Jon's Downright Ridiculous Shooting Case

by A J Sherwood

  Focusing on the watch before I did something stupid, I tilted it a little to glint off the sunlight. The craftsmanship was amazing, open glass allowing me to see all the gears inside. It looked a little Steampunk, which made my inner geek happy. “This is so cool. How did you even find this?”

  “Google,” he answered seriously, immensely pleased by my reaction. Sitting back, he watched as I admired my gift. “You never thought to search for a watch you could wear?”

  “My Google-fu is weak,” I admitted. “Google Home has only been around three years, and while I can navigate the web using it, I’m not all that comfortable with it. I didn’t grow up with computers like everyone else did.”

  “Makes sense,” Donovan allowed. “I knew they existed. I had a cousin who drooled after one for a while, as he’s one of those off-the-grid people who likes to be totally self-sufficient. I didn’t know if it would be safe for you, so I asked the store clerk about three million questions first. He finally pulled up a diagram and explained exactly how they worked just to shut me up.”

  Picturing the scene in my head, I laughed. “I’m sorry I missed it. Are the instructions in the box?”

  “Yup, I left them in there. Don’t wind the watch today, I already did it, and it’s bad to overwind them.”

  Nodding, I heeded the warning and then decided to push my luck. Setting the box on the table, I threw both arms around his neck, hugging him a little awkwardly in our seated position. He didn’t seem to mind, burly arms immediately circling my waist. Maybe this other person he liked was easier to be around, but I had one thing going for me: I could really see him. I had an easier road map to this man’s heart, and I used that advantage without compunction or hesitation. Against his ear, I whispered, “I want everyone to see you the way I see you. If there was any justice in the world, I’d be able to share my sight, just for a few seconds, but the best I can do is use very inadequate words instead. I want you to be comfortable here, to be welcome, because I don’t want you to leave.”

  I could hear him swallow hard. “Jon, I—”

  The patio door opened, a rush of conversations and music spilling out into the patio, signaling the return of our waitress. I reluctantly pulled back, and not just because Donovan gave good hugs. He smelled wonderful. What kind of body wash or cologne was he wearing?

  The waitress gave us a small wince, smile apologetic. “Sorry, gentlemen, didn’t mean to interrupt. Here’s your drinks and food.”

  She thought she’d interrupted some romantic moment. Well, the gift and hug would encourage anyone to think that. “That’s alright, thank you. Smells great.”

  “You let me know if you need anything,” she said in parting, putting the tray under her arm as she retreated back inside the restaurant.

  I shifted my watch box to the side so I could dig into the fettuccini alfredo. They made it really well here. A peek at Donovan’s aura showed he felt immense delight and a strong desire to stay, so I judged that the interruption hadn’t done any damage. I wanted to leave him with the strong impression that time spent with me meant enjoyment and good feelings. Human nature could be trained very easily. If I could link my presence to happy emotions, half the battle would be won.

  Maintaining it would be the hard part.

  We ate companionably for a moment. I’d learned to not try and carry on a conversation with Donovan while he ate. The man was very serious about his food. Then again, it probably took a lot to keep a body that big moving. Only when he’d eaten most of his alfredo did he offer, “So what next? I mean, do we just wait on Captain Livingston’s interviews?”

  “I honestly don’t know how much further we need to investigate,” I admitted frankly. “Technically, our job is done. We’ve cleared our client’s name—he’s not going to have charges pressed against him, although they still have that whole shooting trial to go through. I’ll continue to be pulled in for interrogations as a lie detector, but that’s about it.”

  This answer did not thrill my partner. “And how often do we leave a mystery half solved?”

  “More often than I care for,” I admitted with a one-shoulder shrug. “Sometimes even with all of the psychic ability in the world, you just don’t have enough clues to pursue anything. If you don’t ask the right questions, you’re not going to get any answers. It’s a sad truth.”

  “But surely not in this case,” he objected. “We have lots of evidence.”

  “And most of it leads to dead ends. I’m not saying it’s impossible to figure out what’s going on, just that we might not be the ones to solve it.” Patting his forearm, I assured him, “Captain Livingston will make sure we can solve the mystery as much as possible. She’s a bulldog in human form. In the meantime, we have other things that we’re scheduled to do.”

  “Some of those other interrogations Borrowman wanted you to sit in on,” Donovan said in understanding. It bothered him, the idea of not having an answer, but he let it go and finished his plate. “Ah, before I forget, Mom wants you back over soon for dinner.”

  This didn’t surprise me. Alani had taken a definite shine to me, partially because I had devoured everything on my plate, partially because I obviously thought highly of her family. “How about when I eat through all of the leftovers she sent home with me, I’ll come back for refills?”

  Chuckling, he allowed, “Probably the smartest plan. My sister wants to meet you too, so maybe aim for Sunday dinner again? She was out of town last time and upset that we didn’t wait for her.”

  “Sure,” I agreed easily. Sundays tended to be very quiet and boring unless Skylar decided to drop in on me. I’d much prefer spending it with Donovan’s family. “What about your brother?”

  “He actually lives in Colorado.”

  “Ah, that would make family dinners a little difficult,” I replied in understanding.

  Our waitress came back out with a small white square cake with a plain design and no candle in her hands, the sort to be shared by couples. She put it on the table between us with a wink. “I have no idea what you’re celebrating, but congratulations.”

  Oh lord, she really did think we were a couple, didn’t she?

  Donovan didn’t miss a beat. He put an arm around my shoulders and beamed up at her. “Thank you. We’re celebrating our partnership. A cake is what we needed.”

  Pleased her gesture had gone over well, she smiled back. “Are you? That’s lovely. I always find it unfair that gay men are the ones good at the romantic gestures.” Turning to me, she teased, “I’m jealous of your boyfriend.”

  “It’s alright to be jealous,” I assured her, playing along. Donovan apparently found this situation humorous, as did I, and I had no intention of ruining the fun. “Good men are difficult to find, gay or straight, and they break the mold after they’ve made one.”

  “Don’t they just,” she bemoaned, a little theatrically. “Well, enjoy, I’ll have your check at the register when you’re ready for it.”

  “Thanks,” Donovan said again.

  As soon as the door closed behind her, he lost it, a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter.

  “We’re celebrating our partnership?” I quoted back at him, biting back giggles, as giggles were not manly, even if watching him tickled my humor bone badly. Why he found this so entertaining I had no idea. Of course, part of me wanted it to be true, so it was harder to find it funny.

  “Well, we are,” he managed, sounding a little strangled. He wiped away a tear of mirth that lingered at the corner of his eye.

  “Uh-huh, just not the partnership she thinks.” I rolled my eyes before taking a fork to the cake. Yum, good cake. It had a strong lemon flavor, which I liked. I’d always been a citrus person. “You’re apparently the type to play with people’s perceptions and not straighten them out.”

  “Now where’s the fun in that?” he asked innocently, also digging into the cake. “Wow, that’s good.”

  “Isn’t it?” I agreed, already on my third bite.

 
“Besides,” he observed with a pointed look at me, “you didn’t straighten her out either.”

  “I never said I was a nice person,” I answered blithely, going for the last corner piece with all of the frosting. I might be a sugarholic.

  Oddly, it seemed to please him that we’d been mistaken as a couple. I couldn’t help but wonder why.

  We spent the next day writing up reports. Donovan had an errand to run and left ahead of me. I was just wrapping up the last report when I heard a tap on the office door. I looked up and found Sho standing just inside the doorway. “Hey.”

  “Hey, just listened to your voicemail.” Sho leaned casually against the doorjamb, one hand lifting to gesture as he talked. “That creepy guy at the flower shop you asked me to track?”

  “Yeah?” I had a bad feeling where he was going with this.

  “He’s never served time. Far as I can tell, he’s committed a few misdemeanors, most of them…yeah, I’ll spare you the details. It’s fucking creepy, I’ll leave it at that. But something of interest is, he’s currently cyberstalking three women. According to his online history, he was tracking two others—one of them being Marsha Brown.”

  I went abruptly taut. “You’re sure? No, sorry, stupid question. Any indication that he’s done more than cyberstalk her?”

  “Not yet, but I can confirm that he’s leaving roses on the doorstep of one of the girls he’s stalking. And that’s not a good sign. I have CCTV footage of him doing it, enough to prove he’s guilty. I already called Borrowman and gave him an update, but I wanted to give you a head’s up too. You’re probably going to be pulled in for the interrogation on this guy.”

  “Thanks, Sho. I’m glad you followed up so quickly. Keep me updated, okay?”

  “Sure thing.” With an analyst’s salute, he took himself off again.

  Blowing out a breath, I stayed seated in my chair for a moment. It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? That he was stalking Marsha Brown. Even if he wasn’t the one who killed her—and I know for a fact he’s killed someone—then maybe he saw who did. At least it was out of my hands now. Borrowman was already informed of the connection, and I had no doubt he’d ask me to sit in on the interrogation, but for today? I was done.

  I decided to knock off early, as I didn’t have anything else scheduled until tomorrow morning. Having little food in the house except some excellent leftovers, I took the trouble to go to Whole Foods, far from where I lived, and picked up a few essentials. I shopped with Donovan’s actions from yesterday still puzzling me. He’d almost been…flirting.

  No, I knew he was touchy-feely, maybe that wasn’t really flirting for him.

  Although introducing me to family, and coming over for dinner, and buying me a gift…no, I was thinking too deeply about this. He liked someone and was not the type to dangle two lines into the water. He was being friendly with me, that was all.

  Dropping keys and glasses off near the back door, I navigated into the kitchen and put groceries away. Some ingredients I kept out for barbecue. It would take a while to cook so I’d better start it now if I wanted it later. I had the pans out, the meat half out of the package, when the obvious question occurred to me: who did Donovan like?

  He’d given me no indication that he’d been out having fun in the city. I knew that man’s schedule better than I did my own. At any given point, he’d let me know where to find him if I needed him. Granted, part of that was because he felt more secure if he knew where I would be in return, as I was harder to track down. Never having had a partner before who gave two shits about me, I’d been pleased and flattered he took such measures, but was that normal? I had no way of really knowing. People didn’t share details like that with me.

  So if he wasn’t playing outside of work, when and where had he met someone? And how was he spending enough time to really work that angle, considering he spent most of his free time with me?

  It couldn’t possibly be me he liked…could it? My heart nearly leapt out of my chest at just the possibility. Was I reading too much into his behavior? I’d been alone for five years, and no matter how many times I told myself I was fine, loneliness still nagged at me. I wanted someone with me. Was I latching too quickly onto Donovan because of that? Was I reading things into his behavior that weren’t there? My eyes weren’t infallible, I knew that. Had I misread something?

  My front windows shattered in a spray of glass and I hit the floor, instinctively using my counter as cover. What the hell?!

  Another window broke and shattered, the report of a gun firing outside. I heard a lot of screams as people on the sidewalks ran for cover. Shit, who was shooting at my place?

  My heart raced a million miles an hour, heartbeat loud in my ears, and I felt adrenaline kick in hot and hard. It took me a second to think, really think, of what to do. I trusted that the people outside would call the cops. With that angle covered, I wasn’t even worried about dialing 911. There was only one person in the world that I wanted coming for me.

  Gamely, I crawled along the floor, avoiding any glass spray that had managed to travel this far along the tile. When I reached the kitchen wall, I looked up at the phone mounted on the wall. Damn, that looked as tall as Mount Everest right now.

  The shooter put another bullet into my front counter. They seemed to space out their shots a little, at least by two or three seconds. Did that give me a window of opportunity to snatch the phone down? I didn’t know, but just sitting here like a duck ready to be pot-shot didn’t seem like the best plan.

  Dammit, why had I left my gun in the glove compartment of the car? I couldn’t retrieve it now, that would mean getting into the hallway, and the front door displayed the open hallway right to the back door. I’d have no cover in there and the shooter would have a direct line of sight.

  Sending up a prayer, I balanced on the balls of my feet, still crouching, and waited. The echo of the next shot still hung in the air when I sprang up, snatched the rotary phone off the wall, and yanked it down. I tried not to handle the thing much, despite the EMP protection under the hard plastic, but needs must in this situation. Setting it on the ground, I quickly dialed Donovan’s number, my fingers shaking a little.

  Shit, I wasn’t going into shock, was I? With as many times as people had attacked me, I should be used to it by now.

  “Hey, Jon.”

  “I’m being shot at,” I blurted out. Fuck, I didn’t mean to start off with that.

  I could hear something crash and his next words sounded curt, hard, as if he’d just slipped into a military mindset. “You’re at home?”

  “Yeah. Behind the kitchen counter, they haven’t hit me yet—” I winced and ducked a little tighter to the ground with the next shot, cradling the receiver in both hands. The floor felt very cold under the bare skin of my arms, but I hugged it tightly, keeping my profile as low to the ground as possible. “No idea who the shooter is, I didn’t get a look before they broke out my front window.”

  “You listen to me, if you have good cover, don’t move. Don’t try to do anything heroic. I’m five minutes out.” The sound changed as he switched from handheld to Bluetooth, and I heard his engine as he gunned it.

  “Trust me, I hate being shot at, I ain’t moving.” The line abruptly went dead and I swore again. Had a stray bullet hit my telephone line outside? Or had Donovan’s phone dropped the call? Could be either. I really, really wanted to know who was shooting and why. Was I the target? With as many criminals as I’d helped put away, that was entirely possible, but how did they know where I lived?

  No, stupid question, I drove a very unique vehicle. Following me from work would be a piece of cake.

  Okay, different question. Was I really the target or just getting stray fire? Not that I could think of any reason why my neighbors would be fired at, but it was still an option. I couldn’t tell from behind the counter and wasn’t curious enough at this point to poke my head out. I’d seen this play out once at the county fair. They’d had a shooting booth with t
urkeys that would pop out and get their heads blown off. I fancied I was smarter than a paper turkey and kept my head down.

  It felt like an eternity as I lay there with my arms over my head. Although what the hell good was that going to do, really? I mean, arms were flesh, and flesh didn’t really stop bullets, so that meant if a bullet somehow got through all of the wood, and then through my arm, wouldn’t it continue through my head? It would, wouldn’t it? Damn, that was a terrifying thought, I didn’t like that thought, what the hell, brain. Work with me, here, let’s not send myself into a panic attack. Where the hell was Donovan? Police? I wanted sirens, sirens would be good right now.

  My breath quickened faster and faster, my heartbeat so loud in my ears I could barely make out the gunfire. I was trained for situations like this, I really was, but the memory of the last time I’d been shot at kept ricocheting through my skull. Mouth open, I forced myself to focus on something. Anything to keep my head in the game before I sent myself into a panic attack. Since the gunfire was definitely the loudest elephant in the room, I focused on it. They’d fired ten times already, right? No, eleven. Eleven times. The next shot, high and in the counter, made me flinch.

  Twelve.

  Another shot, the sound barking loudly, impacting in my counter with a splinter of wood and shattered tile. They’d clipped the backsplash on that one, and slivers of tile flew off in every direction.

  Nothing but wood separated me from the shooter. If they fired lower, just two feet lower and to the left, they’d hit me dead on. But there was nothing sturdier for me to hide behind that didn’t involve crawling out in the open to retrieve it. Would I be seriously hit, this time?

  Would I even make it out of here alive?

  Another gun fired, a different report, and glass shattered that, for once, wasn’t attached to my place. My ears perked as I caught a squeal of tires, the sound of a car coming off a curb with a scrape of a metal exhaust hitting pavement, and then the car speeding away. Did I dare assume my Green Lantern was on scene?

  I dared to unclench, then focused on breathing. Breath in. Breath out. The adrenaline left me high and shaky, a bad rush of endorphins, and it took three tries before I could roll up to my knees.