Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

"And what about you?"

He twitched the question away. The shooter reappeared in the window. "Hey!" Russ said. The third thing was to get him to say yes . Didn't matter to what. One yes leads to another. "It's hotter'n hell today, isn't it?" The shadowy figure stared at him. "Hard to keep things cool when it's ninety degrees."

"You think this is hot? This ain't nothin'."

"For you, maybe. Me, I'm dying out here." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kevin taking up position at the back of his unit. "I could use something cold and wet. What about you? You want a cold beer? I can bring a six-pack up to the porch, and we can talk."

The guy laughed. "You think I'm an idiot? Whadda you take me for?"

Russ spread his hands. "Okay. You know what we want. We want everybody here to walk away unharmed. We want a win-win solution. You tell me what you want."

The shooter ducked away from the window for a moment. Russ glanced at Lyle. Lyle held up two fingers. Two guys. At least.

"You know what I want? I want our property back. These rednecks stole something from us, and I want it back."

Russ got that sensation in his head, like bottle rockets popping off, one after the other. "The directory of dealer names," he said, tossing out another wild guess.

The man-the Punta Diablos foot soldier-hissed in surprise. A hit, a palpable hit . "What you say?" the shooter asked after a moment. He'd be a lousy poker player.

"We arrested the Christie brothers this morning. You know how it goes. Any valuable information goes on the bargaining table."

"Son of a bitch monkey-balled mother-" Russ let the guy rave on. He'd be a good match for Donald's latest fiancée. He almost smiled, until the last bottle rocket went off, and he realized it was the Punta Diablos, and not the large and thugly Christies, who had done those horrible things to Amado Esfuentes. These guys are junkyard-dog vicious , he'd told Clare. And now they had an unknown number of women and children at their mercy.

The shooter was going on about how you couldn't trust anyone. Russ wasn't sure if the rant was directed at him or at the unknown accomplices inside, but he was getting worried. These guys were trapped. That's when dangerous animals attacked. Where the hell was Knox? Had something happened to her?

Then she appeared from the back of the house. He kept his face forward, fixed intently on the Punta Diablo point man, who was working himself up in a major way. He slipped one hand off the hood of his truck and signaled to Kevin. Nothing. He signaled again. No long tall streak of red loping toward Knox's squad car.

Then Kevin's voice was behind him, in his ear. "There's a dead woman out back," he said quietly. "Shot in the chest."

Russ thought about hapless, knocked-around Isabel Christie, with her strawberry-blond hair and her sad eyes. What a goddamn waste. He suddenly felt twenty years older.

"Chief?" Kevin kept his voice low.

"Have Harlene patch you to the SWAT team. Brief 'em. Then get ready to run for that vest."

"Roger that." Kevin sprinted for his cruiser, bent double. He flung open the door and lay on the seat, reaching for the mic.

"What's going on?" the Punta Diablo guy asked. "What's he doing on the radio?"

"I just told him to ask the state troopers to stay back a ways," Russ said. "I want you and me to have the time we need to talk our way out of this thing." He kept his face forward and rattled on, good faith, blah-blah-blah, listening as Kevin briefed the state assault team sergeant he'd been connected to. It was informative, detailed, and short. The kid was finally learning to get to the point.

"You tell those bastards to stay away from us," the shooter yelled. "Anybody tries to mess with us, they gotta go through one of these kids to do it!"

Kevin hung up the mic. "Fifteen-twenty minutes."

Shit . Might as well be tomorrow, for all the good they were going to do.

The guy disappeared from the window. Inside the house, a woman screamed. "Knox!" He grabbed his gun off the hood. "What's he doing in there?"

She jumped up like a jackrabbit and looked in the window. Ran to the next one. He flapped at Kevin. "The vest! Go! Go!"

"He's holding a kid," Knox yelled. "He's-oh, shit, no!"

This was going straight down the crapper. "Are there other shooters?"

"I can't tell!" she screamed. "Maybe in the front-"

The window above Knox exploded. She dropped, and for one sickening moment he thought she'd been hit, but then he saw she was crouched, her hands over the back of her neck. Kevin had popped the trunk and was yanking a vest out. "Go through the back," Russ yelled. "Go through the back!"

Kevin waved acknowledgment and tore through the side yard. Knox rose and ran after him. They disappeared around the corner.

"Don't move," Lyle said. "I'm getting you the other one." He raced toward Knox's unit.

Up on the porch, the door flew open. A teenaged girl with a baby under her arm made a dash for it. The shooter lunged forward, long rope-muscled arm extended, and snagged her by her collar. She rebounded, gagged, and almost dropped the baby. Her captor dragged her backward by the neck.

Russ broke cover and ran for the house. Lyle was shouting something at him, but he couldn't hear it over the thudding of his feet, the rasp of his breath, the crying and yelling inside.

He took the porch steps in two strides and slammed through the door with the side of his body, leaving him face-to-face with the open double doors and the wild-eyed shooter, tattooed fingers, just like Knox had said, backing away with a squirming, squalling teen and her baby as a shield.

"Police! Drop your weapon," Russ roared: habit, not hope.

"Drop your weapon!" The Punta Diablo guy had a monster.357 Taurus pointed at the girl. Russ kept his Glock lined and sighted for a head shot. The gangbanger started to look scared. It was damn hard to keep your gun pointed away from a man when you could see his bore drilling you between the eyes.

Then the girl lunged to the side, yanking her captor off balance. His instinct took over; he swung his.357 toward Russ, arms wide, chest unguarded. Russ dropped his Glock three inches and squeezed twice. He dove right as the Magnum went off, but the young man was already crumpling, the gun falling from his tattooed fingers.

The girl and her baby ran screaming into the dining room. Russ hit a brown corduroy chair, the weight of his body skidding it across the floor. He stumbled upright, swung toward where the shooter's body had fallen, saw Isabel Christie sagging, unconscious, against the couch. And then a baseball bat smashed into his chest.

Russ turned, not understanding, and another bat struck his upper thigh, white-hot pain streaking along his hip, and he slipped, his leg useless, and saw him in the doorway to the front hall, the second man. Russ saw the gun pointed at him, tried to raise his Glock, too slow, too slow. Russ squeezed off a round but the next shot punched him in the chest and blew him over.

He heard more shots, three, four, like a movie playing in a different room. His awareness burrowed inward, as if all the universe were six feet three inches long and contained within his skin. Labored breathing. Sluggish heart. Burning hip. Throbbing chest.

Lyle's face dropped into view for a moment. He didn't bother Russ with a lot of talking, just turned and started ripping his uniform blouse open. Lyle. His friend. Why hadn't he forgiven him? Instead of carrying his grudge around like an old set of keys. He closed his eyes.

"Call nine-one-one," Lyle said to someone. Russ's skin was clammy. He shivered convulsively. The wooden floor beneath him was winter-cold.

"Get me something I can use for compresses," Lyle said.