Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16), Matt Lincoln [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

Before doing anything else, I reached into my pocket to pull out the listening device, ready to give Olivia and Crowley an update as to what had just happened. Before I could, though, someone else burst into the room.

“What the hell is this?” the newcomer asked as his eyes flitted between me, the girl, and Holm, who was still on the ground, getting the fallen man’s hands cuffed. He seemed familiar, and it took me a second to realize that it was the same man we’d seen on the beach a few days earlier—the one who had shot our first police liaison, Walter, before escaping.

It seemed he recognized me at the exact moment because his eyes suddenly lit up, and his face twisted into an angry snarl.

“You!” he roared as he reached behind his back.

I lifted my own gun just as he was drawing his, and I managed to pull the trigger a fraction of a second before he could. He cried out in pain as my bullet struck him, and he fell to the ground with a loud thump.

Holm leapt up from his position on the floor and quickly rushed to the newcomer’s side to retrieve his fallen gun.

I let out a shaky breath as I looked around for the listening device. It wasn’t in my hand anymore, which meant that I must have dropped at some point while I was focused on the new suspect.

“We’re here,” Olivia’s voice suddenly called, to my surprise.

I looked up and found her rushing into the room, her own gun drawn.

“We heard the gunshots over the transmitter,” Crowley explained. “We thought we did, anyway. Once everyone started rushing out, it became obvious that something bad was going on. We came as soon as we heard, but it was a struggle to make our way through the crowd. Everyone was rushing out the same door.”

“He’s dead,” Holm declared as he took the pulse of the man I’d just shot before nodding toward the other man who was still unconscious. “We could call for an ambulance for that one.”

“I’ll do it,” Crowley volunteered as he reached for the radio at his hip.

I re-holstered my gun and took a deep breath. Things had gone from zero to a hundred really fast there, and my mind was still reeling.

While Crowley called for an ambulance, Olivia stepped further into the room and passed me until she was standing right in front of the girl.

“Hello,” she greeted softly as she knelt down in front of her. “My name’s Olivia. Can you tell me yours?”

“Jenny,” she mumbled faintly. “It’s Jenny.”

“Hi, Jenny.” Olivia smiled warmly at her before pulling her badge out of her pocket, just like I had done earlier. “I’m an agent with the FBI. My job is to help women and children who are in bad situations, like you. What do you say we get out of here? You can get cleaned up and have something to eat, and then we can talk. How does that sound?”

“Good,” she replied softly.

“Okay.” Olivia nodded. “As soon as the ambulance gets here, we can go, okay?”

“Okay.” The girl, Jenny, nodded tersely.

Olivia gave her one last smile before standing back up straight and turning to look at me. There was a pained expression in her eyes, but I was impressed by how she had handled that. Considering how the girl had reacted to me, I wasn’t sure what would have happened if she hadn’t been here with us.

Once again, I found myself feeling glad that we were working this case together.

22

Ethan

It was late at night by the time we’d finished dealing with the aftermath of the shoot-out at the bar. Since someone had died, there was, of course, a long list of procedures that needed to be followed to document everything that had happened. Then we’d needed to deal with making sure that the surviving suspect was placed under surveillance even while at the hospital. Holm had gotten him good, and though he had woken up and was responding normally, the doctor had advised us to wait at least until the next day to interrogate him to ensure that he didn’t have any severe head injury that might affect his judgment or memory.

While Holm, Crowley, and I handled all that, Olivia had decided to head back with the victim, Jenny. Considering how Jenny had acted around us, it seemed like a better option for Olivia to go alone with her, anyway. After all, she had more experience in this, and it would probably give her a chance to build a rapport and get the girl to open up.

I was beat by the time we made it back to the Grace Bay station, where Olivia was waiting with Jenny. It was fully dark out now as we got out of the car, and with so little light pollution, I could see the stars in the sky in stunning clarity. It was a discordant sensation to look at something so pretty up above while such heinous things were happening there on the ground.

Captain Morris met us inside as soon as we entered.

“I’m glad to see you’re all okay.” He smiled. “I heard that you ran into a bit of trouble. I was relieved to learn that none of you had been injured.”

“Well, it was pretty close,” I replied. “Luckily, we all made it out okay.”

“Good.” He nodded. “Agent Hastings is waiting for you now. I’ll take you back there.”

He led us down a long hallway, past the few empty holding cells, and toward a room at the very end of the hall. Even before he’d opened the door, I could hear Olivia’s familiar voice coming from inside.

The door opened with a creak, and the talking stopped as Holm, Crowley, and I stepped inside.

“Hey guys,” Olivia greeted us, her tone light and friendly. She and Jenny were sitting closely together, side by side on the couch against the wall. Olivia turned away from us to look back at Jenny before speaking again.