Chapter Four

Mia heard the sound, but while her mind was still processing exactly what it was, Angel sprang into action. One second she was standing, and the next Angel had hooked his arm around her and was dragging her to the ground.

“Get down,” Angel yelled to RJ.

That’s when Mia realized someone had just fired a shot at them.

RJ moved, hurrying toward them while his gaze darted all around them. Mia was doing the same thing, but she had no idea where the shot had come from. She certainly didn’t spot a gunman.

But Angel seemed to have pinpointed him.

He glanced in the woods behind her house. Just a glance before he got them moving.

“With me,” Angel told RJ.

With his arm still around her and RJ right next to them, Angel hurried to the driver’s side of the van, and he took up position. He was using the front end of the van for cover.

“Stay low,” Angel instructed. “Danno, call 911 and Presley to alert him and the deputy about an active shooter in the vicinity. They need to approach with caution.”

When he finished his order to the AI app, he aimed a glare at RJ while he ripped the crowbar from his hand and tossed it aside. It made a clanging noise as it hit the asphalt.

“And you’d better not be in on this,” Angel warned RJ, “or I will make you pay. Understand?”

RJ gave a long, shaky nod. “I swear, I’m not in on it. What is this ?” he tacked onto that. “What’s happening?”

“A shooter’s at my one o’clock.” Angel tipped his head to the woods. “He’s using a rifle, probably with a scope, and you can bet he can see us just fine. So, stay the hell down.”

Angel didn’t have a chance to add more because at that second another shot came their way, and Mia thought the bullet skipped off the van’s hood. Way too close to Angel, and she wanted to latch onto him and drag him down to the ground with RJ and her. She didn’t only because she was afraid it would distract him and get him killed.

A third shot came.

Then, a fourth.

And they just kept coming.

They were loud, thick blasts that slammed into the van. Clearly, the shooter had a decent aim, and since he was using a rifle, Angel’s handgun probably didn’t have the range for him to return fire.

Her heart was pounding now, the sound crashing in her ears and making everything feel loud and out of control. Her chest was too tight. Her breathing was way too fast, and Mia had to force herself not to give in to the panic that was spiking through her.

God .

Why was this happening?

It had to be connected to Kenton’s death. Had to be. But why did someone want Angel and her dead?

Or was the target RJ?

That question flashed in her mind. After all, if he was telling the truth, and she believed that he was, someone had lured him here with that note. Did that someone want to kill him because he might be able to identify Kenton’s killer?

Maybe.

But the same could be said of all three of them. Heck, of Melanie, Presley, and Birdie, too. And for that matter, anyone else connected to Kenton, such as his father, Dwight.

“We need to warn the others,” Mia muttered. “Someone could go after them like this.”

“Warn them?” RJ questioned, and then several seconds later, when it no doubt sank in, his eyes went wide again. “Melanie. Oh my God, Melanie.” He yanked out his phone, no doubt to call her.

“Danno, put the drone feed on my phone,” Angel said, and he finally lowered himself so he could look at his screen.

Since Mia was right there next to him, she looked at the feed as well. But she saw nothing. Just those blasted trees. Dozens of them, all jammed together just on the other side of her fence.

Those trees were the reason she’d fallen in love with the property. They’d made the place look so quiet and peaceful. Well, they sure as heck didn’t seem peaceful right now since they were hiding a would-be killer.

Three more shots came, each of them hitting the van, and it seemed to Mia as if they cut through the air directly above their heads.

And she still didn’t see the shooter, not even when the drone panned over the entire length of the woods.

“There he is,” Angel muttered, pointing to a large oak. “He’s perched on that limb.”

She shook her head, but then the drone made another adjustment, and Mia saw the late afternoon sun glint off some kind of metal. The rifle, no doubt. The one he was using to try to kill them.

Mia tried to imagine someone she knew doing this. And she couldn’t. But then, she couldn’t have known everyone who’d crossed paths with Kenton since she had only been in the foster home with him for a couple of months. With his personality, he had no doubt made plenty of enemies, and one of those enemies could have murdered him and disposed of his body.

But then why come after RJ, Angel, and her now?

Why not try to cover his tracks twenty years ago?

“I need to get a rifle out of the back of the van,” Angel said, and he passed her his phone. “Stay down and keep watching the drone feed. Let me know if this asshole moves or if you get a look at his face.”

That was all the warning she got before Angel moved around RJ and her and raced to the driver’s side door. It wasn’t far, but since it could make him an easier target, it seemed to take an eternity for him to reach it. He yanked open the door and dived inside.

In the distance, Mia heard the sound of a police siren. Danno had no doubt already alerted the cops about the shooter, and they clearly weren’t making a silent approach.

How would the gunman react to police arriving?

Would he stop firing and run, trying to escape? Or would he only amp up his efforts to kill them?

She soon got her answer.

And it was the last one.

The shots started coming at them nonstop, and the shooter seemed to be adjusting his angle, too. Or else he was adjusting his position on the tree branch. Of course, there was another possibility. A worse one.

That there could be two gunmen.

Even though it was next to impossible to focus, she looked at the drone feed, and like before, she saw the sun flashing off the metal. Or was that the gunfire? Hard for her to tell since she had next to no experience with firearms. But she kept watching, kept looking for anything that would identify who was doing this.

A few seconds later, Angel barreled out of the van door, and he did indeed have a rifle with him. And the shooter must have spotted him because the shots immediately shifted in Angel’s direction.

Sweet heaven.

He could be shot.

Reacting purely on instinct, Mia yelled, yanked off her flipflop and tossed it into the air. And the pseudo Hail Mary worked. Because the gunman shifted and fired at it.

And in that split-second, she saw him.

Not his face, but the black hoodie covering his head and the ski mask he was wearing. There was nothing visible that helped her figure out who this was. In fact, she realized it could even be a woman.

“Nice move with the flipflop,” Angel said, dropping down beside her. “It’s shot to hell and back.”

It was. Mia glanced at the mangled remains on the ground behind her. “Better the shoe than your head. Please tell me you’re going to stay down?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

No.

He wouldn’t be staying down. Not a chance. He was going to lever himself up, take aim, and try to shoot their attacker. Mia had to remind herself that Angel was no stranger to this kind of danger. He’d likely faced it in the military and as a cop. Still, it ate away at her like acid to think that he could be killed by some SOB trying to cover up a crime.

Angel’s phone flashed with a text. “It’s from Presley,” she relayed to him. “He’s five minutes out.”

Judging from the sound of the sirens, the deputy was much closer than that, but Angel clearly wasn’t going to wait on them. He got the rifle into position, gathered his breath and lightning fast, he stood, crouching some but still with his head and torso higher than the hood of the van.

He fired.

Ducked back down.

And then repeated the process.

Babbling out every prayer she could think of, Mia volleyed glances between Angel and the drone feed. On his third shot, she finally saw what she wanted to see.

The shooter dropped from the tree.

Not a jump but a fall.

And the shots stopped.

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