Delores Fossen - Roughshod Justice

Kelly could see and feel the debate going on inside Jameson. They didn’t have time to wait for backup. Nor did they have a lot of options here. If whoever was behind this had indeed set up a decoy, then there could be more than one hired killer in the hospital.

“Come on,” Jameson finally said. He motioned for them to follow him to the door, and he made brief eye contact with Hank. “Keep hold of Kelly, and when we get outside, get her down behind the first vehicle you reach.”

The blood rushed to her head, and Kelly felt the kick of adrenaline. And fear. So many things could go wrong right now, and staying put could be the biggest mistake of all. Still, she hated to go out there without any way to defend herself.

Hank put his arm around Kelly’s waist, and the moment Jameson unlocked the door, they started moving. So did the decoy. He lifted his head, and Kelly saw the surprise register in his eyes.

It didn’t last.

Because the moment the man turned his rifle in their directions, Jameson took aim and shot him square in the chest. The guy dropped like a stone, and Kelly could tell he was dead. But she could no longer see him because Hank did as Jameson said, and he pulled her to the side of a minivan.

“Do you have a backup gun or knife?” she whispered to Hank. “I’m a PI. I know how to shoot.” Or at least she thought she did. Now, if she could just remember the firearms training she would have almost certainly had in order to get a private investigator’s license.

Hank glanced back at her, and even though Kelly could tell he was plenty uncertain about this, he lifted the leg of his pants and took a small handgun from his boot holster. Kelly didn’t waste a second pivoting toward the door so she could keep watch for that woman who might be coming after them.

Jameson took cover as well—using the red truck on the other side of the door. And they waited.

The moments crawled by, and Kelly soon heard a welcome sound. Sirens. Backup had arrived, and maybe that meant these would-be killers would call off the attack. She wanted answers. Wanted to know who was responsible for this. But she didn’t want those answers if it meant innocent people could die.

“Get down!” Jameson shouted just as a shot was fired.

Kelly expected the bullet to go in Jameson’s direction. It didn’t. It came in hers. The shot slammed into the minivan just inches from where Hank and she were crouching.

That sent Kelly and him scurrying to the side, but moving in any direction was a risk. Yes, Jameson had shot the decoy, but that didn’t mean others weren’t all over the parking lot.

But this shot had come from inside the hospital.

Kelly peered around the minivan and spotted the woman. She was no longer carrying flowers, but she had the back door open a couple of inches. Her gun was jutting out through the space.

And she fired again.

This time at Jameson.

From their new position, Kelly could no longer see Jameson, but he’d probably tried to shoot the woman. Judging from the sounds Kelly then heard, Jameson had been forced to take cover, as well.

Kelly figured Jameson wasn’t going to like what she was doing, but she leaned out enough from the minivan so she could see if she had anything close to a clean shot. She did.

And she took it.

Kelly aimed, fired, and the bullet crashed through the glass and into the woman’s chest. Like her decoy comrade, she fell, but that wasn’t the only sound Kelly heard. Jameson cursed—the profanity aimed at her.

“I told you to stay down,” Jameson snarled, and in the same breath, there was another shot.

Sweet heaven. Who was Jameson shooting at now?

Kelly scrambled around Hank and made her way to the rear of the minivan. There, she had a good angle to see Jameson. To see the glare that he tossed her, too. Obviously, he wasn’t happy that she had changed her position or that she fired that shot. Kelly wasn’t especially happy about it, either, but she saw it as a necessary choice.

“Put down your gun,” someone shouted.

Gabriel. He had apparently arrived with backup. Good. Kelly hoped he had brought a lot of deputies with him so they could secure the hospital.

“He’s there,” Hank said, motioning in the direction of the far side of the building.

There was a man carrying a handgun in the spot where Hank had indicated. However, the man didn’t drop his weapon as Gabriel had ordered. He turned and fired a shot, no doubt aiming for the sheriff.

Jameson took care of the guy. He double-tapped the trigger, but he hadn’t gone for kill shots. The bullets went into the man’s shoulder and shooting arm. He stayed on his feet, but his gun clattered to the ground.

Suddenly, there were the sounds of footsteps. Plenty of them. And they were all converging on the injured man. With his gaze still firing all around him, Jameson reached the guy first, but Gabriel and a deputy soon joined him. Another deputy stepped out from the back door where the gunwoman was still sprawled out. She was almost certainly dead. It gave Kelly a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach to know she’d killed someone, but if she hadn’t, Jameson, Hank and she could have been murdered.

“Don’t kill me,” the gunman yelled, attempting to hold up his hands. Hard to do, though, with his injuries.

Kelly had been right about the gunshot wounds. They didn’t appear life-threatening, but he was bleeding and needed medical attention. That wouldn’t be difficult to get since they were in a hospital parking lot, but Gabriel likely wouldn’t let any of the medical staff approach until he was certain it was safe.

Even though Kelly knew Jameson wasn’t going to like it, she started to make her way toward them. She did keep low, though, crouching, and her pace wasn’t exactly fast since she was still unsteady.

When Jameson spotted her, he didn’t curse, but she could tell that’s what he wanted to do. “Stay behind cover,” he warned her.

She did, but that didn’t stop her from getting a better look at the gunman that the deputy was now cuffing. Just as everyone else she’d encountered, Kelly didn’t recognize him, but when the man looked in her direction, he did something strange.

He smiled at her.

Jameson and Gabriel noticed that smile, too, because they both shifted their attention to her. “You know him?” Jameson asked her.

Kelly immediately shook her head. But the man just kept on smiling.

“I know you,” the injured gunman growled, “because you’re the woman who hired me.”

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