Chapter 12

TWELVE

The crack of the rifle shot echoed off the mountainside, sharp and final. For a moment, time froze. Then everything snapped back to life.

The protesters surged forward in a chaotic wave, their angry chants morphing into screams. Bodies collided, frantic and desperate, all of them crashing toward the senator. Masterson’s security team sprang into action with military precision. Reeves was barking orders, his voice cutting through the confusion as the team formed a human shield around their principal.

Hatch’s senses lit up, every nerve screaming. The shot hadn’t come from the crowd. The clean echo off the rocks, the sharpness of the report—this was no handgun. This was a high-caliber rifle, fired from a distance.

Her eyes swept the jagged outcroppings that surrounded the hotel. Sniper. The word flashed in her mind like a warning beacon. High ground, line of sight. They're smart, trained. Her heart thudded in her chest, but her breathing stayed steady. Think. Find them. Counter the angle.

She scanned the ridgelines, her gaze moving systematically. Cover. Concealment. Where would I be? The rocks offered endless shadows and crevices, any of which could shield a shooter. The glass facade of the hotel was a liability, reflecting light in erratic patterns. A mirror for them, a trap for us.

Hatch dropped her gaze briefly to the crowd. They were panicked, scattering in unpredictable patterns—perfect for sowing chaos, but terrible for control. If I were them, this is when I’d take the second shot. Amplify the fear. Lock us down.

Her hand instinctively hovered near her sidearm. No time to hesitate. Find the shooter or find the next cover. The principal is exposed, and whoever’s behind that rifle isn’t here to make a statement—they’re here to kill.

There, perched on the jagged outcropping above the hotel, shadows danced across uneven rock faces. Sparse patches of scrub and dried grass clung to the crags, offering minimal cover but enough for a skilled marksman. The sun glinted off something—a flash of metal. Gone in an instant, but unmistakable.

“Sniper!” Hatch’s voice sliced through the din, sharp and urgent. “High ground, rocky overlook—ten o’clock from the main entrance! Partial cover, glint of metal—possibly scoped!” "Move!" Reeves roared, his hand already yanking Masterson toward the SUV. The security team tightened around the senator, bodies in motion, protective shields rising in practiced unison. The second shot never came, but the danger was a noose tightening around them.

Hatch’s eyes darted back to the sniper’s position, but it was empty. The shooter had already vanished, blending into the terrain. She snapped her attention to the crowd once more, but the protesters were oblivious, focused on the senator, their rage at full boil.

The SUV door swung open, and Reeves shoved Masterson inside. Relief flickered through Hatch—but a small, nagging detail wouldn’t leave her alone. Something she hadn’t seen yet.

Then she saw him.

Nathan Sawyer.

Slumped against the wall, his suit drenched in blood. The crimson soaked into the concrete beneath him, pooling in a dark, spreading stain. His face—usually composed, always professional—twisted with agony.

"Reeves!" Hatch’s shout was raw, edged with urgency. “Sawyer’s hit!”

Reeves glanced back, but he had no time to act. The senator was the mission. The motorcade roared to life, tires screeching as it peeled away, the rest of the security team following suit.

Hatch bolted to Sawyer’s side, her knees hitting the ground hard. Blood pumped from his chest in rhythmic spurts—too much blood. Too fast. Her mind worked quickly, assessing.

Entry wound, upper left chest—likely through-and-through given the exit stain on the wall behind him. Arterial. His breathing’s shallow—lungs compromised. Immediate priority: stop the bleed. Secondary: get him out of the kill zone.

She grabbed his suit and hauled him into the hallway, dragging him away from the exposed door.

She dropped beside him again, pressing her hands hard over the wound. Bright red liquid covered them instantly.

“Hold on, Sawyer. Hold on.” The words came automatically, her focus entirely on staunching the bleeding. His chest heaved, each breath a shallow, painful rasp.

Sawyer’s hand shot up, clutching at her sleeve, his grip weak but desperate. “Maggie…..” The word gurgled out in a blood-choked whisper, his panic-stricken eyes locking onto hers, wide with fear and something else—regret? Pleading?

Hatch pressed harder, but the blood kept coming. His pulse fluttered beneath her hands, fading. His skin was pale, clammy, the color draining from his face. “Stay with me, Sawyer. I’ve got you.”

But even as she said it, she knew the truth. The shot had torn through something vital. She could feel his life slipping away under her palms.

Sawyer’s chest rose once more, a shallow, rattling breath, and then ... stillness.

Hatch stared down at him, the weight of his final word— Maggie —hung in the air, a question she couldn’t answer. Slowly, she pulled her hands away from his body. Blood stained her fingers and palms, slick and warm. Her heart pounded in her chest, a sharp contrast to the stillness of the man beneath her.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway, the sheriff appearing at her side, breathless. “What the hell happened?”

The sheriff dropped to his knees beside Nathan Sawyer's lifeless body, his face pale with shock, eyes wide with disbelief. Hatch could still feel the slick, sticky warmth of Sawyer's blood clinging to her trembling hands as she rose to her feet, her breath steady despite the storm of thoughts swirling in her mind.

Her focus remained on the sniper’s nest, where she’d seen that glint off the scope. It was empty now, a phantom spot in the landscape. The shooter was gone, disappeared with the same precision that had taken Nathan Sawyer’s life.

"He's gone," she finally said, her voice flat, devoid of emotion. She wiped her hands on her pants, the blood smearing more than cleaning. "And you've got yourself a sniper."

The sheriff's bewilderment exposed his lack of experience in such matters. "A sniper?"

"The shot was too clean, too precise. High-powered rifle. Not some random handgun fired from the crowd." Her tone was clinical, matter of fact. "It echoed off the rocks—long-range, from high ground. A sniper always picks the highest vantage point for visibility and distance."

She pointed with a blood-smeared finger toward the rocky cliffs looming beyond the parking lot, visible through the glass door. "I caught a scope glint up there just before the shot."

The sheriff followed her gesture, his face hardening. He yanked his radio from his belt and barked orders that cut through the chaos. "All units, possible sniper on the cliff! Set a perimeter, now! Move the crowd back and tell that ambulance to get here five minutes ago!"

The radio crackled in response, but Hatch had already tuned it out and turned away from the lifeless body on the ground. Sawyer was beyond saving. Every second wasted was another the sniper used to vanish deeper into the landscape, slipping further from reach.

She wiped her hands again, the crimson stains still clinging to her skin as a reminder of the life just lost. She worked at piecing together the fragments of the scene—the precision of the shot, the chaos that followed, and Sawyer's final word: Maggie . It echoed in her head, a riddle she couldn't yet solve.

The sheriff rose to his feet, his eyes narrowing as he sized her up. "Where do you think you're going?" His tone was authoritative, but the uncertainty lingered beneath it.

Hatch locked on the cliffs. "To find your sniper."

"Like hell you are," the sheriff snapped, his hand waving toward the disorder outside. But his voice held a tremor. "You leave that to my deputies."

Hatch glanced through the glass door. Two deputies wrestled to control the surging crowd, their shouts swallowed by the noise. Another struggled with a barricade, buckling under the pressure of panicked bodies.

"Your men are overwhelmed," Hatch said, her voice low, steady. "Every minute we waste, your shooter gets further away." She paused, meeting his eyes. "I've hunted people like this before. Let me do what I do best."

The sheriff’s jaw tightened, indecision warring across his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but Hatch didn’t wait for a blessing. "Jurisdiction won’t matter when that sniper takes another shot. I’ll report back if I find anything."

"Wait—I didn’t catch your name?" the sheriff called after her, a mix of frustration and grudging respect coloring his voice.

Hatch pushed through the door without another word. Then she was gone.