes, racing toward the children, who immediately started screaming. The woman screamed, too. Backup raced up the driveway behind him. Perry leapt at the man.

He grabbed the man at the waist, but his wiry frame twisted in Perry’s grip.

“Get your kids inside!” Perry yelled at the woman. He didn’t focus on the cops who appeared in the yard and hurried toward the children, or on the woman as she started screaming and crying at the same time, adding to the noise the children were making. The young man slid out of Perry’s grip and shifted his direction, no longer running toward the kids but instead racing toward the back of the yard. “Police!” Perry yelled. “Stop now!”

Perry watched the punk leap at the privacy fence bordering the backyard and then manage to pull himself up and fall over the top to the other side.

“Son of a bitch,” Perry hissed under his breath, following suit and hoisting himself over the fence. Goddamn. He wasn’t as young as he used to be.

The man fell in a crablike position but managed to pull himself to his feet, tripping twice as he bolted toward the house facing the next street.

“You’re making it worse for yourself,” Perry yelled at the man. “Stop, now, or you’ll face more charges.” He wasn’t surprised that the man ignored him.

Perry dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence. He wracked all the muscles in his body as his hands and knees scraped over the uneven, hard-packed ground. The coolness against his palms did little to stop the stinging that zapped up his arms and from his legs to his hips. He would lecture himself later about staying in shape. Right now, he’d be damned if this punk would get away. Nothing pissed Perry off more than terrifying small children when moments before they’d been laughing and yelling at one another without a care in the world.

The man raced toward the driveway between houses while dogs barked furiously inside each house. A car turned and pulled into the driveway. Perry watched the driver’s expression contort with terror. He accelerated instead of hitting the brake and the man couldn’t turn around quickly enough. Perry grabbed his phone as he watched the guy leap backward and fall on his back when the car hit him. The guy driving found his brake and slammed it hard enough to lock his tires. The driver stared in shock out his windshield while white-knuckling his steering wheel. Immediately a squad car pulled up behind the idling car in the driveway.

“Take it easy,” Perry said quietly, placing his hand on the guy’s shoulder when he tried rolling over.

“Fuck you!” the man grumbled, and then moaned when he again tried rolling over.

“Suspect is down,” Perry informed Dispatch, and then stood, walking toward the front of the house to find an address. “We’re going to need an ambulance.”

Barker walked around the side of the house and grinned smugly as she moved to his side. “You’re pretty impressive for a man close to forty,” she said under her breath, and glanced up at him with an invitation in her eyes.

It was an invite he’d never accept. “You need help getting statements from everyone?” He didn’t bother telling her he was thirty-three, not close to forty. There wasn’t any reason to dwell on personal information with her, or anyone on the force.

She squeezed his biceps and gave him a quick once-over. There was definitely approval on her face. “What? And let you do all the work?” She met his gaze and lowered her voice. “I have no problem jumping in and getting dirty to get the job done, darling.”

Perry nodded. Anything he said would simply encourage her. There were as many cops on the scene now as there were civilians. This time Perry walked around the block back toward his Jeep, nodding to the ambulance driver when he came around the corner. Perry paused at the middle of the block, spotting the mother of the small children, who now stood talking to her neighbor at the end of the hedge dividing their yards. She sounded shaken but okay. Perry picked up pace toward his Jeep.

He paused when he reached for his door handle, frowning and staring over the roof. A green hybrid was parked across the street in a narrow driveway. Perry instantly recognized the tags-those registered to Enterprise. Dani had told him Kylie was a college student at KU, working on a thesis about teenagers as a subculture. He imagined that would make for an interesting paper; his nieces definitely lived in a world of their own.

Perry opened his car door and leaned against it, taking his time studying the hybrid, the narrow driveway, and the small home. Although it wasn’t quite evening, the blinds in the house were all closed. The yard was neat, though, with patches of dirt breaking up thick clumps of grass, typical of the many yards on this street. The house was probably a rental. Most on this street were government housing or rented to private individuals. It was an affordable alternative to living in an apartment and not unusual for college students to be found living here, although not many who attended KU, which was half an hour drive from here.