Mystery of the 19th Hole (Taylor Kelsey, Mystery 1) (16 page)

             
Jim was looking through his sights again.  Directly at Taylor.

             
While he was looking at her, she smiled.  His finger started to pull the trigger when his cart dropped down a hill and rumbled over a creek, ruining his aim.  He pulled in his gun and grabbed a shaft on the cart for support.

             
Taylor bounded through the creek while Susan muttered complaints.  Now Jim was looking through his sights again.  His finger was on the trigger.  Taylor smiled again.  He turned to see what it was she was smiling at this time.  Before him was nothing but a level fairway.  He looked around some more just to make sure.

             
Now Taylor was
really
smiling.  She’d tricked him.  Susan knew it, too.  “Now you’ve probably made him even angrier.  Great.”

             
“They say you have bad aim when you’re mad.”

             
“Who says?!”

             
Jim turned about angrily and started firing like a mad man.  “He’s trigger happy now, see,” said Taylor.  She remained driving straight as bullets flew by, missing terribly.  Jim reloaded his gun, turned about, and aimed.

             
“He’s back to aiming,” said Susan.

             
Taylor started zigzagging the cart.  Her hands alternated on the wheel one way, then the next, then the opposite.  Jim’s gun blasted.  She was still zigzagging and could literally hear the bullet whiz past her head on the left side.  “Okay, now I’m a little scared.”

             
“Now?” shouted Susan.

             
“Yes, now.”

             
“Why not, say, five minutes ago?”

             
Taylor didn’t answer.

             
Jack hung a sharp right, rolled over a green, and traversed another fairway.  Taylor immediately turned and did the same, now riding parallel to him, but still about one hundred feet away.  Turning the wheel slightly, she started to close the gap.

             
Jack crossed the fairway and started up the steep mountainside that lined the golf course.  The path he took was grassy.  Dense trees lined both sides.  Taylor hit the hill, and the cart’s high-pitched engine started humming low tunes.  It also slowed considerably.  As did Jack’s.

             
The battery in Jack’s cart must have been low, for Taylor and Susan were catching him.  Fifty-feet.  Taylor pushed against her seat and kept the pedal to the floor.  Her leg was getting tired and hurting.  Susan was still gripping the shaft.

             
Jim turned all the way around in his seat and stood on his knees.  He gripped the gun with both hands.  The carts were going slower, the hill was smooth for the most part, and they were closer together.  Taylor screamed.

             
The sound of a gunshot pierced the air. 
Smack!
  It hit the front of their cart and splintered the plastic.  Suddenly, their engine started alternating tunes and finally died with a decreasing whistle.  Taylor kicked down the parking break.

             
Jim’s arm cocked with another shot.  Taylor and Susan ducked, and the bullet missed completely.  While ducked, they scrambled out of the cart and hid behind it.  Popping their heads over the back, they watched Jack’s cart crest the hill and start down the other side.

             
Then they heard Jim scream.  Then nothing.

             
After a few quiet minutes passed, Taylor and Susan decided to see what happened to Jack and Jim.  It took a minute to run up the hill, and by the time the girls reached the top they were panting.  Immediately, they saw why Jim had screamed.  Just over the crest was a cliff.  It gave way to a thousand-foot drop into the ocean.

             
Taylor tentatively approached the cliff and peered over the top.  Jack Cadell and his cart were at the bottom, floating next to a group of rocks.  The cart was broken to pieces, and Jack was dead.

             
Susan looked over as well.  “Where’s Jim?”

             
Taylor tried to find his body among the ruins below.  “Maybe he sunk.”

             
Screaming, Susan pushed Taylor to the floor.  A gunshot sounded!  Taylor started tumbling down the hill back toward the golf course.  While spinning, she saw Jim; he was behind a tree, gun extended.  He must have jumped out of the cart before it went over.  Susan started after Taylor but tripped and started flipping and rolling alongside her.

             
Now they were both screaming, and gunshots were going off behind them like fireworks in July.  Jim was standing at the top of the hill, one arm steadying the other, and firing with dangerous accuracy.  Bullets tore into the ground beside the girls as they flipped down the hill.

             
Then the girls accidentally mixed and through a series of weird twists came to a sliding stop on the grassy path.  Taylor’s world was spinning, but she could see the golf cart about twenty feet to her left.  Standing on wobbling legs, zigzagging and staggering in every direction, she made her way to the cart, Susan following clumsily.

             
“Wait, Taylor, it’s broken.”

             
Taylor didn’t speak.  She just climbed into her seat.  The gunshots had stopped during all this.  Taylor figured Jim was reloading.  Susan grabbed a shaft on the back of the cart to steady herself.  And after a short moment of peace, the gunshots started again, and Jim was running down the hill to get a closer shot.

             
Taylor knew Susan was behind the cart but couldn’t wait any longer.  “Hold on.”  She released the parking brake and the cart started rolling backward, down the hill.  Susan swung her feet onto the back of the golf cart where the bags were supposed to go.  She gripped the shafts on either side and screamed.  Since she was facing backward, she could see the bottom of the hill closing in fast.  “Don’t flip us, Taylor!”

             
Taylor looked over her shoulder while trying to navigate the cart down the hill.  They were going at a dangerous pace.  The gunshots didn’t seem so scary at the moment as she tried to keep the cart from flipping.  Taylor could picture the headlines already: “
The Girls that Survived Car Crash off Mammoth Peak Die in a Fluke Golf Cart Accident
.”

             
Lovely.

             
The gunshots stopped, and Taylor looked up to see Jim watching them in amusement.  He stepped forward, tripped over a root, and started rolling and flipping down the hill.  His finger slipped on the trigger, and the gun shot.

             
Susan watched as their cart met the bottom of the hill.  The cart took it gently, rolled through, and came to a ginger stop.  Releasing her grip on the cart, Susan fell to the floor and took a few deep breaths.

             
Taylor was already walking by.  “C’mon, we need to get to the police.”

             
Susan watched as Taylor fast-walked away as if nothing had happened.  “You’re crazy!  What about Jim?”

             
“He accidentally shot himself.”

             
Susan turned to see Jim on the floor at the bottom of the hill.  He was on his back and bleeding from the leg.  Breathing.

             
“He’ll be okay,” said Taylor, “we’ll tell the police about him.”

             
“I’d sure hate to be shot in the leg.  Ouch,” said Susan.

             
They started running for the front of the golf course.  Susan had called the lieutenant, and they expected him to arrive with a host of police any moment now.  They needed to brief him on everything.

             
“So is everything okay, now?  I mean, no more high speed chases or gun shots, right?” asked Susan.

             
“Yeah.”  But Taylor had a bad feeling.  She’d solved the case, but she knew she was missing something.  Something important.  Something sinister.

             
Chad closed his laptop.  He was still in Taylor’s car.  Still afraid of golf courses.  But it was time to man up, he told himself.  Time to impress Taylor.  Then he realized how lame he was for thinking it was impressive to step into a golf course’s parking lot.

             
Clutching his laptop by his side, he stepped out of the car.  He nearly jumped back in out of fear.  Sweat was forming on his forehead, but he shut the car door with resolve.  Frozen, he watched as a Dodge Charger sped into the parking lot and came to a screeching stop in front of the clubhouse.  Lieutenant Arterman stepped out.

             
Pulling himself together, Chad ran across the parking lot to Jeff.

             
“Hey, Lieutenant, it’s me Chad.”

             
Jeff spun around.  “Where are Taylor and Susan?”

             
“Golfing, why?”

             
“They called in about some kind of emergency.”

             
“I don’t know,” said Chad.  “I wasn’t with them, I—”

             
A loud shriek followed by gunshots turned their heads.  A brown car zoomed into the parking lot, guns poking out of every window.  “Run!” yelled Jeff, grabbing Chad’s arm.  Guns trumped golf courses in Chad’s mind, and he willingly followed. 

             
They started for the clubhouse entrance, but bullets punctured holes into the glass doors.  Nearly tripping, Jeff yanked Chad to the left and they started for the side of the clubhouse.  Diving behind the side of the building, Chad watched as gunshots tore into the corner of the wall.

             
Jeff lifted Chad to his feet, and they set off for the first hole.

             
Behind them, the men in the brown car piled out and thundered their way around the corner of the building.  Five of them.  They turned the corner with their guns lifted.  A trigger-happy one released a few shots though he didn’t see anything.  “Over there!  Over there!”  The shouting one jabbed his finger toward the first hole, and they launched themselves that direction like an army platoon.

             
Gunshots started roaring behind Jeff and Chad.  They were in the middle of the fairway, exposed.  Jeff knew it was bad to be exposed, but he didn’t have any other ideas.  To his right was a cluttered stand of trees.  Yanking Chad’s arm, he pulled them into it.  Bullets whizzed through the branches and splintered trunks.

             
“Lieutenant, Lieutenant!” someone was yelling.

             
Jeff looked behind him to see Taylor and Susan slowly running to the trees.  They were sweating and panting.  “Are you guys okay?”

             
“Luckily,” said Susan, now speaking in an English accent because the lieutenant still didn’t know she wasn’t.  “What’s the problem here?”

             
The sound of more gunshots answered her question.

             
“I solved the case,” said Taylor.  “This is what happened—”

             
“Not now,” said Jeff.  “Go get help.”

             
“Why don’t you just call it in?”

             
“Captain won’t let me.  Now hurry.”

             
Taylor and Susan darted far away and in the opposite direction from Jeff to stay clear of the gun-wielding gang.  Chad stayed with Jeff.  “Go!” yelled the lieutenant.

             
“No, I can help.  I got a few gadgets with me.”

             
“A few what?”

             
Chad pulled a concussion grenade from a modified Sam Browne police belt he was wearing under his shirt.  “See what I mean.”

             
“You have concussions?”

             
“Yeah.”

             
“Nice.”

             
Taylor and Susan were pounding down the turf in a tired run back to the parking lot.  Susan was already on the phone with 911, and they were patching her through to the police.  The dispatcher was very slow, however.  “Why do we have to get the newbie?” grumbled Susan.

             
They finally reached the parking lot.  Taylor pulled her keys from her pocket when yet another car screeched into the lot.  A police cruiser.  It pulled right beside Taylor and Susan, and the driver was pointing a gun at them.  He was also wearing a mask.

             
He threw open his door, jumped out, and in quick movements threw a screaming Taylor into the backseat.  Susan clawed, fought, and screamed.  He tried to level his gun but only managed to get off a low shot.  The bullet hit Susan’s leg, and she toppled over in a faint.