Page 9 of Blood Bearon
The building was destroyed. Once the dozer was removed, it was more likely than not going to collapse in on itself, based on what she could tell. Oddly enough, this wasn’t her first experience with such a scene, though she’d never expected to see it repeated in Plymouth Falls of all places.
A quick glance across the street revealed the construction site from which the dozer had been pilfered. Mangled chain-link fence showed where the criminals had simply driven over it instead of trying to open it. Whoever they were, it seemed their intent was simply to cause as much damage as possible.
She thought about radioing for backup, but then remembered there wouldn’t be any. The entire department was deployed across the city. She was it. This was her job. The citizens of Plymouth Falls were her responsibility, and she wasn’t about to let these assholes get away just because she didn’t have backup.
Drawing her gun, she crept off to the side of the street, approaching the destroyed building with as much calm as she could muster. The dull roar of blood in her ears and the hammering of her heart against her chest walls seemed like a dead giveaway, but she kept going. Ears open, listening for the slightest of sounds, she came to the edge of the storefront. The damaged store was on the corner of a T-intersection, but the building itself ran the length of the street.
Her back pressed to the wall, she peeked around through the shattered glass. Nothing but rubble. Crushed building, glass everywhere, and dull yellow metal of the dozer’s exterior shell. Nothing could be in there. Creeping around, she moved to the far side, where the driver’s entry and exit was.
The door was ajar, the cockpit empty. Moving into the building itself was far too dangerous. It could come down at any second, and Rachel had no intention of getting herself buried alive. The last thing she needed was to become the laughing stock of the force—assuming she survived. No, she was going to do this by the book.
Her eyes moved across the street.Mostly, by the book, at least. Giving one last look at the destroyed store, ensuring nobody would be stupid enough to be hiding inside, she moved across the street and into the construction site itself, trying hard to keep calm. She killed her flashlight as well, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. No more than twenty steps into the empty site and her senses began to tingle.
She wasn’t alone.
The question was, where were they?Whowere they? Crouching low against a hollow concrete cylinder used for underground piping, Rachel steadied her breathing and listened, extending her senses like she’d long ago learned to do. Hopefully, it would be more help than in the morning, when that handsome stranger had so casually snuck up on her.
After a second, she began to move again, the feeling growing weaker, a little more distant. Whoever it was, they weren’t looking at her. The silence grew on her. Seemed they moved quieter than they had any right to. Still, something told her she was getting close.
She eased herself into the shadow of a big grader in the middle of the site, taking cover behind its long snowplow-like blade. Taking a deep breath, she peeked up and over the top at the other side of the construction zone.
There!
Her eyes saw him, his shadow illuminated by the faint neon lighting from the store on the other side of the street behind the construction site. Stifling a gasp, she slowly ducked back down behind the blade. Whoever it was, they had been looking around, mostly at the ground. They didn’t seem overly concerned about hiding.
Rachel thought about radioing for backup, then cursed. She couldn’t. In her haste to respond to the crime scene, she’d left her radio in the car. She was on her own. Taking a deep breath, she steeled her nerves. Working on her own was what she was used to now. It was why she’d come out here in the first place.
Easing around the edge of the grader’s blade, Rachel crept forward, step by slow step, gun out and aimed at a forty-five-degree angle in front of her. Her hope was that she’d be able to close the distance to perhaps half. Whatever the shadowy figure was doing, they seemed absorbed in it, and so perhaps she could—
Without warning, no more than ten steps from cover, the figure snapped around and stared right at her.
“Freeze!” she shouted. “Police Department!”
The figure turned. They were going to run.
“Don’t do it!” she snapped.
They ran.
Without thinking, she brought her gun up and fired off a shot. The bullet clanged loudly off something metal in the darkness, but it didn’t slow the running figure. Cursing at herself for losing control and letting herself get spooked, Rachel gave chase.
Whoever it was, they were damn fast, but they obviously weren’t familiar with the town, because they ran right down an alleyway adjacent to the site, trapping themselves in a dead end.
“That’s far enough!” she barked. “Turn around, hands on your head.” Carefully, she reached down with her off hand and got out her flashlight.
Flicking it on, she advanced to within twenty feet of the suspect before holding there. At that point, she was able to make out the details of his face.
“You,” she gasped, stunned as she realized she recognized the pair of cold steel eyes and the strong square jaw of the one looking back at her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer.
“Fine. You’re under arrest.” She chuckled. “Looks like I just found my cause to get a warrant.”
A brief smile may have played across his face, but it was there and gone too fast for her to be certain.
“Come on, keep walking,” she said, cautiously backing down the alleyway until she could reverse their positions and have him walk in front of her. It was too dangerous to put cuffs on him like this. She needed backup for that. Unless…
“Put these on,” she said firmly, swapping her flashlight for her cuffs once they were in front of her car and she had a source of light again.
