by BJ Bourg
Before I could fully utter those three words—and as naturally as a normal person took a breath—Shannon angled her M-16 upward and sat down on the trigger. Bullets spat from the muzzle and ripped through both windshields of Dwight’s car, sending shards of glass exploding into the air.
As quickly as Shannon began cutting loose with her M-16, I made my own AR-10 dance, sending three bullets into Roy’s midsection. I noticed immediately that he wore an old military flak jacket, which would do nothing to slow down the .308 bullets rapidly making his acquaintance.
I crouched low and charged forward as bullets from Shannon’s rifle zipped by overhead. Roy’s face had twisted in pain, but he was still in the fight. There was a wild look in his eyes as he screamed and lifted his rifle to take aim. Without missing a step, I fired three more rounds and peppered his chest with bullets. The shots seemed to knock the life out of him and he staggered backward, but remained on his feet.
As I continued moving forward—my legs pumping smoothly—I caught a quick glimpse of Shannon from the side window of the car. She wore a blue sun dress with a Kevlar around her torso, and she held an M-16 with a 100-round drum magazine snapped in place. She was directing her fully automatic rifle fire at the passenger side of the car, trying desperately to drill a hole through and through the vehicle. The bullets violently blasted out the side windows and tore through the door panels of the Trans Am, getting dangerously closer to me.
Roy had dropped his rifle and stood staring down at his crimson chest, as though confused. Without slowing down, I dropped my rifle into its sling, snatched up his M-16, and dug my shoulder into his stomach. Keeping him on his feet, I pushed him ahead of me across the front of the car. I shoved him out into the open and Shannon cut loose on him, thinking I would be behind him. I was not.
I dropped to my knees against the front quarter panel of the Dodge Ram and pressed the trigger on the M-16, spraying her location with lead. While I viewed automatic gunfire as a waste of ammunition, I was happy to have the M-16 in my hands at that moment. It kept Shannon at bay and afforded me an opportunity to slip between the two vehicles as I continued to direct the gunfire in her direction.
The M-16 ran dry just as I reached the passenger side of the Trans Am and everything suddenly went quiet. My ears rang like an explosion had gone off inside my head. The smell of burnt gunpowder singed my nose hairs. I dropped the M-16 and swung my AR-10 up. The last I had seen of Shannon, she was heading for the rear end of the Trans Am, but I was reluctant to start shooting again. Dwight was back there and I didn’t want him to get caught in the crossfire.
I stood quickly and searched for Shannon, but she was nowhere to be seen. I dropped to my belly and checked under the car. To my horror, she was dragging Dwight out from under the Trans Am.
“No!” I said, barely able to hear my own voice over the intense ringing in my ears. “Leave him alone!”
Shannon’s long hair was wild as she hauled Dwight to his feet and crouched behind him. There was a large knife in her left hand and she had the blade pressed to his throat. She maintained her grip on the M-16 with her right hand and she leveled it in my direction. There was an empty drum magazine at her feet and I knew that she had reloaded.
Before I could say another word, she opened fire on my position again. Unable to fire back for fear of hitting Dwight, I was forced to retreat between the vehicles again. I barely escaped with my life.
Dwight was screaming, begging Shannon to spare his life. I knew she wouldn’t hurt him as long as I was still breathing, but I didn’t know how long I could last under these circumstances. Dwight and Shannon appeared between the vehicles and I quickly backed away as bullets pelted the front grill of the Ram.
“Drop your rifle or I’ll kill him!” Shannon hollered between bursts of shots.
“I can’t do that,” I returned hastily, continuing my retreat toward the back of the Dodge Ram. I kept my rifle trained forward, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get off a clean shot on Shannon while she was moving. In the distance, I could hear sirens and I knew my backup was en route. I guess Shannon heard them, too, because she increased her pace, forcing Dwight to run forward. She was trying desperately to run me down now, knowing I couldn’t fight back because of her hostage.
Dwight was scared to death, so he moved in unison with Shannon, repeatedly begging her to spare his life. They were now moving forward faster than I was moving backward. It wouldn’t be long before she caught me out in the open.
I had barely made it to the rear of the truck before she fired another barrage in my direction. A piece of taillight exploded into the air and cut the side of my face. Blood got in my left eye and temporarily blinded me. I wiped it and quickly turned to sprint around the truck. I realized very quickly that Shannon was very close to catching me and gunning me down, so my only chance would be to overtake her and shoot her in the back, hopefully missing Dwight in the process. So thinking, I began sprinting around the truck, running away from her but trying to catch up to her.
I realized too late that I had made a gross miscalculation. Immediately after firing the last blast, Shannon had abandoned Dwight and run in the opposite direction, intent on intercepting me and catching me from behind. As it turned out, we both came face-to-face.
I had reached the front of the truck just in time to see Shannon rounding the back corner with her rifle tucked into her shoulder, the muzzle aimed directly at me. My rifle was angled downward and would never come up in time.
Thinking quickly, I dove onto the hood of the truck. The metal crunched under my weight as I bounced off of it and crashed onto the ground on the other side. A hail of bullets tore up the ground and metal where I’d previously stood. I knew I’d once again escaped death, but I was running out of lives.
As I struggled to spin around and engage Shannon, I caught sight of Dwight from the corner of my eye. His lifeless body was piled in a heap at the back corner of the truck, the front of his neck sliced wide open like a tomato can.
Before I could fully swing my AR-10 around, Shannon leveled the muzzle of her rifle at my face and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 54
Susan’s heart pounded in her chest as she raced across the barren sugarcane fields. She was pushing the Tahoe faster than would have been advised on the substandard dirt road, but she had no regard for her own safety—she was intent on getting to Clint as quickly as humanly possible.
For a solid minute or so after the first shot had been fired over Clint’s open mic, there had been a relentless barrage of gunfire at which time it had been hard to tell what was happening. And then everything had suddenly gone quiet.
“Come on, damn it!” Susan screamed at her vehicle, begging it to go faster. She hit a hole in the road and bounced violently in her seat. Although she was strapped into her seatbelt, the top of her head almost slammed into the ceiling. “Damn it!”
A quick glance in her rearview mirror told her a long line of police cars were chasing her. More units approached from the cane field roads to her right, but none of them were closer than she was to reaching the two vehicles parked nose-to-nose in the distance.
Another hole appeared in the road up ahead, but she saw it just in time to avoid it. After steering out of a fishtail, she stomped the accelerator, begging the SUV to go faster.
Within another minute, she was close enough to the vehicles to make out certain details. Her blood ran cold in her veins. Both vehicles were shredded to pieces. All of the windows had been shot out and there must’ve been two hundred bullet holes in the frame.
She cried out when she saw the body of a man lying on the ground on the passenger side of the Trans Am. She was still too far away to identify the body, but the man wore some type of ballistic vest.
“Oh, God, please don’t be Clint!” Her chest was tight with panic and she was gasping for air. When she was within a dozen yards, she applied the brakes and skidded to a stop. She had barely shoved the gearshift in Park before she was out the do
or and racing for the body, her pistol in her hand.
“Clint!” she screamed, but realized in mid-step that it was Roy Masters. She quickly changed direction and circled around to the driver’s side of the Trans Am. “Clint, where are you?”
The next body she saw was Dwight Bell. He lay in a heap in the grass near the front of the faded blue Dodge Ram, which was parked facing the Trans Am. His throat had been sliced open. Susan glanced wildly about as she reached the front of the car. She suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and stood frozen, her mouth agape as she stared down at the ground between the vehicles.
“I don’t know what happened,” called a voice from the side of the Dodge Ram.
Susan looked up just in time to see Clint scrambling to his feet. He headed straight for Dwight, a befuddled expression on his face.
“I don’t know what happened,” Clint repeated, dropping to his knees beside the downed man. After checking for a pulse, he sat back on his heels and scowled. “Aw, no, he’s gone!”
Susan frowned and stood in stunned silence, taking in the scene around her. Her eyes once again wandered between the vehicles, where Shannon lay on her back, a gaping hole in her throat, directly below her chin and above the top of her body armor.
“That wasn’t me,” Clint said as he walked up. “She had me dead to rights and was pulling the trigger when a hole suddenly appeared in her throat. I didn’t even hear a shot.” He turned and pointed toward the north. “It came from that direction.”
More cars raced up and a dozen officers spilled from the vehicles, their rifles at the ready and most of them with their mouths agape.
“I know what happened.” Susan said, shielding her eyes from the sun. A little more than a mile from where they stood, there was an overpass blending into the gray morning sky. “You see that overpass over there?”
She watched as Clint squinted and studied the distant horizon. He turned to her and frowned. “I can see the bridge, but there’s no one there.”
“It was London Carter.”
“How in the hell can you see him from here?”
“I can’t.”
“Then how do you know it was London?” Clint asked, still appearing confused.
“Because I called him last night and told him we needed him,” she explained. “I told him the general area where you were supposed to meet the killers, and he said he was familiar with it. He said he would meld into the area and wait for my call with the exact location. I called him as soon as we met with Sheriff Turner.”
“Damn, I’m glad you did.” Clint shook his head. “She had me, Sue—she had me dead to rights. I’d run out of options and was all out of luck. I was down and she had her rifle leveled on me. I tried to get my gun up, but she beat me to the trigger. Right when her finger tightened around the trigger—and right when I thought I’d taken my last breath—a hole appeared in her throat. Her body dropped straight down and the bullets went harmlessly into the ground.”
Susan stepped back as Sheriff Turner walked up and approached Clint. They moved out of earshot of the responding officers and spoke quietly.
Susan ambled over to where Shannon’s body was growing colder by the minute. She had only been standing there for a minute when a shadow fell over the body. She turned to see London Carter standing there, white paint smeared across his face.
She indicated the paint. “What’s that about?”
“I had to blend in with my background,” he explained, “which was the sky.”
That made sense, and Susan said so. She then pointed to the hole at the very center of Shannon’s throat. “That’s a damn good shot.”
London scowled. “I missed.”
“What?” Susan asked incredulously.
“I was aiming for her nose.”
“But you were over a mile away!”
“I don’t make excuses.” London looked up and smiled when he saw Clint approaching them.
Clint shook London’s hand warmly. “Man, is it good to see you again!”
“Sorry I couldn’t put her down sooner,” London said. “She spent most of her time behind that blue truck, and when she did show herself, she was moving. It’s hard to make an accurate shot on a moving target from that distance.”
“Most people in the world couldn’t make that shot on a static target.” Clint indicated the hole. “What kind of round makes a hole that big?”
“A .338 Lapau Magnum,” London said. “It was my first shot on a human target with that rifle.”
Susan didn’t know what a .338 Lapau was, but at that very moment, it was her favorite rifle caliber ever.
CHAPTER 55
Thanksgiving Day…
Susan and I had worked in the battered women’s shelter nonstop for two days and everything was finally ready.
“I’ve got the turkey,” I said, heading for the oven.
“No, me, Daddy!” cried Grace, running from the dining area. “Let me!”
I scooped her up on the run and spun her around.
“Stay out of the kitchen.” I carried her back to the area we’d set up for eating and set her down near the large table. “It’s too dangerous in there.”
“I want to help!” She crossed her arms and stood there pouting. “I want the turkey!”
“I need you to greet our guests,” I said, glancing through the front windows toward the parking area beyond. I saw Baylor’s truck drive up. “Go meet Uncle Baylor and Aunt Amy.”
Grace let out a gleeful screech and headed for the door. I returned to the kitchen in time to see Susan using her foot to shove the oven door closed as she hefted the big bird onto the cutting board. She wore a short red dress and the move exposed her entire left leg.
“Sue!” I said. “If you keep showing so much skin, you’re gonna make me want to have a conversation—and our guests are already starting to arrive!”
“If this turkey tastes as good as it smells, we’ll converse all night long,” she said with a mischievous grin.
I grabbed a carving knife and went to work on the turkey while she began bringing serving dishes to the dining room. Grace was greeting Baylor and Amy, who had been released from the hospital four days ago. I winced when I heard Grace ask, “You got a boe-boe, Annie Amy?”
Instead of calling Amy Auntie, Grace would say Annie, which Amy thought was adorable. I had warned Grace not to ask Amy about her injuries, but such was the memory of a kid less than three years of age.
“No, it’s because I got lazy from sitting in the hospital for so long,” Amy said. “Don’t tell your dad, but I’m trying to milk this for all that I can.”
Grace said, “You sound funny, Annie Amy.”
Grabbing a paper towel, I wiped my hands and hurried into the dining room. Baylor had just wheeled Amy through the front door and they were both staring down at Grace, large grins on their faces. Amy’s voice still sounded a little raspy after having been shot in the neck, but it sounded much better than it did a week ago.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, smiling as Grace carefully took Amy’s hand and tried to pull her forward in the wheelchair. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
Susan stopped what she was doing and joined us, stopping near me and putting a hand on my back. “It’s so good to see you moving around,” Susan said to Amy. “You’ll be back in the saddle in no time.”
Grace made the sound of a horse snorting and then began galloping around the room.
After multiple surgeries and a week and a half in the hospital, Amy’s doctors had forecasted a long and slow recovery, but they were expecting a full one.
“It’s good to be out of the hospital.” Amy wore a comfortable dress and sandals. Her long hair was down and there was definitely makeup on her face. We couldn’t see the wounds to her legs and torso, but her left arm was in a sling and she still had a thin bandage on her neck. “I just wish I could’ve gotten out in time for Jenny’s funeral.”
We all nodded our collective heads, except for Grace, who was still trottin
g around like a wild mare.
Jenny’s funeral was a hard one to get through. Her daughter had sat in the front row with Jenny’s parents and they’d all bawled throughout the entire ceremony. I had kept thinking how much Brie looked like Abigail, and that had prompted me to visit my first daughter’s gravesite. Susan and Grace had accompanied me, and it was then that we first told Grace about her older sister.
Car doors slammed in the driveway, and I stepped outside to see Melvin, Claire, and their daughter Delilah arriving next, followed closely by Regan and her husband, Abel, who had no children. Susan had once asked Regan if she wanted kids, but Regan had quickly responded, “I’m not about to go through the three seasons.”
“The what?” Susan had asked.
“The process of having a baby,” Regan had explained, “lasts nine months—that’s three seasons. Who has time for that? Kids are great and all, but I’d rather be a nanny than a mom.”
Susan told her it was well worth it, but I don’t know if that had changed her mind at all.
Takecia and her boyfriend, Jeremiah, were the last to arrive, and once everyone was inside and seated around the table, I led the group in a short prayer and then we started eating. Amy said she couldn’t remember much from my last visit at the hospital, so I brought her up to speed on the case. She already knew that Shannon, Roy, and Dwight had been killed, so I didn’t bring that part up out of respect for the two pairs of young ears that were seated around the table.
“You already know about the spent shell casings,” I said with a wave of my fork. “As for the oil, we were finally able to locate a lab that specializes in petroleum fingerprinting and forensics. They matched the oil from Dwight’s Trans Am to the drops we recovered at our crime scene and to the drops that were recovered in Daryl Winston’s murder.”
“Do we know who was responsible for the shots that”—Amy shot a glance in Grace’s direction—“patty-caked Chad, Daryl, Jenny, and the old man they car-jacked?”
