EMP Catastrophe , Hamilton, Grace [crime books to read txt] 📗

of money and passports. She dug in further and gasped as her hand slid over familiar smooth metal. A handgun. She pulled it out, let her hand get used to the weight.

A .45, and similar to the one her father used to own. He’d taken them out shooting at the range when Kathleen was young. Max had loved the rush of shooting. She hesitated, unsure what to do with the weapon—where was it registered? If she got caught with it, she’d be in deep trouble. Wasn’t there supposed to be a bar code? What if this was…she didn’t know, mob-bought? Illegal without the serial number? Oh god, why was she still holding it, especially when she knew she was going to leave it behind.

The sudden rumble of a car engine just outside the shop made Kathleen start, and she shoved the goods back into the nylon bag. Her heart filled her throat. Hearing a car engine was unusual at this point, and she hoped Allison had flagged them down, asked for a ride somewhere—

“Mom!” Allison's panicked voice cut through Kathleen's thoughts. “Mom!”

Before she knew it, Kathleen catapulted toward the exit at high speed. She burst through the broken door and saw an old beige truck spewing diesel in black clouds from its exhaust pipe. A group of young men surrounded Allison, all baby-faced with patchy beards of the recently graduated. Kathleen’s bike was suspended between Allison’s white-knuckled hands and one of the young men in a tug of war. The young man wore a sloppy grin, as if he enjoyed getting a rise out of Kathleen’s daughter.

Kathleen thought the fuel that would explode her temper would be impatience or her daughter’s anger with her. She never expected her daughter’s safety to be the final match that would burn through her.

“Hey!” Kathleen shouted, barreling towards the gaggle of men, fury a fire in the pit of her stomach. A thousand what-ifs ran through her mind, but front and foremost was the way she hadn’t been there for Max when he needed her. There was no way she’d let her only daughter be harassed by a group of boys in a truck, thinking they were hot stuff.

The gun felt natural in her hands. She pointed it straight at the man-child who was yanking on the bike suspended between him and Allison. Oh, she was ready to give them the scare of their lives. Kathleen Riley would not be tormented. Kathleen Riley would not be terrorized. “Get your hands off my bike.” She leveled the gun.

“Whoa, whoa, hold it right there, lady—”

“Hey lady, put the gun down, we’re just having a bit of fun—”

“What did I say?” she asked. “Are you listening to me? Put the bike down and get away from my daughter. What did I just say?”

“To put the bike down, ma’am.” The man-child dropped Kathleen’s bike, and Allison gripped the handlebars, wheeled it behind Kathleen.

“Do you think she even knows how to use that?” another young man, safely on the bed of the truck, uttered to his friend.

Kathleen’s father echoed in the back of her mind: hold your stance, cup the gun with two hands, loosen your elbows for the recoil. Tensing leads to inaccuracies. “I will count to three. One.”

The boys scrambled back, leaping over the truck like monkeys.

“Two.”

Beside her, she could feel Allison tremble with fear.

“Three.”

“Go, go, go!” One of the men in the back of the truck bed shouted, smacking the roof. The driver revved the engine and peeled out in a screech of hot rubber on pavement, spewing diesel that lingered in the street. Kathleen kept the gun up and level until the beige monstrosity had left her line of sight. Only then did she lower her weapon.

“Oh my god, Mom.” Allison breathed out a sob.

“It’s okay, honey,” Kathleen said, bringing her arms up and around Allison. Adrenaline whooshed out of her, and Kathleen thanked her lucky stars that the young men hadn’t pushed their luck, because the clip to the gun still remained in the nylon bag.

16

“I can’t believe you did that,” Allison sobbed, her face pressed against Kathleen’s neck. Kathleen held her daughter tight with one arm while the hand still clutching the gun began to shake. A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. I pointed a gun at someone. If she were able to time-travel back to meet with the frazzled math-teacher she’d been a few months ago, she’d tell her past self: Remember those stupid shooting lessons your father gave you? Well, sister, they’re going to come in handy. Her past self would never believe it. Never.

Kathleen rubbed Allison’s shoulder and planted a kiss on the crown of her head. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Don’t mess with a mother,” she said. Allison’s tearful laugh in response sounded both shocked and amused.

Bending down, Kathleen rummaged in the nylon bag, finding both holster and clip, sliding the clip in place. She double-checked the safety was on before putting the buff-colored leather holster belt around her waist. Sliding the gun into the holster itself, she ensured the gun rested in the small of her back. There was no way she would be caught without protection again.

Kathleen’s surroundings took on a new sinister quality as she studied the run-down buildings, the pot-hole roads, and the dirtied, broken windows. She saw threats around every corner and realized how ridiculous they looked: two women saddled with two mountain bikes in a bad part of Chicago. No wonder they’d been attacked. They probably looked like easy targets. In the distance, the dark skyscrapers looked like the bars of a jail cell.

What if the men-children in the truck hadn’t backed down? What would Kathleen have done to protect Allison if she hadn’t had the gun? Shooting was not like riding a bike. If push came to shove and the gun had been loaded, she knew she wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger for fear that she’d somehow hit Allison. She wasn’t a superhero, for