Julie Miller - Kansas City Cop

Derek’s green eyes widened with shock for a split second before he crumpled to the pavement. “Derek!”

A second bullet thwacked against the shatterproof glass of the windshield. A third whizzed past her ear and shattered the glass in Vicki Bismarck’s storm door. Gina pulled the Glock at her hip and dove the last few feet toward the relative shelter of the car. A stinging shot of lead or shrapnel burned through her calf, and she stumbled into the snow beside the curb.

Where were the damn shots coming from? Who was shooting? Had Denny Bismarck come back? She hadn’t heard a motorcycle on the street. But then, he hadn’t been alone, either.

“Derek? I need you to talk to me.” There was still no answer. Bullets hit the cruiser and a tree trunk in the front yard. Several more shots scuffed through the snow with such rapidity that she knew the shooter either had an automatic weapon or several weapons that he could drop and keep firing. Gina crouched beside the wheel well, listening for the source of the ambush, praying there were no innocent bystanders in the line of fire. The bullets were coming from across the street. But from a house? An alley? A car?

“Derek?” The amount of blood seeping down her leg into her shoe told her the shooter was using something large caliber, meant to inflict maximum damage. But her wound was just a graze. She could still do her job. Before she sidled around the car to pull her partner to safety, Gina got on her radio and called it in. “This is Officer Galvan. Unit 4-13. Officers need assistance. Shots fired.” She gave the street address and approximation of where she thought the shooter might be before repeating the urgent request, “Officers need assistance.”

Gina stilled her breath and heard Gordon Bismarck cussing up a blue streak inside the cruiser. She’d heard Vicki screaming inside the house. What she didn’t hear was her partner. Guilt and fear punched her in the stomach. She hadn’t done job one and kept him safe. She hadn’t had his back when he needed her most.

“Derek?” she called out one more time before cradling the gun in her hands. When she heard the unexpected pause between gunshots, she crept around the trunk of the car, aiming her weapon toward the vague target of the shooter. “Police! Throw down your weapon!” she warned.

A quick scan revealed empty house, empty alley, empty house...bingo! Driver in a rusty old SUV parked half a block down. Gina straightened. “Throw down your weapon, and get out of the vehicle!”

The man’s face was obscured by the barrel of the rifle pointed at her.

There was no mistaking his intent.

Gina squeezed off a shot and dove for cover, but it was too late.

A bullet struck her in the arm, tearing through her right shoulder, piercing the narrow gap between her arm and her protective vest. She hit the ground, and her gun skittered from her grip. Unlike the graze along the back of her leg, she knew this wound was a bad one. The path of the bullet burned through her shoulder.

She clawed her fingers into the hardened layers of snow and crawled back into the yard, away from the shooter. It was hard to catch her breath, hard to orient herself in a sea of clouds and snow. She rolled onto her back, praying she wasn’t imagining the sound of sirens in the distance, hating that she was certain of the grinding noise of the SUV’s engine turning over.

She saw Vicki Bismarck hovering at her broken front door. When Gina turned her head the other direction, she looked beneath the car and saw Derek on the ground, unmoving. Was he even alive? “Derek?”

Did someone have a grudge against him? Against her? Against cops? She hadn’t made any friends among Denny Bismarck and his crew. Was this payback for arresting his brother? For being bested by a woman?

Her shoulder ached, and her right arm was numb. Her chest felt like a boulder sat on it. Still, she managed to reach her radio with her other hand and tug it off her vest. The shooter’s car was speeding away. She couldn’t see much from her vantage point, couldn’t read the license plate or confirm a make of vehicle. The leg wound stung like a hot poker through her calf, but the wound to her shoulder—the injury she could no longer feel—worried her even more. Finding that one spot beneath her armor was either one hell of a lucky shot or the work of a sharpshooter. Gina’s vision blurred as a chill pervaded her body.

“Stay inside the house!” a man yelled. “Away from the windows.”

She saw silver running pants and black shoes stomping through the snow toward her. Gina tried to find her gun.

“Officer?” The tall jogger with the sexy beard scruff came into view as he knelt in the snow beside her. “It’s okay, ma’am.” His eyes were hidden behind reflective sunglasses, and he clutched a cell phone to his ear, allowing her few details as to what he looked like. He picked up her Glock from the snow where it had landed and showed it to her before tucking it into the back of his waistband. “Your weapon is secure.”

She slapped her left hand against his knee and pulled at the insulated material there. “You have to stay down. Shooter—”

“He’s driving away,” the man said. She wasn’t exactly following the conversation, but then he was talking on his cell phone as he leaned over her, running his free hand up and down her arms and legs. “No, I couldn’t read the license. It was covered with mud and slush. Yes, just the driver. Look, I’ll answer your questions later. Just get an ambulance here. Now!” He disconnected the call and stuffed the phone inside his pocket. He tossed aside his sunglasses and looked down into her eyes. Wow. He was just as good-looking up close as he’d been from a distance. “You hit twice?”

Gina nodded, thinking more about her observation than her answer. She reached up and touched her shaking fingertips to the sandpapery stubble that shadowed his jaw. “I know you.” Before her jellified brain could place why he looked so familiar to her, he grabbed her keys off her belt and bolted to his feet. She turned her head to watch him unlock the trunk to get the med kit. How did he know it was stored there? He was acting like a cop—he’d provided the squad car number and street address on that phone call. He knew KCPD lingo and where her gear was stowed. “Captain Cutler?” That wasn’t right. But the blue eyes and chiseled features were the same. But she’d never seen the SWAT captain with that scruffy catnip on his face.

She wasn’t any closer to understanding what she was seeing when he knelt beside her again, opening the kit and pulling out a compress. She winced as he slipped the pad beneath her vest and pressed his hand against her wound to stanch the bleeding. The deep, sure tone of voice was a little like catnip to her groggy senses, too. “I’m Mike Cutler. I’ve had paramedic training. Lie still.”

Why were her hormones involved in any of this conversation? She squeezed her eyes shut to concentrate. She was a KCPD police officer. She’d been shot. The perp had gotten away. There was protocol to follow. She had a job to do. Gina opened her eyes, gritting her teeth against the pressure on her chest and the fog inside her head. “Check my partner. He’s hit.”

“You’re losing blood too fast. I’m not going anywhere until I slow the bleeding.” The brief burst of clarity quickly waned. The Good Samaritan trying to save her life tugged on her vest the moment her eyes closed. “Officer Galvan? No, no, keep your eyes open. What’s your first name?”

“Gina.”

“Gina?” He was smiling when she blinked her eyes open. “That’s better. Pretty brown eyes. Like a good cup of coffee. I want to keep seeing them, okay?” She nodded. His eyes were such a pretty color. No, not pretty. There wasn’t anything pretty about the angles of his cheekbones and jaw. He certainly wasn’t from this part of town. She’d have remembered a face like that. A face that was still talking. “Trust me. I’m on your side. If I look familiar, it’s because you’re a cop, and you probably know my dad.”