“Be ready,” Christopher said, with a worried note in his voice. “If this is our killer, then he’s already proved that he’s capable of overpowering people quickly, and he doesn’t hesitate to kill.”
“I don’t think he’ll find us quite as easy to take down,” Paige said. She’d fought and arrested dangerous killers before. She’d had far more training than either of this killer’s victims. She was determined not to be dead weight in this partnership. She would do her part in taking Nick Lloyd down, if necessary.
Still, she wasn’t going to underestimate him. Not when he’d already shown how deadly he could be with a knife. This was potentially a very dangerous man. Paige got out of the car, her hand going automatically to check the Glock 19 that sat at her waist. She wanted to be able to draw it cleanly if she needed it. Christopher was out of the car too, slowly approaching the door to the house.
They crept forward, moving carefully. Paige could feel the tension rising.
“Down!” Christopher yelled, and even though Paige couldn’t see the reason for it, she ducked.
An instant later, there was a boom that Paige recognized from her hours on the FBI range as a shotgun. She saw the front passenger side tire on their car blow out as the shotgun blast hit it.
Paige reacted on instinct and scrambled back to the car, using it for cover as she drew her weapon and looked around for the potential threat. Paige could feel her training coming back to her, the endless drills at the academy making her react automatically. Christopher was there too, staying low.
“FBI!” he called out, obviously assuming that this was some kind of case of mistaken identity that might be resolved just by identifying themselves. “Throw down your weapon and come out with your hands up!”
Another shotgun blast was the only answer to that, going wide this time, but still making Paige flinch. She fired back in the direction the blast had come from, but there was no sign that she hit anything with her shot.
Paige could see the Dodge Charger next to her, and now that she was out of the car, huddled down next to it, she could hear its engine running, too. Its driver’s side door was open, and Paige could see the keys there in the ignition. It looked as though Nick was getting ready for a quick getaway.
That only raised Paige’s suspicions. Who but the killer would want to make a run for it like that, and would react so violently when the FBI showed up?
“We’re pinned down,” Christopher said, as the shotgun continued to blare. “I can’t pop up to get a clean shot, because it’s too exposed.”
Paige leaned out momentarily, trying to find an opportunity to get off a clean shot of her own, but she had to quickly duck back behind the car as another shower of lead shot came her way. She fired off another shot blind, just to keep their assailant at bay, but it didn’t seem to slow down the attack. More shotgun blasts came, pinning her down, making it impossible to move out to try to take their suspect down.
She and Christopher couldn’t stay there, but they were also stuck in place behind the car, sitting ducks for the shotgun if they tried to move. Paige had an idea, though.
“Come on,” she said to Christopher, and made a run for the Charger’s open door. Another shotgun blast came, missing her by what felt like just inches, the lead shot whispering past her, but Paige kept her head down and threw herself into the car in one movement, with Christopher following just a moment or two later.
“What’s your plan?” he asked, as he ducked down behind the dash.
“If Nick there is planning a quick getaway, I figure taking his getaway vehicle is probably a good first step,” Paige said. “Plus, this gets us out of his line of fire and lets us regroup.”
She threw the car into gear, then reversed down the driveway while more shotgun blasts followed them. Paige ducked as one shattered the rear window, feeling a rush of fear at the possibility that the next blast might hit her or Christopher, the blast showing just how vulnerable they were like that, but she kept driving, speeding away down the lane that led to Nick’s house.
Paige drove for a minute or more before she pulled up a little way away, abandoning the car.
“Ok, we’re clear,” she said, looking around. There was no sign that Nick was following with his shotgun.
“Are you hurt?” Christopher asked, taking hold of her arms, and looking her over. He looked worried by the prospect, his eyes searching Paige frantically for any sign of injury.
“I’m fine,” Paige assured him. It was a strange feeling, having Christopher pay her such close attention, even if it was just to check that she wasn’t injured.
“Are you sure? Sometimes, with gunshots, it can take a minute to sink in.”
“No, I’m fine.” Paige had been terrified when some of the shotgun blasts had come too close to her, but none of them had touched her. At least, she didn’t think they had. She’d been lucky. They both had. That could have gone a lot worse. It would only have taken one of those shotgun blasts to be on target, and they would be dead. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine, but we can’t just leave like this,” Christopher said. “We’ve just moved away from a scene where we have a shooter we suspect of being a serial killer. He still has the weapon, and now he knows the FBI is looking for him. We have to contain that situation.”
“We will,” Paige said. “But we couldn’t do anything while he had us pinned down like that.”
They’d needed to get clear to have any chance of approaching the situation from a new angle.
“We need to get back there,” Christopher said. Paige could see him assessing the situation. “But not the front way. He could still be watching for us. We’ll go around back and try to catch him by surprise.”
Paige was impressed by how quickly Christopher was ready to go back and face an armed man again, and how quickly he’d come up with a plan to do it, but then, that was their job. They had to be ready to take on the people no one else would, to make sure that the public was safe from the most dangerous people out there.
“Should we call for backup?” Paige asked.
“The Lexington PD hasn’t been helpful so far, and I’m not sure there’s time,” Christopher said. “By the time they get here, Nick could have escaped. We need to act now.”
He had a point. If Nick was their killer, and he was running around with a shotgun, there was no telling how much damage he might do now that he knew the FBI were looking for him. He might abandon his usual choice of weapon and just go on a spree, determined to kill as many as possible before he was caught.
Christopher started to run with a long loping stride and Paige had to hurry to keep up with him. She was determined too, wanting to make sure that Nick Lloyd didn’t have the chance to hurt anyone. She’d had to run in her training; there had been minimum times to hit just to make the grade to be an agent. That training stood Paige in good stead now, letting her keep up in spite of her much shorter legs and smaller frame. She just about managed to keep up with Christopher, heading down a passage into the backyard of one of Nick’s neighbors.
Now, it was like being on one of the obstacle courses back at Quantico, throwing herself over garden fences, trying not to slow down while she did it. It was important to keep up momentum, her instructors had told her, because stopping in front of each obstacle was a surefire way to lose a suspect in a chase. Here, Paige wasn’t pursuing a fleeing perpetrator, but every moment she and Christopher took in getting back to the house was one that Nick Lloyd might use to try to escape or hurt someone else.