Maritime Caper (Coastal Fury Book 12), Matt Lincoln [good books to read for beginners TXT] 📗

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you have a gun, sweetheart?” the shorter guy asked in a low, gruff voice.

“I know enough about math not to count you,” the guy across from me added.

Anger gurgled inside me that they dared talk to her like that.

“Look, the police already know about you,” I said, taking a different tactic now. “For all we know, they could be on their way here now to interview the museum’s employees. And the place is open right now! Do you really want to open fire indoors in the middle of the day around a bunch of tourists?”

The taller man narrowed his eyes at me, the slits in his ski mask moving along with his facial features. He wasn’t sure whether to believe me, I realized. That was better than him dismissing what I had to say out of hand.

“They could be here any minute,” Tessa piped in, helpfully this time. “What would your bosses say if you get caught?”

The two shorter men exchanged a nervous look, and both of their hands wavered on their guns. I didn’t dare take advantage of this, however, for fear that the remaining goon would shoot Tessa or Martha in retribution for my own shot.

As if on cue, a shot rang out. My ears rang, and the world started swimming around me as I tried to figure out where it had come from.

I hadn’t shot my gun. I knew that much. But none of the three goons looked like they had shot either, and they all had shocked looks in their eyes that mirrored my own.

One of the goons, the Hispanic one, stumbled to the floor as blood pooled around him on the beige carpet. The other two whirled around, as curious as I was to see where the shot had come from.

To my surprise, the young, scrawny security guard, Jimmy, was standing there holding a gun. His knees were wobbling, and he looked like he wanted to be literally anywhere else in the world, but he had gotten the shot in, alright.

“We… we keep a gun in a safe downstairs…” Martha stammered, barely able to get the words out, much as I was barely able to hear her over the ringing in my ears. “They’re all trained to use it, but I never thought….”

Quickly, I leaped into action, not wanting to let this opportunity pass us by while the remaining men were distracted by Jimmy.

“Run,” I hissed to Tessa. “Take her and run. Then call the police.”

She hesitated but then seemed to remember her promise to me earlier that, should something like this happen, she would do as I told her so we could hopefully get out of the situation as quickly and painlessly as possible.

She grabbed Martha and hauled her up from the desk chair, and the two of them quickly disappeared in the sea of bookshelves.

The taller goon whirled around, then, seeing that Tessa and Martha were gone. Now that he was facing me again, gun in hand, I shot him.

He fell, the shot landing in his shoulder right above his heart, but as he fell down, he shot haphazardly back at me, only holding his gun with one hand now.

I dove under the desk to avoid the shot and heard the computer screen on the desktop crack as the bullet landed where my head had been just moments before.

From that vantage point beneath the desk, I was now parallel to where the guy was now bleeding from his shoulder on the floor, the gun still in his hand.

I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was searching for me, not having seen me yet. I shot him again, square in the chest this time, and the life left his body.

That left only the skinny one to deal with. He was in a virtual standoff with Jimmy now, the two of them each holding their guns up in the air.

“Hands up, weapon down!” I barked, jumping out from under the desk and landing in a standing position on the guy’s other side.

He looked around wildly, from Jimmy to me and back again, a panicked look in his eyes beneath the ski mask.

“Don’t even think about it,” I muttered, seeing that he hadn’t dropped his gun yet.

“I… I…” the guy stammered.

“My friend, you’re going to get yourself shot if you don’t stand down,” I pointed out, glaring at him.

“What’s the alternative?” the guy asked, his voice hard and angry. “Turning myself in and then getting taken out by them for squealing? No, I think I’ll take my chances with you, thanks.”

He raised the gun again, shot Jimmy before the poor kid even had a chance to respond, and ran in the opposite direction.

I shot after him, and I heard him cry out, but he kept on running.

I stopped long enough to make sure that Jimmy was still breathing. He was unconscious but alive, blood pooling on the carpet around his abdomen, where the shot had landed. Then I took off to try to catch up with the goon.

I ran through the web of bookshelves, realizing that the guy could be anywhere in the room by then. I tried to listen for footsteps or anything to indicate there was another person nearby, but my ears were still ringing painfully from all the gunshots, and it was hard to make out any other sounds over that and my pounding heartbeat.

I ran through the bookshelves, weaving around them to see if he was hiding somewhere until I got to the front of the room.

“Ethan!” a voice hissed over all the ringing. “Ethan!”

I whirled around to find Tessa and Martha crouched beneath a front desk by the door.

“What are you doing here?” I started to ask, but Tessa just pointed to my back right.

“Behind you!” she cried, and I whirled around to find the goon moving toward me. He was hobbling on his bad leg, the one I had shot before.

I shot him, and he shot