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

at me, but I ducked down first. My bullet landed in his gut, and I added another one for good measure.

He stumbled forward onto the floor in a pool of his own blood at my feet, limp and lifeless.

20

Ethan

All the guys were dead then, and sirens blazed from the street down below.

“Did you call them?” I asked Tessa, nodding my head in the direction of the flickering police lights coming from outside the window.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We didn’t have time before that guy showed up.”

She glanced at the dead goon on the floor and looked like she was about to throw up before quickly looking away again.

“Well, there’s no doubt they heard us down below,” I muttered, shaking my head. The whole town would know something was up in short order, and this would be in papers all over the state. I just hoped that it wouldn’t make national news. The last thing MBLIS needed was more attention to deal with right then.

“So loud,” Martha breathed, holding her hands over her ears.

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to,” I chuckled, thinking that even I wasn’t used to shots ringing out in such close quarters. “I think I should go check on the kid. If you guys could go down and talk to the police, let them know that the shooters are dead, that would be helpful.”

Tessa nodded and urged Martha up to her feet gently. Then the two of them disappeared back into the hallway as I jogged back through the labyrinth of bookshelves to find Jimmy, the security guard.

He was lying there holding his bleeding stomach when I found him, but I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that he was still conscious.

He jumped when he saw me, as if he was half expecting that goon to show back up and shoot him again. But once he realized that it was me, he relaxed again, his lanky shoulders slumping back down.

“Hey, kid, how are you doing?” I asked, leaning down next to him and taking a closer look at his stomach. It was a nasty wound, but he was conscious, which meant that the bullet likely hadn’t hit any major arteries or organs.

“I’ve been better,” he chuckled weakly.

“You did good,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder and squeezing tightly. “Really good. How did you know that we were in trouble? Did you see those guys come up here?”

“I saw them on the security cameras,” he muttered, running a bloody hand through his sandy hair and leaving some red streaks behind without realizing it.

“Security cameras?” I repeated. Martha hadn’t mentioned anything about that.

“Yeah, we don’t really look at them much,” Jimmy admitted sheepishly. “Ever, really, if I’m honest. But after talking to you, I thought I might as well check. See if there was anything in the history.”

“Where are these cameras?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at this. It would be worth taking a look through them to see how long and how many times these guys or others like them had snuck into the nautical museum over the past few months.

“There aren’t very many of them,” the kid sighed. “Just one each on the front and back doors and one on the ground floor lobby, and a third in the main area up here.”

He gestured out toward the submarine-like lobby area on the second floor to illustrate.

“How far back did you look?” I asked him.

“I was going to look back to last night since you asked us about that,” Jimmy said with a small smile. “But before I had a chance, I saw them coming inside. Then I grabbed the gun and came up here.”

“Alright, Jimmy,” I said, squeezing his shoulder again. “Well, you did good. Mind if I take a look at those security cameras for you later?”

“Sure thing,” he said, reaching into his pocket with a sharp wince and handing me his ID card. “This should open it for you. I have a feeling I’m not gonna be back for a while.”

“You could say that,” I said, glancing down at his wound again. It didn’t seem to be bleeding much now, which was good, but the sooner the police and any medical personnel got up here, the better.

As if on cue, I heard a mass of footsteps coming toward us through the sea of bookshelves, and Tessa reappeared, closely followed by several police officers and two paramedics with a gurney. Martha trailed the group, looking like she was hoping she would wake up from this nightmare any minute now and find her life back to normal.

“Here, here they are,” Tessa said breathlessly, pointing at Jimmy and me.

“We heard you took a real chance there, son,” an older police officer with a sergeant’s badge told the young security guard, stopping in front of us and arching an eyebrow down at him.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jimmy said, averting his eyes from the older man’s.

“You should consider a career in law enforcement,” the man laughed, his low voice rumbling and echoing throughout the library pleasantly.

Jimmy, surprised, looked back up at the officer and his face broke out into a wide smile.

“I… I’d like that,” he stammered, and the man bent down and patted him on the shoulder.

“Apply to the academy, and say Sergeant Wallace sent you,” he instructed. “You’ll do fine.”

“I will,” Jimmy grinned, wincing again at the pain, and the paramedics forced their way forward through all the officers and Tessa.

“Come on, we’ve got to get him to the ambulance,” one of them, a woman who looked to be in her early thirties, said quickly.

“Is anyone else alive?” the other paramedic, a younger man, asked, looking around uncertainly at the bodies of the goons who had attacked us.

“No, all three of them are dead,” I said, rising from where I was crouched next to Jimmy, smoothing out my pants, and holding my hand out to Sergeant Wallace. “Agent Ethan Marston with MBLIS, sir. Pleased to meet you, though I wish it