Page 90 of Fatal Witness

Dani fired one round after another with barely a second between shots. Then she stopped and helped him as he crawled behind the brick.

“Good job. Might want to talk to you about becoming a deputy.”

“I don’t think so, but thanks. Where’re you wounded?”

“My thigh, but I think it’s just a graze.”

“You’re lucky it didn’t hit an artery. Does it hurt bad?”

He had too much adrenaline to feel pain. That would come later. “Not too much. Where’s our shooter?”

She pointed to a hill across the road from his house. “If he hasn’t moved.”

“Where’s Gem?” He hadn’t seen her since the shooting started, and that wasn’t like her. He frantically searched the area, his heart almost stopping when he saw her still form near the front porch. “Gem!”

She raised her head barely an inch, but she was alive! He had to get to her. “Cover me!”

“You got it.”

He ran a zigzag pattern again as Dani fired the bolt-action rifle toward the hill. Gem thumped her tail when he drew near. “I’m here, girl.”

She yelped when Mark pulled her under the porch behind the concrete steps. A branch dug into his good leg, and he shifted away from it. Mark’s thigh throbbed, and he examined the wound. It looked like just a graze, and the bleeding had checked. Then he gently examined Gem and found a graze wound near her ear. Another half inch ...

The shooter had tried to kill his dog. Thank God, it had only stunned her. They needed backup and quick. Alex could commandeer a medical helicopter and fly a few deputies to Mae’s house. From there it was only a mile or so to where they were pinned down—if he could reach Alex.

Mark checked his cell phone for service. One bar. That shouldn’t be—why wasn’t his booster working? Then he saw why. Half the receiver was on the ground. How could the shooter hit something no bigger than a frying pan and miss them? Maybe because the receiver wasn’t a moving target.

He tried calling Alex anyway, but as he expected, the call failed. Time to switch to plan B—get to the brick well and from there to the back of the house and the four-wheeler. Mark smoothed Gem’s coat, murmuring encouraging words to her, then crawled to the edge of the porch where he could see Dani. “Gonna need cover again,” he shouted to her.

“Say when. Is Gem all right?”

“I think so.” He urged the dog to stand, and she clambered to her feet. Mark glanced toward the road. The shooter hadn’t fired for at least five minutes.

Was he moving in closer for the kill ... or had he left? “You see anything moving?”

“No. I was just wondering where he was.”

Maybe he was conserving his ammo. Mark shrugged out of his jacket and attached it to the branch he’d crawled over and then stuck the branch out from the house, waving it up and down. Two shots from the shooter answered his question. He was moving closer.

“Get ready,” he said and turned to Gem. “Let’s go, girl.”

They dashed from the porch to the well as Dani peppered the hillside with bullets. There was return fire, and while closer, it wasn’t by much.

“You two okay?” Dani asked.

“The bullet grazed the side of her head, but I think she’ll be fine.” Mark nodded toward the hillside across the road. “He’s moving closer.”

“I know.”

“If we can make it to the back porch, we’ll have the house to protect us while we get to the four-wheeler,” Mark said. “Can you drive a four-wheeler?”

“Yes, but I don’t know the terrain. I’ll sit behind you—you need to be the one steering and handling the braking and throttle.”

With a shooter behind them, that was the most dangerous place. He hated putting Dani in danger, but that was their only option. He nodded. “Let’s do it.”

“What about Gem?”

“I’ll strap her in the front rack.”

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