by Karen Singer
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He heard the policemen running after him. He kept going, but not too far. Finally, he stopped and turned toward them. It was time to surprise them. The best he could do would be to slow them down. Hopefully, he would kill another. He waited. At the first sign of them, he fired. Not waiting again, he turned and ran, but he didn’t run far. He came to one of the many benches that had been placed along the paths. He paused for a moment and looked around. Silently, he left the path, going behind the bench and pushing into the green plants behind it. He finally chose a large palm tree to hide behind where he could just see the back of the bench and the path beyond.
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Pierce crept along the path. He and everyone with them were constantly searching around them for any sign of the killer. The bench he passed didn’t even slow him down…until another shot rang out. He dove for the ground, searching the vegetation for any sign of where the shot came from. Behind him, another of the officers was rolling on the path in pain. He too had been hit in the arm. Better than being dead.
He let the other officers tend to the injured officer while he did his best to worm his way closer to the bench where he could try to use what little cover it offered him. He cautiously peered around it, and ducked back as a shot rang out in his direction. But he had the guy spotted now. He was holed up behind one of the palm trees.
He raised his gun, ready to fire, and waited. He saw an arm with a gun and a head peer out from behind the tree, the gun pointed in his direction. He fired first and a chunk of the tree was carved away. The man ducked back quickly.
Pierce needed a better angle. Moving to his right, he kept his gun aimed at the tree, while he tried to work his way through the plants. There! The man was going around the other side of the tree. He fired…and missed. The distance was too great!
He saw the man turn in his direction and fire…and he heard a scream from the other side of the path behind him. What the hell? And then it seemed like the entire world went crazy.
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Jenni had been going nuts. All the shooting was happening so close to her. She had done her best to curl herself into a tight ball and stay hidden behind the big plant, but the burning pain that suddenly hit her arm seemed to come out of nowhere. She screamed! Panicked, she jumped from her hiding place and ran! Doing her best to run through the big plants in her bare feet, which was more than a bit painful at times. But her panicked state drove her on. She heard someone shout her name, then more gunfire. A bullet whizzed right past her. She screamed and turned away from the direction it had gone.
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Pierce was shocked to see a woman in a green bathing suit suddenly appear from the thick plants on the other side of the path. It took him a moment to realize it had to be Jenni. “Jenni!” he yelled.
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Rashid heard the scream and knew he had hit someone, but he wasn’t prepared to see a woman wearing a green bathing suit suddenly appear from the other side of the path and start running. He heard the cop yell Jenni. It took him that long for her surprise appearance to get him moving again. He raised his gun and aimed at the fleeing women…and fired!
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Pierce heard the gunshot. “No!” he yelled even as he saw Jenni continuing to run. He quickly turned back toward the gunman. He could see him now, standing out from behind the tree, trying to get another shot at her. He raised his gun and fired first, and was rewarded to see the man fall. As fast as he dared, he hurried toward him. The man was down and dying. Blood was escaping from his lips. With his gun still aimed at the man, he kicked the gun out of his hand.
“Praise Allah,” the man said, as his eyes glassed over and he ceased breathing.
Praise Allah? Pierce wondered if he had heard right. What the hell had he walked into? He took just a moment to make sure the man was dead, then he hurried back to the path. Now where was Jenni?
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Jenni’s arm burned where the bullet had grazed it and it was bleeding. Were they coming? She was trying to control her breathing, but she couldn’t. She was too scared. Once again, she curled herself up into the tightest ball she could and hid behind another plant.
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“Jenni!” Pierce called. “Jenni! It’s over! Come out!” He waited but got no answer and saw nothing moving. “Where is she?” he said more to himself than any of the other officers that were with him. Knowing now where she had been hiding before, he moved in that direction. The spot was easy enough to find. The small splash of red blood on some of the surrounding plants didn’t look good. “Jenni!” he yelled again. “Where are you?” He moved in the direction he had seen her running.
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She heard her name being called again…then again. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but in the state she was in, she couldn’t be sure. Was it safe? Was it truly over? She heard someone coming her way. She pulled herself out of her ball and crawled desperately toward one of the nearby palm trees. After a moment, she dared to look out from the side of it.
Pierce saw her head stick out from behind the tree. “Jenni!” he said. “It’s okay. It’s over. We got them.”
It was a moment before Jenni could move. Was it true? All the gunfire. All the running. All the chasing. And now, she had been shot! Her arm was still bleeding and it burned terribly. Ignoring her arm, she dared to crawl from behind the tree.
“Jenni, it’s safe,” Pierce said as he hurried toward her. “We got them. They’re both dead.” He reached her and knelt down next to her. He put his arms around her and pulled. She was reluctant to stand. He could see she was still in a state of shock. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “They can’t hurt you anymore.” Slowly, Jenni let him pull her to her feet.
He saw the blood trickling down her arm. He grabbed the arm to look at it. It was still bleeding freely, but it didn’t look that bad. As far as he could tell, the bullet had just grazed her. It would need medical attention, but it wasn’t going to kill her.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Jenni started, then stopped. She looked up at him. “Aunt Sally,” she said. “Where’s Aunt Sally? I couldn’t find her.” The panic was returning.
“Last I heard, she was in a closet behind the bar with the bartender,” Pierce replied. “I sent a couple of men to get her, but more than likely they got distracted when they came across the killers.”
“No!” Jenni suddenly yelled as she pulled herself out of his arms. She took off running as fast as she could, following the paths that would lead her straight to the bar on the beach. “Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally!” she called as she ran.
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In the darkness of the closet. Sally let the strong arms of the bartender hold her. They were good arms. Comforting arms. And so was the way he was treating her. Holding her. Protecting her. Doing his best to keep her safe. And he had kept her safe. She hadn’t heard anymore gunfire in a few minutes now. Was it safe? She knew the police were out there, did she dare go out now and look for Jenni?
“Can we leave now?” she asked quietly.
“Shh!” the bartender hushed her softly. “They know where we are. Let’s wait until they come and get us. It will be safer that way.”
“But Jenni….”
“I know,” he replied. “There’s nothing you can do for her yet.”
Sally’s stomach wanted to hurl at the thought of anything happening to her Jenni. “Jenni…” she breathed softly again.
“Shh…” the bartender said as he held her tighter in his embrace.
Sally turned her head as far as she could to try to see him. In the darkness of the closet, she could just barely make out his head. “Thank you,” she whispered. On a whim, and because she might never get the chance again, she planted a small kiss on his lip
s. She was surprised when he kissed her back. She felt him holding her tighter as the two of them shared a much longer, much deeper, kiss.
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“Aunt Sally! Aung Sally!” Jenni yelled in her panicked state. The bar finally came into view. “Aunt Sally!” she yelled again.
“Jenni!” she heard the faint muffled reply from her aunt.
Hope surged through her as she ran around to the front of the bar. “Aunt Sally!” she called again. She saw a door in the back of the bar pop open, and her aunt rushing out toward her. “Aunt Sally!” Jenni said again as she dissolved into tears. She ran to her and hugged her for all she was worth, and felt nothing but total relief at the feel of her aunt’s arms holding her back.
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Pierce stood at the end of the bar and watched as Sally and Jenni slowly made their way out from behind it. The bartender was still standing near the door to the closet they had been hiding in. Slowly, both Jenni and Sally were fully revealed to him. Sally, in her bathing suit looked…rather luscious to tell the truth. She wasn’t a super sexy woman, yet the bit of fat that she carried, while certainly not a lot, was still enough to give her body more than a hint of desirability. Why the heck was the woman still single?
But most of his attention was riveted by the sight of Jenni. He ignored her still slightly bleeding arm. She was wearing an off-color green or blue swimsuit, and she looked…um…. Well, her head and face looked great! Pretty. Sort of. It was just the rest of her that looked…strange. He knew why of course. With nothing to fill out the breasts of the bathing suit, she was far too flat chested. And of course, she didn’t appear to have any hips either. Just a nicely narrow waist and…well, now that he thought about it, her entire torso looked quite nice. She just needed bigger hips. And boobs of course. But otherwise she looked…um…. Okay, she looked like someone had taken a bunch of photos of skinny guys and mixed parts of them together with pictures of women, and somehow mashed it all up into one picture. Parts that were female and parts that were male, all in one body. Maybe she’d look better if she put on a little weight. She was kind of skinny.
He waited while the two of them approached. “Are you both okay?” he asked.
Jenni looked around at her hurting arm. She still refused to let go of her aunt fully as she tried to see the damage now. “It hurts,” she said.
“It’s just a graze,” Pierce told her. “You were awfully lucky.” He waited while Sally suddenly pulled Jenni into another desperate hug. Only then did Sally insist on inspecting Jenni’s arm. “You need a doctor!” she said rather desperately.
“A medical team is already on the way,” Pierce told her. “We’ve got wounded officers too.” He looked at Jenni for a moment. “That was a good idea. With that green bathing suit, you blended right into all the plants in the island.”
Green? “It’s blue!” Jenni told him. “Teal actually.”
“Whatever. It looks green to me. And it helped hide you perfectly.”
“We need to get back to our room,” Sally said. “We can at least get something on Jenni’s arm, and I really want to get dressed.”
“Uh…there may be a slight problem with that,” Pierce told her.
Chapter 15
Jenni couldn’t believe it. Neither could Sally. Their room was just as bad as Jenni’s had been, if not worse. With Pierce hovering over both of them to make sure they didn’t touch anything without his permission, they carefully made their way through the room, trying to find some clothes to wear. It didn’t take long to discover that like they had done with everything Jenni had in her room, they had done the same thing with everything here. Jenni broke down sobbing when she discovered that her only remaining breast, hip, and butt pads had been destroyed as well. The two of them literally had nothing to wear, other than the bathing suits they currently had on. Between the two of them, they couldn’t find one small thing to salvage from the room. Sally was thankful that they had both brought their purses down to the beach with them. At least they had their money, their IDs, and the car keys. But between them, that was all they had.
Pierce hurried the two of them from the room. It would have to be gone through now by the crime scene people. Although any results they found weren’t needed. The two perpetrators were now dead. Finally!
Sally turned to Pierce. “Jenni and I need something to wear. Is there any chance you can get the hotel to open the gift shop for us? They had a few things there we can try.”
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“You did really good today,” Robbie praised his wife as they drove back toward their office. “I was proud of you.”
“Thanks,” Shirley replied, not really caring what he thought. She would never admit it, especially not to her husband, but she had actually enjoyed shooting at the targets in the basement of the gun store. But shooting at targets didn’t mean she could ever shoot at a living person. That simply wasn’t in her. But shooting at the targets had been fun.
She now had the paperwork submitted to not only give her a permit to carry a gun, but to carry it as a concealed weapon…not that she ever really planned on carrying one. Of course, once they had gotten in the car, Robbie had “forced” her to stick the new gun he had bought into her purse, even without the permit. Her darn purse had been way too heavy to begin with, and now with that big gun in there, it was twice as bad. And the darn thing took up too much room. But her husband wasn’t the least bit caring when she had complained about how heavy her purse was now.
And then there was the other thing she was worried about. That gun was loaded. Was it even safe to carry in her purse? What if it accidentally went off while she was trying to find something else in there. She could accidently kill someone if that happened, including herself! She didn’t plan on telling him, but she wasn’t planning on ever carrying the thing again. She’d stick it in a drawer somewhere, and forget about it!
“When we get inside,” Robbie said, “I’m going to call Philly and see if there’s anything new happening on this Granger thing. While I’m doing that, can you call the office of immigration and see if there’s some way we can talk to them about some possible illegals running around Gainesville shooting guns?”
“Sure,” Shirley replied as Robbie somehow managed to find a parking place right in front of their office building. “When do you think Jenni will be back?”
“I’m guessing Monday,” Robbie replied as he got out of the car.
“Are you still going to do what you said you were thinking about?” Shirley asked.
Robbie turned to her, not completely sure of how he wanted to answer. The loud bang and the bullet hole that suddenly appeared in his car right next to him threw the question right out of his head. “Get down!” he yelled as he ran for the back of the car. Another gunshot hit the rear fender just as he ducked around behind it. He had his gun out by the time he reached the other side.
Shirley was sitting on the pavement, petrified. Someone was shooting at them…for real! She was so relieved to see Robbie make his way around to her side of the car. For once, she was glad to see the gun in his hand. She held her breath as she saw him stick his head up over the back end of the car. Another shot sounded and Robbie ducked back down quickly, only to pop his head up again and fire off a shot at the far corner of the building. The returning gunshot scared her even more than the others had.
“Your gun!” Robbie said as he noticed his wife was just sitting there, not knowing what to do.
In the heat of the moment, she had actually forgotten all about the gun in her purse. She didn’t want to touch the thing, but she pulled it out while her husband traded shots with whoever it was again. She was relieved he was still safe.
“Don’t stand up,” Robbie told her. “But see if you can take a shot around the front of the car instead. He’s got himself hidden around the corner of the building. Wait till I tell you to do it though.”
Take a shot? Shoot at someone? But she wa
s scared and someone was trying very hard to kill them. Nervously, she got to her knees and crawled to the front of the car while Robbie again took a quick shot at whoever it was. She gripped her gun with both hands, then took a deep breath to steady herself. She looked back at Robbie to let him know she was ready.
“I’m going to shoot, then I want you to shoot right after me, then duck back out of the way. He’s aiming for where I am, not for you down there.”
She nodded, not at all wanting to do this. She faced front, ready to spring out and shoot.
Robbie again popped his head and gun over the hood of the car and fired quickly, then he ducked back down again as another shot came his way, but at almost the same time, he heard Shirley fire her gun. He immediately popped his head up to fire another shot, and this time he fully saw the perpetrator, now trying to lean out from around the corner to aim his gun at the front of his car instead. Leaning out like that exposed his body more. Robbie immediately fired another shot at him. His shot missed, but it hit the brick of the building right at the corner, sending up chips of brick into the man’s face. Robbie clearly saw him turn and start running toward the back of the building. He took off after him.
By the time he got to the corner of the building and cautiously peered around the side, he saw no sign of whoever it was. Cautiously, he continued down the side of the building, his gun at the ready. He reached the back, and was able to see a car just disappearing out of sight on the side street in the distance. But he had clearly seen enough of the man to recognize him. He had been the same man that had wanted to kill him last night. Now he had come back, and this time, he hadn’t been asking questions.