Hank released his bite and moved back to sit, tongue lolling as he watched the action.
Greg shook his head. “We’ve got a genius on our hands. Thought he was going to outrun Hank. Who really thinks that’s possible? What a dumb . . .” He continued to mutter his poor opinion of the idiot on the ground while he held him there.
Sharon removed her knee and jerked the man’s wounded arm behind him.
He screamed again. “I need a doctor! That dog nearly killed me! I’m going to sue you. I’m going to sue the whole department! I’ll have your badges. I’ll . . .”
Chloe turned a deaf ear to the threats and the stream of curses that spilled from him while she and Greg held him down. Sharon fastened her cuffs around his wrists.
And then a gunshot rang out.
Chloe ducked and spun. More screams rang out around her.
“Go,” Chloe told them. “I’ll hold on to this joker until you can put him in the back of your car.” She didn’t have room to transport a prisoner.
They took off. She pulled her charge to the back of the trailer and shoved him next to the large tire. Pulling her cuffs from the case on her belt, she attached one cuff to the pair around his wrists and the other cuff to a metal rail running along the bottom of the trailer. “Stay there unless you want to get shot.” She glanced at Hank, who hadn’t taken his gaze from the prisoner. “Or bit.”
The man planted his back up against the rubber and glared at her as he yanked on the cuffs. “Where do you think I’m going to go?”
She ignored him when she caught movement in the passenger side mirror and her heart thudded. He hadn’t been there only moments before when her prisoner had scrambled out of that very door. So, a third one had been somewhere inside the cab? Chloe grabbed her radio.
Pop. Another shot. Then two more. Chloe flinched, even though none of the bullets came near her. But she couldn’t help wondering whom they might have hit. Saying a prayer for her fellow officers, she kept watch, her senses on hyperalert and her gaze never resting.
Another loud crack.
The bullets were fired from the truck. Chloe glared at her prisoner. “You know who’s shooting?”
“No.” He scowled, his expression conveying his disgust for her and anyone who wore the same uniform she did. “This is ridiculous. I need a doctor. Take me over to that ambulance.” He jerked his chin toward the vehicle sitting ten yards away on the side of the highway. The paramedics were bent over a patient and still working in spite of the gunfire, and using the ambulance as a shield.
Chloe kept her weapon ready and her head down. “We’ve got a live shooter and you want to cross that wide-open expanse? How stupid are you?” Big-time stupid. She mentally dubbed him Stupid Man.
He winced. “At least put my hands in front of me. My arm is killing me. That beast about took it off. I need stitches. Probably gonna bleed to death.”
“I’m really worried about that,” she muttered as she scanned the area. She kept up the running dialogue absently, while most of her attention was focused on the action going on around her.
He called her a name she didn’t consider flattering, and she flicked a glance at him. Still secure and not trying to get away, in spite of his mouthiness. Good. Maybe he was slightly less stupid than she originally thought.
Chloe peered around the edge of the truck again, letting her gaze take in the scene before pulling back. People hiding, cops planted with guns aimed at the cab of the truck. Her radio crackled with rapid-fire calls and codes. She kept one ear on it while she kept an eye on the man attached to the truck. “Who else is in there?”
His nostrils flared. “No one.”
“Of course not.” Liar.
As if to prove her right, the truck’s engine rumbled to life. Where did they think they were going? With the front tucked into the headlights of a cargo van and a minivan slammed into the rear left corner, they couldn’t go anywhere.
However, Chloe released Stupid Man from the truck and hauled him to his feet by his non-wounded arm. She led him around to the back of the trailer, away from the side mirror, wondering if the occupants of the truck’s cab realized she and their accomplice were right there. If they did, they didn’t care. If they didn’t, she’d feel much better out of sight of that side mirror.
Once at the back of the trailer near the two large doors, her prisoner tried to run. Chloe tackled him, and she didn’t even have to give the order for Hank to jump at the man’s face, snapping and snarling.
Stupid Man curled into a fetal position. “Get him away! Don’t let him bite me again!”
“Hank, stil.” The dog backed away, his eyes still on the quivering man. “Get up and try to engage your brain,” she ordered.
He complied and she refastened the cuffs to the handle of the trailer’s door while she listened for more shots. And although she still heard screams and cries and harsh orders from law enforcement, she hadn’t heard any more pops of gunfire.
The truck inched forward. Chloe stayed with the truck, using it as cover. Screams sounded. More shots rang out. None in danger of hitting her or Stupid Man, though, since the bullets came from the truck’s cab.
The truck surged and rolled forward a good three feet.
With horror, Chloe knew the cab had to be pushing the vehicle in front of it. Along with any victims in its path. “Stop!”
Another lurch and the trailer separated from the minivan crunched into its rear. Chloe ordered Hank to guard Stupid Man, then raced to the front of the cab on the passenger side, away from any bullets that had been flying on the other side. “Police! Stop!”
The passenger looked at her and yelled something to the driver. And then she heard, “Shoot her!”
The man in the passenger seat turned and met her gaze. She held her gun on him. “Tell him to stop right now!”
In one fluid motion, he lifted his weapon, aimed it at her . . .
. . . and pulled the trigger.
Through the high-powered scope on his Colt M4 carbine, Derek St. John saw the passenger in the cab fire his weapon right at his sister’s head.
And Chloe had dropped like a rock. Or had she dropped before the crack? He couldn’t be sure.
Terror beat at him, his finger hovering over the trigger. Just before Chloe had appeared in his line of sight behind his target, a cop trying to get into position had run across his line of fire, causing Derek to miss his chance to pull the trigger. He wanted to punch something. Instead, he ordered his heart to slow and his mind to focus.
He’d been given the green light. The call had gone out over the radios and no one was supposed to move. And now Chloe might be dead because an officer had blown the shot for Derek. Had the man not heard the order?
At the moment, it didn’t matter.
What mattered was Chloe.
Derek wasn’t exactly in the most ideal position to make the shots, but it was the only one he had.
He drew in a steadying breath. He had to focus, to be cool, be steady, and return to the zone.
Looking through the scope once more, he saw the driver raise his weapon and aim it at an innocent victim. A woman not quite hidden behind her car.
Derek pulled his trigger and a nanosecond later the bullet hit its mark. The driver’s body went slack. The passenger next to him jerked and turned, aiming his weapon at the cop now hovering at the edge of the driver’s door, hand on the handle, ready to yank the door open in a heroic, if dangerous, possibly stupid, move. Derek could see the cop’s plan as clearly as if he’d written it out with full illustrations. He was going to open the door, pull out the dead driver, and shoot the remaining passenger.