Deadly Aim (3 page)

“Billy!” Her stern voice echoed off the walls. “Give yourself up. You know you can’t get away. Maybe we can cut a deal.”

“No!” Billy yelled, and seconds later he dove past her, slamming her against the railing and nearly propelling her over it.

Angel grabbed the rail to steady herself and lunged after him. “Stop! Stop or I’ll shoot!”

Billy paused at the bottom. His frightened gaze fastened on hers. “I didn’t do nothin’.” He stood there motionless for a moment, then raised his gun.

A
im for body mass
. The repetitive voice from her instructors at the police academy jammed into her brain. She’d done it nearly every day on the shooting range.

No
!
This isn’t a target. He’s just a kid
.

But he has a gun. It’s either him or me
. Angel aimed and fired. A bullet tore into Billy’s shoulder. He twisted and staggered back. His eyes widened.

Another gunshot splintered the silence. Then another.

Angel froze. Billy’s gun clattered to the concrete floor with an oddly hollow sound. He moaned and reached for her, then dropped on top of his gun.

Angel stared at him, then at her own weapon.

Oh, Angel
, a voice in her head cried.
What have you done
? She holstered her Glock, as if burying it would hide the truth. Her knees buckled. She grabbed the railing and forced herself to move toward Billy’s limp form.

When she reached the boy, she radioed in her position using her lapel mike and asked for an ambulance. Pulling off her jacket, she pressed it to his wounds. Blood pumped like a small geyser, and Angel knew she must have hit an artery. The dark burgundy pool beneath him spread to her knees and soaked into her slacks.

“C’mon, Billy. You’re gonna be okay. Stay with me.”

In the dim light she studied the boy’s face. Only moments before, Billy had been involved in an armed robbery. Now he looked like a sleeping child.

“Hang on!” She shook him. “Listen—the sirens. You can hear them. We’ll get you to the hospital.”

A gurgling sound came from his throat. Blood oozed from his mouth.

“No!” Angel gasped. A wild hysteria erupted in the pit of her stomach. “You can’t die!”

God, don’t let him die. Please
.

“Angel?” The voice sounded as if it was coming from a deep well. “You in here?” A bright light streamed into the warehouse, then disappeared again as someone came in and let the heavy door close behind him.

Nick hunkered down beside her, looking from Billy to Angel and back again. “What happened?”

Angel concentrated on keeping her voice steady as she explained.

Eric dropped down beside her and felt Billy’s carotid artery for a pulse. “He’s dead.”

Angel shook her head. “He can’t be.” She raised her eyes to meet Eric’s. “He wasn’t supposed to die.”

“Angel...” Nick wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

She shrugged it off. “Don’t.”

The door jerked open again as the EMTs arrived. Angel felt cold as she let Nick lead her outside, where officers were already securing the scene. She ducked under the yellow tape and sank into the seat of a squad car parked at the curb.

Nick poured a cup of coffee from the thermos he kept in the backseat. When she didn’t take it, he wrapped her hands around the cup and lifted it to her mouth. “Come on, Angel. Don’t take it so hard. Hey, I know it’s rough. The first time always is. But the kid didn’t give you a choice. It could be you lying in there.”

Eric crouched down next to the car door. “Nick’s right, partner. It’s part of the job.”

Angel shook her head, not trusting herself to talk. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d fired at a human-shaped target. One, two, three, four, five shots without blinking. Sometimes during practice, she had tried to imagine what it would be like to shoot a real person, but all the practice in the world couldn’t have prepared her for the real thing. She had just killed another human being. A child. Billy had committed a crime, but he didn’t deserve to die.

“Did you get any of the others?” Angel asked.

“We lost them.” Eric folded his arms and leaned against the car. “I stopped looking when I heard the shots.”

Angel stared into the coffee. She heard Mike and Bo come up, and Eric explained the situation. Both offered their support.

Then Nick extended his hand toward her. “Uh... it’s just routine, Angel, but you know the drill. I need your duty weapon and magazine.”

Angel nodded and handed her gun to him. The police would enter her weapon as evidence. The guys in the crime lab would check it against the bullets in the kid’s body. Bullets she had fired. Then internal affairs would investigate, as they always did when an officer used deadly force. And she’d be put on administrative leave. She shuddered and pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

When Nick gave her a replacement, she frowned, wondering how he’d gotten one so fast.

“It’s mine. I had an extra one in the trunk,” he explained.

“Thank you.” She shoved it into her holster.

The replacement was a way of maintaining normalcy by letting her know she had taken appropriate action. Angel only wished she could believe that. If it had been up to her, she’d give the weapon back and...

No, you have to stop thinking like that
.
You’re a police officer. Weapons are part of the package
.

Nick, who served not only as sergeant but also as their union rep, hunkered down in front of her. “I called in for a lawyer, Angel. He’ll try to get here today.”

She nodded. It was all part of a prearranged plan for situations like this. Officers paid their 1.5 percent in union
dues and got representation if and when they needed it. And it looked like she was going to need it.

Nick rested his hand on her knee. “Would you like me to take you back to the station?” he asked. “You might want to get cleaned up. The, uh, lab is going to want your uniform too.” He glanced down at her bloodstained slacks and the jacket she’d bunched up and set on the floor of the car. “And we’re going to need a urine sample—you can take care of that at the station.”

“I’m heading back that way,” Eric said. “I can take her.”

Angel shifted her gaze from Nick to Eric. “Thanks,” she said to Nick. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll ride back with Eric.” She needed the familiarity of the patrol car and Eric’s presence.

“Sure.” Nick patted her knee and stood. “Eric, if you’re leaving, I’ll need to take a look at your weapon as well.”

“Sure.” Eric took out his weapon and handed it to Nick. “Since when did you get so efficient?”

“Since I’ve been working with Detective Riley from the Oregon State Police. He’s thorough. And he’ll be handling the investigation. We have a call in to him right now.” Nick checked the magazine and handed the weapon back to Eric. “Thanks.”

Looking up at Nick, Angel asked, “Are you sure you don’t need me to stick around?”

He shook his head. “We pretty much know what went down. You can give your statement later. The crime lab guys will go over everything.”

Crime scene. Detective. Investigation
. The words weren’t new to her. She’d used them herself numerous times. But now they felt like knives cutting into whatever reserve she had left. She was going to be investigated. What would Dad think? Her stomach twisted at the thought of facing him. Her father had been a police officer for over forty years.

Angel frowned. She’d seen his car at the scene, so where was he now and why hadn’t he been with the other officers?

Her heart thudded as her mind reeled with possibilities. Had he been hurt? Called away?

“Have any of you seen my dad?”

None of them had.

C
allen Riley scooped up a load of paint on his brush and, with his left hand gripping the gutter, reached for the far corner of the fascia. Another hour and he’d be finished with the trim.

A siren pierced the crisp sunny morning and seemed to be coming from downtown Sunset Cove. Not a welcome sound at any time, but especially not now. He tried to ignore it—tried to convince himself it was just a traffic stop. Anything serious and dispatch would page him. Until they did, he wasn’t going anywhere.

He’d been waiting the entire weekend for a clear day so he could work on the exterior of his beach house. This was supposed to be vacation time for him. His supervisor in Portland had insisted he take a few days off to move into his new place. Tomorrow he’d start working officially with the other law enforcement agencies in Lincoln County.

Tomorrow, not today. Even so, he mentally prepared himself. His weapon, a .40 caliber, was tucked in its holster hanging on a hook in the back of his closet, covered by his official Oregon State Police jacket.

Standing on the upper rung of his extension ladder, Callen glanced down at his sister as she opened the sliding glass door and backed onto the deck.

“No, Mutt, stay,” Kathleen ordered. “You can’t come out here. Go see the girls. A white dog and blue paint are not a good mix.”

Callen’s rambunctious white pup yipped an objection and stuck his black nose out the door. She gently moved him back in with her bare foot, closing off his escape route.

“Ready for a break?” Kath set two steaming cups on the low wooden table between two white Adirondack chairs.

He was, and the coffee smelled great, but he didn’t want to stop painting. Nothing, not even the enticing aroma of his favorite coffee, would deter him. “Not yet, but you go ahead.”

“Honestly, you’ve been at it since 7:00.” Kath brushed a hand through her red hair and settled onto one of the chairs. “I thought you were moving to the beach to slow down.”

“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, and I want to get the trim finished.” Callen leaned back to admire the paint job. The blue trim looked almost too bright against the weathered gray siding.

“You don’t think the blue is too bright?” Kath cocked her head in a scrutinizing pose as she sipped at her steaming drink.

“Nope. It’ll be fine when it dries.” Even if the paint was too bright, he wouldn’t admit it to Kath. As the older sibling, she had the very irritating habit of pointing out his faults and trying to fix them. Besides, he’d seen the color combination on several houses up the coast and decided he’d use it if and when he ever got his own place at the coast. And now that he had it, he intended to do exactly what he wanted. The three-bedroom house sat on a piece of beachfront property, on a bluff only a few blocks from downtown Sunset Cove. The town was on a beautification kick, and he’d gotten a great deal. Even so, the view had cost him plenty. But it was worth every cent.

“How’s the kitchen coming?” Callen dipped the brush into the paint can. Kathleen and her girls had come down from Portland on Friday to help him move in. They’d worked all weekend, painting and wallpapering as well as unpacking his kitchen boxes and putting things away. He’d rearrange everything to his liking later, but for now he was happy to get stuff into the cupboards and out of sight.

“Great. I love it. You did good, Callen. The grapes on the wallpaper trim make it look like an Italian villa. I can’t believe how well it matches the tiles and the pottery you bought.”

He let the compliment slide off. People, even in his own family, always seemed surprised at his artistic nature. Just because a guy was a cop didn’t mean he couldn’t be creative.

A glob of paint dropped from his brush and spattered on the plastic drop cloth he’d laid over the shrubs. He ignored it and went on painting the eaves in front of him.

A rapid burst of what sounded like distant gunfire disrupted his thoughts.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kath threw him a worried look.

He shook his head. “Can’t be. Not here in Sunset Cove.” He sucked in a deep breath, knowing as soon as the words left his mouth that they weren’t quite true. In recent years, the crime rate in coastal areas had mushroomed. Callen debated whether or not to check it out.