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

I fell to a crouch and pulled his wrists together to get them cuffed. By now, I was huffing for breath. The fight had been tougher than I’d expected from some goon like him.

“You okay?” Holm asked as he knelt down beside me to assist. “It looked like things were handled up here, so I went down to help Daniela and the girls. What happened?”

“He overpowered Hanks,” I replied as I looked back at the officer. He was just starting to sit up now, clearly dazed but otherwise alright. “At least we got them all, though.”

“Wait!” Holm suddenly exclaimed as he got to his feet and looked around frantically. “I count five suspects, including the two downstairs. Daniela said there were six men in total. Where’s the other one?”

Horror dawned on me as I realized that he was right. We were missing a suspect.

“Right here,” an unfamiliar voice rasped as a man suddenly stepped out of one of the rooms between us and the stairwell. He had scraggly dark hair, and a scar shaped like an X over one of his cheeks. Standing just in front of him was a young woman wearing a tank top and a pair of loose shorts. He had her in a chokehold and was pressing a gun to her head.

“Stop!” Olivia croaked as she attempted to get to her feet.

“Don’t move!” the man snarled as he pressed the barrel of the gun harder into the girl’s temple. She started crying as he did so. “None of you move, or I’ll blow her brains out!”

“Just take it easy,” I replied calmly. This wasn’t good. Most of our officers were down. Olivia was injured and clearly unsteady on her feet right now. It was possible that Grayson, Holm, and I might have been able to take him on, but doing anything right now might cause him to pull the trigger. We just couldn’t risk the hostage’s life like that.

“Don’t move,” the man growled again as he began to move back toward the stairs. I watched helplessly as he disappeared through the door. It had all happened too fast for me to think of any other solution than to just let him leave. Still, I couldn’t just do nothing.

“Call for an ambulance!” I yelled to Grayson before taking off after the man. Holm followed right behind me.

I could hear screaming as we moved into the stairwell. A few steps down, the girl was struggling to break out of the man’s hold. He was still clutching the gun, but it wasn’t pointed at her anymore.

“Let her go!” I yelled as I pointed my gun at him. I wanted to shoot, but the girl was still standing too close to him. The stairs also created an awkward angle, so it was too risky for me to fire just yet.

He glared up at me before shoving the girl away from him forcefully. She screamed as she fell backward, hitting her head on the concrete steps as she fell. Once the shot was clear, I fired, but the bullet missed and embedded itself into the wall behind him.

He continued his way down the steps, and Holm and I rushed to the girl’s side. She was unconscious, and there was a spot of blood beneath her head.

“Go!” Holm yelled as he crouched over her. “I’ve got her. You get him!”

I nodded and rushed after the man. Neither of us was a doctor, so there wasn’t much point in both of us staying here with her. I could hear screaming as I made it to the base of the stairs. I shoved the door leading to the main floor open just in time to see the man disappear through the front door of the bar. Some of the girls were still screaming, cowering at one corner of the main floor. They’d probably panicked when the suspect had come rushing through.

I cursed as I raced after him, through the bar, and out the door into the bright Caribbean sun. I looked around frantically as soon as I was outside, but I couldn’t find any sign of him. Tourists and locals alike were milling around, going about their day, but there weren’t nearly enough of them that he could have disappeared into the crowd.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of tires screeching, and a second later, a black car came tearing around the side of the building, directly toward me. I managed to leap out of the way just as it sped over the spot where I’d just been standing. I watched from the ground as it jumped the sidewalk and almost took out a pair of women wearing wide-brimmed hats before speeding off down the road.

One of the women screamed and stumbled backward onto the ground as the car narrowly avoided hitting her. She scrambled back to her feet before dragging her friend away from the scene. A few people on the other side of the road were staring wide-eyed at me as well.

“Damn,” I grunted as I got back onto my feet, bits of dust and gravel stuck to my clothes where I’d hit the ground. My heart was racing, and I could feel adrenaline still coursing through my body as I yanked my phone from my pocket to call Captain Morris.

“Hello?” he answered right away. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” I replied hastily. “One of the suspects got away. He’s fleeing in a black car, some kind of two-door sedan, I think. I didn’t get a great look. I was too busy trying not to get hit.”

“I’m on it,” Morris replied. “Which way did it go?”

“Left?” I muttered as I tried to find a road sign in this unfamiliar area. “I think that would be south, then. On Bonaventure Crescent.”

“I’ll send a car out,” Morris replied. “Do you need anything else?”

“Yeah, a few ambulances,” I answered. “It’s a mess here.”

“Okay,” Morris grumbled, his voice laced with concern. “I’ll dispatch them right away.”

“Thanks.” I sighed. “I’m going to