Jenna Night - High Desert Hideaway

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Deputy Nate Bedford crouched on the floor behind an ice-cream cooler. He peered around the edge of the coffin-shaped container and through some wire display racking, watching the gunman at the counter and the woman he’d held by the arm. The man’s unnaturally tight hold on the woman had been the first thing that had caught Nate’s attention when he’d walked into the store. Then he’d noticed the odd way everyone was standing still. And the uneasy quiet.

The car parked at the front of the store with the driver’s side door hanging open had hinted something might be wrong, too. Or the driver could just be incredibly impatient. Nate had seen it all.

The reflection in the cooler doors as he’d searched for his favorite cola had given him a quick sense of who was where in the store. Who looked terrified, and who looked dangerous and ready to snap. By the time he’d found the drinks he wanted, it was clear he’d have to do something.

Nate was on his way home after spending three months working undercover assisting the Phoenix police department’s narcotics unit. The deep undercover assignment had sharpened his observational skills and fine-tuned his ability to read any environment, though the peculiar situation in the Starlight Mart would have been obvious to anybody who was paying attention to their surroundings.

He was exhausted after surviving three months of restless, uneasy sleep every night and his nerves were stretched to their limit thanks to the constant threat of drug-cartel-related violence. He had stopped at the Starlight Mart to pick up a soda to help keep him awake until he got to the Blue Spruce Ranch.

Well, he was awake now.

From his hiding place on the floor, Nate watched the gunman at the counter scanning the store, searching for him. There were large round mirrors in the corners of the ceiling to help detect shoplifters, and reflective glass and steel surfaces everywhere. The gunman was bound to see him any second. Nate shifted his weight and got ready to sprint. Then he heard something. He turned in the direction of the sound.

The teenagers had hit the deck when the gunman started shooting. Now they were getting to their feet. Where did they think they were going?

Nate glanced back toward the front of the store. The woman who was apparently being held hostage by the gunman was also starting to move. Freed from his grasp and shoved to the ground, she’d gotten to her hands and knees and was now crawling toward the front door. Not a good idea. Not yet. The guy in the hoodie Nate had whacked still lay on the floor, moaning. The gunman was obviously spooked and itching to shoot again. Nate had experience with edgy, violent people. This was a textbook definition of an explosive situation.

The woman was still crawling. Her dark hair was tied back, but a few strands had worked loose and fallen around her face. She wore black-framed glasses and looked smart, like a librarian. She looked familiar, too, but Nate couldn’t place her. It could be his mind playing tricks on him. Undercover work always left him edgy and suspicious. It took a little time to transition back into his normal self. Staying up at the Blue Spruce Ranch for a few days would help with that. It always did.

The woman was gutsy, Nate had to give her that. Maybe too gutsy. Any second now she would get too far. The gunman would be afraid she’d escape. He’d panic and shoot her. Nate had to do something to draw the gunman’s fire away from her.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and slowly rose up.

The sound of rapid footsteps jerked away his attention. Something screamed, like the sound of a train squealing to a stop, and a whoosh of cooler air swirled through the small store. The clerks were running out the back door, the teenagers right behind them. Someone had pushed open the emergency exit and activated the alarm.

Nate looked over his shoulder. The guy in the hoodie he’d knocked out earlier was no longer on the floor. Nate couldn’t see him anywhere.

At the front of the store the gunman grabbed the woman and yanked her to her feet. Then he looked around, wild-eyed, and fired a couple of random shots into the store, hitting a pyramid of salsa jars and a light fixture that sent sparks spraying to the floor. While Nate took cover, the gunman started toward the front door, pulling the woman with him.

Nate couldn’t return fire. The woman was in the way. “Throw down your gun,” Nate yelled, figuring the gunman probably couldn’t hear him over the screaming drone of the alarm.

The gunman fired a shot in Nate’s direction. Then he backed toward the door, looking over his shoulder several times, dragging the woman with him. Finally, he reached the threshold. He hesitated, then shoved the woman into the store while he turned and ran outside.

Nate sprang up and ran after him.

The sky had gone from dark blue to pitch-black while Nate was inside. Buzzing white security lights shone over the gas pumps, but the fleeing gunman was nowhere in sight. He must have taken off into the wildland.

Nate jogged across the crumbling asphalt, continuing around the back of the store, just in case the bad guys had gone that way. He came across the high school kids and clerks who’d escaped out the back door. They were clustered in small groups. Some were crying, some were hugging each other. Nearly all were on their cell phones.

Nate tucked his gun back under his jacket. “Did anybody see where either of those two guys went?”

The kids glanced at each other and shook their heads.

“I called 911,” one of the clerks offered. Nate could already hear sirens. A couple of cars rolled by on the highway, red taillights glowing in the night, but there was no way to tell if either car held the escaping thugs.

Nate went back inside the store with one of the clerks and they disarmed the shrieking alarm. Blue and red flashing lights spilled through the front window as the patrol cars pulled into the parking lot.

Nate walked all through the store, checking the restrooms, office and storage areas to make sure the man in the hoodie wasn’t hiding anywhere. There was no sign of him. He must have slipped out the back door when everybody else ran.

Deputies cautiously entered the store. They recognized Nate and he waved them in. “Two guys held everybody in the store hostage and then got away,” Nate told the senior deputy. “I guess it was a robbery. I’m not sure. I got here in the middle of it.” He gave their descriptions. “Wish I could tell you if they’re on foot or driving, but I don’t know.”

“We’ll get everybody out looking.” The senior deputy, David Cooper, keyed his collar mic to speak to Dispatch. Meanwhile the other deputies fanned out to do their own search of the premises and get started collecting witness information.

“The gunman at the front counter was hanging on to that lady over there pretty tightly,” Nate said to Cooper after he’d finished talking to Dispatch. He gestured toward the dark-haired woman in the glasses who stood by the main entrance, her arms wrapped across her stomach as she stared at the ground. “I couldn’t tell if they were after her in particular for some reason, but I’d like to find out.”

Nate strode over to her. “Are you all right?”

Her head jerked up. She looked at him, wide-eyed, and tried to take a step back. But she was already pressed against the glass at the front of the store and there was nowhere for her to go.

“The bad guys are gone,” Nate quickly added. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt. The medics are outside. Maybe you should get checked out.”

“I’m okay,” she finally answered in a low voice. She blew out a shaky breath. “I thought they were going to kill me.”

“You’re safe now.” Nate had been through some terrifying situations in his life. Dwelling on all the horrific things that could have happened never did him any good. Focusing on what went right, and thanking God, did.