Page 5 of Duplicity

“Don’t throw your life away, kid!” Ellis yelled. “Put the gun down.”

His movements grew even more erratic. His body language signaled the moment things took a turn. There was a decision made, and his limbs tightened. The gun came up.

Cat had to fire wide, or she could potentially hit an innocent or shatter the window and hit someone outside. She squeezed the trigger of her gun at the same time his went off.

Ellis screamed. A shot fired wild from the aisle beside her. The suspect spun around. A muzzle flashed. The noise eclipsed everything in her ears. Shoved with force, her legs crumpled under her.

Cat’s back hit the floor, and her ears seemed to register sound again.

Someone else screamed.

Footsteps beat a path to the door. Cat moved, and excruciating pain burned in her leg. She touched it and found wet warmth. Blood.

“Ellis!” She gasped. “I’m hit! Ellis!”

She needed to…

She should…

Cat fumbled for her radio, her hand slick with blood. She squeezed the sides. “Unit twelve. Officer down!”

She had to get to her partner. She rolled, screaming as pain tore through her, and used her elbows to pull herself across the floor. More screaming, but from the woman and child. Cat forced the sound out of her mind and focused on her elbows. Move. Slide. Elbows.

Get to…

Her partner lay halfway down the aisle, blood around him. His neck.

“Sarge!” Catalina slid all the way to him and levered herself up enough to see he was practically gray. Lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling.

She grasped the front of his vest and choked out a sob. “Sarge?—”

“Alvarez.”

She spun to find the principal in the doorway. “Ms. Cruise.”

How long had she been standing there?

Cat lifted her coffee, careful not to slosh any on her hand or her uniform. “What can I help you with?”

Asking the question helped anchor her in the here and now. Instead of dwelling on the lingering issue of the shooter’s identity. Or the teen who had confessed to the crime. The fact it had all seemed too easy to her. Too neat.

Even if everyone else thought it was resolved, she wasn’t going to let it go.

She couldn’t.

Principal Cruise grabbed the back of one of the two chairs Cat had facing her desk. “Just a quick note on our new math teacher.”

“Mr. Norris?” She wasn’t going to tell the principal what they’d talked about outside. That Cat might actually haveflirtedwith the guy. Which was nuts and also a completely terrible idea.He might intrigue her, but given every relationship she’d ever had only ended in heartbreak and disaster, she wasn’t ready to go through that again. No matter if it was good for a while before it went bad. Even if it could beverygood.

It would always go bad.

Principal Cruise squeezed the back of the chair so hard the stuffing might burst out of the fake leather. “He’s here only for the summer and promised not to leave us in the lurch. But the truth is, he’s aVanguard agent.” She whispered the last two words, glancing back over her shoulder when she was done.

Catalina frowned. “What does Vanguard want with the school?”

The private security and investigations company got into all kinds of crazy things, but over here on the east side of the city, she lived in a kind of cocoon where most of that stuff, thankfully, didn’t touch her.

No bombings. No Russian criminals.

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