Page 119 of Code of Courage

CHAPTER57

Danni had so much to tell Gabe, but she was in a hurry. She’d been floored when White called her and now was impatient to sit down and talk to the woman face-to-face.

“I fear I’ve judged you unfairly—I mean you and all police officers,”White said.

Danni had to believe the mayor’s eyes had been opened to the fact that, as Frank Grace would say, there are monsters in the world, and police generally keep them away from normal people so they can live safe, quiet lives. She was happy to visit the mayor at home, away from the press and others who might try to twist the reason for the meeting.

Danni was almost to the Heights when something flashed in her rearview mirror. A vehicle was approaching her fast. She saw it swerve around another car, cut a second one off. Tires squealed, horns honked. The big black SUV was coming straight for her.

Danni jerked the wheel to the right, but it wasn’t enough. The SUV sideswiped her car with a sickening crunch as it scraped the side of her vehicle and kept going. The dark-tinted windows prevented her from seeing who was in the car. An Abolish the Police bumper sticker was prominent on the back bumper.

Danni’s heart raced as she watched the vehicle speed away. Anger swelled as she swerved back into the traffic lane. I need to get the license plate, she thought and sped after it.

She frowned as she made the first right turn after the SUV. It appeared to be heading for the Heights. Sure enough, as she made the next left, there was the vehicle, stopped at the security gate. Danni slowed as she approached, her gaze concentrating on the license plate.

Bang! Bang!

Danni jumped at the unmistakable sound of gunshots. A handgun protruded from the driver’s window, smoke drifting up from the barrel. The driver of the SUV had just shot the gate attendant. Danni had barely processed that realization when the big black machine lurched forward and busted through the closed gate.

Punching her own accelerator, Danni pulled up to the guard shack, thinking about Al Benton and hoping he was okay. She jammed the car into park and jumped out. It wasn’t Al; it was a younger kid, and he wasn’t okay. She checked his pulse and found none. He probably never knew what hit him. Danni grabbed her phone, peering out of the shack, but the SUV was nowhere in sight.

“911, what is your emergency?” The dispatcher was Mara.

“Mara, it’s Danni. There’s been a shooting.” As calmly as she could, she told Mara everything she’d just seen. Thankfully, she’d been able to memorize the license plate and give the information to her friend.

“Where is the vehicle now?” Mara asked in the coolly dispassionate tone of a professional dispatcher.

“I don’t know. He turned left when he entered the...” Danni stopped. The mayor lived to the left. Black SUV... Jareb Moore had a black SUV.

“What, Danni?”

“I think it’s Jareb Moore. What if he’s going after the mayor?”

“You’re right, Danni. The plate just came back 10-29 Frank, to Jareb Moore.”

“Call her; warn her. I’m going to go see if I can help.”

“Danni, stay there with the guard. Units are on the way.”

“Don’t worry, Mara. I’ll be careful.” She ended the call and went back to her car. Then she remembered she had no weapon. Standard procedure after a shooting was to give the shooting team your gun.

She hated to do it, but she had no choice. Danni knelt next to the dead guard and removed his handgun. It was a 9mm, same caliber as her duty weapon. Then she climbed back into her car and headed for the mayor’s house.

+++

Gabe heard the scanner go crazy with emergency traffic. At first, he feared a riot had sprung up somewhere. But then he heard the word wanted in relation to a homicide and Jareb Moore.

He pulled over and listened. Emergency traffic was often hard to decipher right away. Quickly he got the gist. A security guard had been shot and there was real fear that Jareb Moore was a threat to the mayor.

He made a U-turn. Gabe was close to the Heights; he went right by on the way home.

He nearly had a heart attack when he remembered that Danni was supposed to be meeting with the mayor right now.

Emergency vehicles had not yet arrived when Gabe pulled up to the entry to the Heights. There was a vehicle blocking the entrance gate. A man stood between his car and the guard shack, a horrified expression on his face.

Knowing he could do nothing for the guard or for the poor resident who happened upon his body, Gabe swerved around to the exit gate. Glad it didn’t have spikes, he drove through the exit gate, praying like he had never prayed before. Moore must not get to Danni.

+++

---