Shooter (Burnout) (15 page)

“When I asked her about it, she said her aunt lived there. Which was a lie, but I didn’t call her on it.”

Hawk whistled. “So. She got off the bus from Denver. Maybe she lived in Phoenix before that.”

Chris nodded. “I think she did. We talked about the desert at lunch.”

“And New Mexico at some point,” Hawk added.

“And somewhere in the South,” Tex mused.

“He’s gotta still be out there,” Doc decided. “You get raped, you move on. You start over in a new city. New life, new friends. But if you keep moving….”

“Means he’s after you,” Chris replied. “It happened in college. I know that much. She dropped out her junior year and never finished. So she’s 26, she told Maria, might be a lie, but it fits her.”

“Junior in college puts her at 21, maybe 22. So she’s been on the run for five years, thereabouts,” Tex declared. “I don’t think this is some frat boy date-rape thing where she got drunk and woke up without her panties. You don’t run for five years over that. Drop out of college, yeah, sure, but not running. Not as long and as far as she has. She doesn’t have a cell phone, either. That’s some serious off the grid shit for a girl like that.”

Doc pushed off the counter and opened a drawer underneath the microwave, taking out a box of ziploc bags. He pulled one out and returned the box to the drawer. Then he turned the bag inside out and picked up the plastic pie server. He saw Chris looking at him. “You want to know, right? We all do. She lives next door. In your house. We need to know what we’re up against. If there’s a possibility this asshole-”

“Or more than one asshole,” Hawk interjected sullenly.

“Christ, don’t even say it,” Tex mumbled.

“It’s not more than one,” Chris declared. “Can’t be. She wouldn’t set foot in this house with four men who look like us if…if it was gang rape. No. No way.” But it even sounded to his own ears like he was trying too hard to be convincing.

“Okay,” Doc continued. “So, whoever we’re talking about. We need to be prepared.” He zipped up the server. “If she has any kind of criminal record, her prints will be in the system. You think she is?” he asked Chris. “Think her folks are looking for her?”

“A criminal? Hell no,” Chris declared. “But as far as her folks, sounds like she had a good relationship with them right up until it happened. And then…” He thought this through.

“Then what?”

“Well, we were taking about Easy. And how he needs to move on. And she said maybe he doesn’t want to move on because moving on means forgetting and acting like it didn’t happen. And Easy can’t forget.”

“Okay,” said Tex. “So she gets assaulted and mom and dad want to play it off like it never happened.”

“Wait,” Hawk interjected. “Even though this fucker’s still after her? They pretend it’s over?”

Doc grimaced. “Some people are like that. Close their eyes tight and pretend their world isn’t upside down. Lot of people act like that.”

“So they act like nothing’s wrong, even though it is,” Tex continued. “And he’s still after her and either they don’t believe it, or they do, but they can’t protect her. Either way, she runs. So there’s a chance she’s in the system and they’re trying to find her and bring her back home.”

“Where she’s a walking target for this bastard while being forced to pretend everything’s fine in ‘Leave it to Beaver’ land,” Chris ground out. “I don’t care if they’re looking for her. She’s not going back to them.”

“Calm down,” Doc advised. “She’s at least 18, we can assume that much, so no way can she be forced to go back there. And I’ll keep the search quiet, do it myself. If anything pops, we talk it over before we decide anything. She never even has to know we looked.”

But that didn’t pan out.

The next day, Chris was nearly ready to close up shop when Doc pulled into the turnaround in his cruiser. He parked it and stepped out. Chris met him halfway. Doc shook his head. “I got nothing,” he told Chris. “Whoever your little tenant is, she’s a ghost. No car, no I.D., always pays in cash. Anything you get is gonna have to come straight from her.”

Chris scuffed his boot into the crushed gravel of the turnaround. “Well, I won’t hold my breath on that,” he muttered.

Chapter 11

It was just after midnight and the bar was packed. Hayley was already tired but kept plowing through. She set some drinks down on the table of some cowboys and headed back to the bar for the next order. On her way back, someone grabbed her by the upper arm.

“Hey, we ordered some beers!” snapped the frat boy who’d shown up with his friends almost thirty minutes ago. They were not having much luck snagging any of the women in the place and their demeanor was growing steadily churlish.

Hayley opened her mouth but nothing came out as the frat boy was lifted up suddenly by the scruff of his neck.

“You do not put your hands on any woman here!” Chris informed the college boy. “
Especially
not that one!” Chris half carried, half dragged him to the door.

The rest of the frat boys got up, shouting at Chris and following them outside. Hayley put her tray on the nearest table and ran out, with Tex, Hawk, and half the bar spilling out the door to watch.

Chris tossed the frat boy onto the gravel of the parking lot.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” one of his friends said.

Chris smirked at him. “I think I just did, son. Now why don’t you get the fuck out of here? You’ve done your bit of slumming for the night. No one’s interested. Fuck. Off.”

“Hey, come back here!” the guy on the ground yelled, getting to his feet. Chris turned to oblige.

“Oh, god,” Hayley breathed and took a reflexive step toward them. Hands clamped down on her shoulders and she realized Tex was holding her.

“He’s alright,” Tex murmured in her ear.

“Kid,” Chris said dismissively. “Just go the fuck home.”

“Fuck you!” the kid shot back. “I’ll kick your ass.”

Everyone laughed, including Chris. “Uh huh,” he told the frat boy and turned to go back inside.

The kid took a step forward and his hand shot out toward Chris’s turned back. Hayley drew in a sharp breath to scream but Chris half-turned, grabbed the kid by the wrist, twisted, and tossed him down on the ground again.

“What are you standing there for?” the kid shouted at his friends. “Get his ass!”

After a moment’s hesitation, several of the frat boys launched themselves forward, directly at Chris. He sidestepped the first one, landing a punch to his stomach that sent him reeling. Two more split up, attempting to get at him from both sides. Chris kicked one in the knee and when he went down, smashed the other one in the face with his fist. The ringleader staggered to his feet and pulled out a knife from his pocket. This time Hayley did scream.

Chris grabbed the kid by the wrist again and with his other hand took hold of the back of his neck. He swung him into a parked truck, bouncing his head off the hood. He slammed hand holding the knife into the fender. The kid dropped the blade and fell backward. Chris bent down and casually picked up the knife, folding the blade back down.

At this point Caleb swaggered into the lot, pulling out his badge. “Don’t think I need to tell you boys we’d better not see you around here again.” The boys bolted to their SUV, carrying their most severely injured friend.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Chris asked sarcastically, eyeing Doc. “You just show up at the end? I almost got my clothes dirty!”

“I was in the head!” Doc said defensively. “I didn’t know you were gonna start a bar fight with a bunch of posers! What was that about? You couldn’t just ask them to leave? This might have ended in paperwork, Shooter!
Paperwork
! I did not become a cop to fill out fucking paperwork!”

“One of them grabbed Slick.”

“Oh.” Caleb turned to Hayley. “You okay, honey?” Hayley, still recovering from having witnessed the fight, nodded a little. Caleb turned back to Chris. “Well, alright then.”

Chris handed Caleb the knife. “Here. If they come back, arrest them.”

“Fuck that, I’ll just shoot ‘em. If I’m gonna do paperwork, might as well make it count.”

As Chris made his way to the front door, Hayley sprang forward out of Tex’s hold and threw her arms around him. He wrapped his arms around her, instinctively. He’d heard her scream and realized she’d been terrified for him. He also realized she might never have actually seen a fight like that before. His fingers found her hair and began stroking. “Hey now,” he told her quietly. “It’s alright. I’m fine.”

She shuddered against him. “I was so scared.”

“Oh, come on, now. You may or may not know this, but the army’s not just waking up in the morning and carrying heavy things. They taught us to fight, too,” he teased.

She actually laughed and pushed at him. “Oh!”

He chuckled and put his arm around her shoulders, steering her to the door. “Honest. I can dig a latrine
and
throw a punch. Though I can tell you right now which one I’d rather do.”

He got Hayley settled down and set her off to waiting tables again. He leaned back in his chair, watching her go. When she was out of earshot, he said, “Doc.”

“On it,” Doc said without hesitation, pulling out his phone. He dialed dispatch and requested an extra patrol for the bar at closing time, stating there had been a ‘disturbance’.

Chris grabbed his beer off the table but before he took a swig he glanced at Tex. “Thanks for hanging onto her for me.”

Tex nodded. “Looked for a minute there like she was going to throw herself in between you two. Brave little thing.”

Hawk chuckled and started humming Stand by Your Man. Chris rolled his eyes. “It’s-”

“Just lunch!” the other three men finished for him. He glared at each of them in turn.

Chris summarily ignored his teammates for the rest of the night until Slick’s shift was over. He was pleased that this time he didn’t have to go fetch her. She clocked out, put on her jacket and came to him this time as he was leaning up against the bar talking to Thomas. He nodded his goodbye to the older man and followed Slick out the door into the parking lot. He spotted a cruiser in the lot and was grateful Doc had requested one. Slick got on the bike without hesitation and Chris offered a nod to the uniform who was sitting in his front seat, looking bored. The uniform nodded back and Chris turned onto the street.

He’d noticed that Slick had gotten used to the bike. More than used it, in fact. She’d stopped clutching at him like he was a life preserver, which was nice on the one hand, but he did kind of miss the cute way she’d clung to him. She bade him goodnight and headed to her front door. As usual, he waited until she was safely inside before heading inside his own place. He changed for bed and as he tossed his clothes into the hamper, he noticed they were clean and he was pleased with himself. Not that taking down a bunch of college boys was any tough work, but still, he didn’t get anyone’s blood on him or anything. No additional laundry time. He slid into his sheets and clicked off the nightstand light.

Unfortunately, he was awoken just a few hours later by the sound of Slick screaming next door. He quickly threw on a pair of sweats over his boxer briefs and grabbed his gun, just in case, but he didn’t assault her house with quite the urgency as last time. Seeing the front door was closed, he opened it with his keys. He was about to call out that he’d entered his house when he actually heard her scream his name. His heart skipped a beat and he surged down the hallway. He turned the knob of the bedroom door and once again found the dresser blocking it. Slick was still calling out for him.