Stolen Child (Coastal Fury Book 13) Matt Lincoln (chrysanthemum read aloud .txt) 📖

the two of us crept around the brick building, looking every which way for any would-be attackers.

We were toward the back of the building when I saw it. The edge of a boot, sticking out around the nearest corner. I elbowed Nina and jerked my chin in that direction.

Her eyes grew wide as she saw it, and she pressed a finger to her lips. I nodded and crept out further in front of her, my gun at the ready. Nina followed close behind me.

We were able to see well enough then to know that the boot was connected to a foot, which was connected to a leg. We didn’t dare look any further than that since he would likely see us then.

“Hands up, or I’ll shoot!” I cried, and the leg shot out around the corner in surprise, as if the man attached to it had nearly jumped out of his skin.

“FBI, come out here with your hands up and weapons on the ground where we can see them, now!” Nina hollered, stepping out next to me with her own weapon held high in front of her.

The leg disappeared behind the wall, then, but I didn’t hear any footsteps. He was still cowering back there.

“If you cooperate, whoever you are, nothing will happen to you,” I assured him, in a bit gentler of a tone now. “If you don’t cooperate, there will be problems.”

A shot rang out, catching me off guard. I instinctively dropped to the ground, pulling Nina along with me. We crouched there, our weapons out in front of us, as we tried to catch our bearings.

It took me a split second to realize that it had been a warning shot. The man had shot into the air to distract us and ran, and after the blaring sound of the gunshot, I was barely able to make out his footsteps as he made his getaway.

Barely.

I jumped to my feet and ran after him as soon as I realized what was happening, and Nina caught on fast, too, only a step behind me as we chased after him.

“Stop!” I cried. “Hold up, or I’ll shoot!”

Two times in one day, I’d been faced with this exact scenario, having to shoot a man in the back as he ran away from me, carrying a deadly weapon he’d already proven he had no qualms about using. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.

It was dark, and the man was dressed in dark clothing from head to foot, much like the others from earlier that day and Justin in the security footage from the mall. It must have been some kind of uniform for this gang.

I barely made it out as the man turned around to shoot me. But I made it out in the nick of time.

I shot once, then twice, and the man fell to the ground, his gun stretched out in front of him without having made a shot.

Nina and I stopped briefly, but then she rushed forward, and I followed her. I confiscated the gun quickly as she knelt down to speak to him. He was still alive, though his breath was ragged.

“Are you alright?” she asked him. “Are you alright? What’s your name? What were you doing here?”

He didn’t answer as I quickly called for an ambulance and then knelt down on his other side.

“Are there any others?” I asked, a little harsher than I intended. “Are you the last one?”

He gave a short shake of his head, though the motion was clearly difficult for him. Blood spilled out of the right side of his chest and onto the sidewalk, though the pace was slow. I didn’t think I hit any major arteries.

“No, there aren’t any others, or no, you aren’t the last one?” I asked him.

“No others,” he managed to croak as I heard sirens ring out in the distance. Either the ambulance was already close, or the policemen had heard there was a problem and put on their sirens on the way to the station.

“Why did you break him out?” Nina asked.

“J… just lookout,” the man stammered. “Not a part…”

“You were a part of it, and you damn well know it,” I snapped, having no patience for these goons leaping to their own defense at this hour in the investigation. “Now stop it with that and just tell us what happened, now!”

The man gulped and nodded, and some more blood spilled out of him and onto the sidewalk.

“Came to get him…” he murmured. “No… testi…”

But he couldn’t get the word out, no matter how hard he tried.

“Your bosses didn’t want him to testify, okay,” I said, nodding along. “We get that. Anything else? Does he know where Mikey is, and he didn’t tell us? Where’s the boy? Come on.”

I motioned for him to continue, but the man’s eyes just grew wide as he tried to shake his head again.

“We… nothing to do…” he tried to say, but then he just gave up and kept shaking his head.

“I don’t think he knows anything,” Nina said, shaking her head and looking up from the man. “I really don’t. The gang probably figured out we had this guy when the Durham police got involved, and they came down to bust their guy out and stop him from testifying.”

“We can only hope they didn’t kill him,” I muttered. “He was worried that might happen.”

“I need to call my supervisor,” Nina said, standing up, wiping some blood off her arms on her jeans, and pulling out her phone. “He’s going to need to hear about this. The Durham police will need our help to track this guy down.”

“What about Mikey?” I asked, my blood suddenly running cold. Holm was stuck in the hospital already, and now if Nina left me to go look for Justin, what did that mean for the missing boy? Had everybody given up on him already?

“Don’t worry,” Nina said quickly, seeing my expression and reaching out to place a steadying hand on my arm.