Isabel's Run

by M. D. Grayson

  Isabel looked him in the eye. “I don’t have a home,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Donnie said. “Bottom line—you’re temporarily out on the streets. Right?”

  “I guess.”

  Donnie smiled. “Don’t have to be that way, baby—this is your lucky day. Crystal told you we got a spare bedroom.”

  Isabel nodded.

  “Good. You’re welcome to come stay with us for a while. Till you get yourself established. That sound okay?”

  “It does,” Isabel said. “Thank you.”

  Donnie smiled again. “Good. We gonna do some great things.” He looked at her backpack. “That all your stuff?”

  Isabel nodded. “That’s it.”

  “Y’all travelin’ light.”

  “I know.”

  He shrugged. “That’ll change. Crystal’ll probably hook you up with some of her stuff for now. Use it as an excuse to go shoppin’.”

  “Hell with that,” Crystal said. “I don’t need no excuse. Me and my homey Izzy—we’re going shoppin’ anyway. Tomorrow. Right, Iz?”

  Isabel hesitated, then started to speak, but Crystal interrupted her. “I know,” she said. “You don’t have any money for shopping.” She smiled. “Good thing for you, I do. You can owe me. We’re going to get you all done up. Your hair, too. You’ll be so dope, people’ll have to wear sunglasses around you just to knock back the shine!”

  Isabel smiled as DeMichael opened the back door.

  “I’m riding shotgun,” Crystal suddenly called out.

  DeMichael looked at Isabel. “Guess that means me and you in the back. After you, my dear,” he said gallantly. Isabel crawled into the back seat. She could hardly believe her luck. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been shivering the night away hiding under a cedar tree to avoid the guards and to keep from getting rained on. An hour ago, she’d been sitting on a bench with no idea how to proceed. Now, she was sitting in a BMW, surrounded by nice people who wanted to help her out. She smiled as the car pulled away from the curb.

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  “CEASE FIRE! CEASE fire!” The Range Safety Officer’s voice thundered down the line just as the last shooter fired his final round of the stage. The electronic noise-canceling features in my headset were designed to muffle the sharp reports of gunshots while still allowing voice commands to come through loud and clear—not that Gunny Doug Owens needed any help getting his point across. Twenty-one years in the Marine Corps prior to joining the Seattle Police Department as head firearms instructor gave him a “command voice” that left no confusion, no ambiguity as to the meaning of his message. Like many of the tough old sergeants I’d known in the army, Gunny Owens didn’t so much speak when he was on the range; he barked. It reminded me of basic training at Fort Benning.

  I lowered my Les Baer Thunder Ranch Model 1911 .45-caliber semiauto to a forty-five degree angle, finger indexed along the barrel. Keeping it pointed downrange, I turned my head quickly in each direction, automatically scanning the area around me for new threats, just as Gunny barked out, “Weapons to low ready!”

  He followed this up a second later with, “Unload and make safe!” The slide on my weapon had automatically locked open when I’d fired the last round. I pressed the magazine release button, and the empty magazine dropped out and fell to the ground.

  “After inspection by a Range Safety Officer, holster your safe weapon.”

  The RSO on my side of the line worked his way from shooter to shooter, checking their weapons as he went and tapping them on the shoulders when he was satisfied their weapons were completely empty, signifying it was okay to holster their weapon. I waited my turn as the gentle breeze cleared the smoke from the range.

  When Gunny saw that the assistant RSOs on either side of the line had completed their inspections, he barked out “Line clear on the left?” The assistant RSO on my side of the line held up his hand in acknowledgment. “Line clear on the right?” The officer on the opposite end of the line did the same.

  “Good,” Gunny said. “Ladies and gentlemen, the line is clear! You may remove your hearing protection. Retrieve your magazines, and let’s check targets.”

  It was a beautiful morning on June 5, 2012. The temperature was in the high sixties, and the sky was partly cloudy. My partner, Antoinette “Toni” Blair, and I had just fired the last sequence in the Washington State Basic Law Enforcement Firearm Training course at the Seattle Police Athletic Association range in Tukwila, just south of Seattle. This is the same test issued to retired law enforcement officers annually and, other than Toni and me, the thirteen guys on the line were all retired police officers. Thanks to the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act that Congress passed in 2004, successfully passing this test gave these retired officers the right to carry concealed weapons almost anywhere in the nation. Can you say instant extended police force? At no additional cost? Clearly, this was one of Congress’s smarter moves, if you ask me. Of course, Toni and I were not law enforcement officers, so passing the test wouldn’t give us the same privileges. But the practice kept us sharp, and it helped keep our insurance premiums low. And if, God forbid, we ever had to shoot anyone, regular documented training would probably help us legally. We were fortunate that my friends at Seattle PD allowed us to train with them and use the range.

  I reached down and picked up my empty magazine, dusted it off, and put it in my pocket. Toni was two shooters to my left; I saw her do the same thing. At twenty-seven years old, she’d just had a birthday two weeks ago. She was dressed in camouflage-print fatigue-style pants that had no business looking as good as they did on her, green tactical boots, and a beige long-sleeved T-shirt that had an American flag and Made in the U.S.A. printed on it in big, bold red letters across the chest—just in case you were having trouble noticing the way she filled out the shirt (which, I suppose, would have been pretty good proof that you were legally blind). The other guys didn’t know it, but I knew that the long sleeves covered a full-sleeve tattoo on her left arm and a delicate little Celtic-weave tat on her right. Her thick, dark hair was covered with a backward-facing baseball cap, itself covered with her ear-protection headset. She wore yellow-tinted shooter’s glasses. She looked like a Victoria’s Secret model at a gun show—she was distracting as hell, and I was glad there was space between us. When we straightened up, she caught me looking and she smiled.

  Oops. This wasn’t one of her “I love you” smiles or even one of her playful ones, for that matter. We’ve been friends for a long time—I’ve known her for more than five years. I’ve seen her use about twenty different smiles—she’s got one for every occasion. I know most of them pretty well, but as for this one, her meaning was quite clear. She was giving me the nasty, evil little grin that usually comes when we’re locked in competition. We both hate to lose, and shooting qualifications bring out our competitive natures. She looked pretty smug—must have fired another clean stage. I turned away and started walking downrange to inspect my target.

  “Holy crap, Nichols!” Gunny yelled as he inspected the first shooter’s target. “You do know you’re supposed to be shooting target number one, right? You fired five rounds, but I only see three damn holes!” He turned and looked at the next target on the line. “You got any extra holes on your target?” he said to that target’s shooter. “Nope?” He turned back to the first unlucky guy. “Nichols, you had two rounds off the whole damn target! That’s pathetic. Ten points each—it’s going to cost you a twenty-point penalty.” He shook his head with disgust. “What’s worse, if this were real life, that means you’d be the proud owner of two .40-caliber projectiles flying through the air at 1,100 feet per second looking for something solid to hit besides their intended target.” He looked at the sheepish shooter. “You understand that’s bad, right?”

  The man nodded. “Sorry, Gunny.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Gunny nodded in agreement. “Looks like we’ll be seeing you back here
this afternoon.”

  Gunny moved down the line, examining each shooter’s target. His comments were usually short and to the point. “You pushed this one,” or “You flinched before you pulled the trigger here, see? Caused you to jerk low left.” The shooters—all experienced police officers with years and years of training—listened carefully. Gunny Owens was held in universal high esteem. He’d forgotten more about shooting than most of us would ever know.

  He reached Toni’s target and stared at it for a second. “Holy hell, she’s doing it again!” he called out. The other shooters turned to look at Toni’s target. “This young lady,” he said, “—a civilian, I might add—qualifies on this very course every ninety days without fail. And I have never—I repeat never—seen her put a round outside the ten ring. Look at this shooting here. Y’all should do so well. Excellent! Well done, young lady.” Toni smiled demurely. “A solid 250,” Gunny said. “Perfect score.”

  Gunny continued down the line until he reached my target. He examined it carefully, counting the number of holes. When he was finished, he turned to me. “Staff Sergeant Logan, did you yank one off the target?” Gunny liked to call me by my former military rank.

  “Hell no, Gunny,” I said. “Look here.” I pointed to one of the bullet holes in the center of the target that was a bit more oblong than the others.

  Gunny leaned forward and inspected the hole. “Oh, yeah,” he said, smiling. “I see. Same damn hole.” He stood up. “Folks, listen up! Another perfect score from the other civilian in the group.” He paused for a moment, and then he continued. “Although technically, I ain’t sure you can call him a civilian—he’s former U.S. Army 101st Airborne. It don’t happen often, but from time to time, the army turns out a damn fine shooter. Right, son?” That was about as high a compliment as an army grunt’s likely to get out of a marine (MARINE: “Muscle are Required—Intelligence Not Essential”).

  “Hooah, Gunny!” I yelled out. You better believe it.

  “Damn right,” he said, nodding his head sharply. He turned and continued his inspection.

  After he finished with the last shooter, he returned to the center of the line. “Gentlemen, and Ms. Blair,” he said, “Y’all gather round.” When we’d formed in a group around him, he said, “One of y’all’s coming back this afternoon.” He turned to the offender. “That’s you, Nichols. I want you to practice with Officer Mendez here,” he pointed at one of his assistant RSOs, “right after lunch: 1300 hours. If you’re ready, you’ll get another shot at qualifying at 1400. We’ll see if you can keep all your rounds on your own target this time.” He looked at the rest of us. “As for the rest of you—you’ve all officially qualified. Congratulations.” The men nodded their heads quietly. They’d done this before and most were good—if not very good—shooters.

  “Before you leave, though, we do have a dilemma,” Gunny continued. “We have a tie for top honors—two perfect scores.” Here we go, I thought. Same as last time. “And as some of you may know, I don’t like to end things with a tie. No closure that way. So what say we have ourselves a quick little tiebreaker shoot-out?”

  “Yeah!” the men agreed enthusiastically.

  “Good. Randy—do me a favor and throw a couple of clean targets on lanes three and four, would you? The rest of you, follow me.”

  Gunny walked us back past the fifteen-yard marker where we’d fired the last sequence. He kept walking, past the twenty-five yard marker until he reached a marker that said thirty-five yards. “We’ll do it from here,” he said. “Make it interesting. A little over one hundred feet—a real test. Ms. Blair—you’re on number three. Staff Sergeant Logan—you’re on lane four. Everybody else: behind the line.” I looked downrange at the small targets. One hundred feet is a long pistol shot if you have something solid to brace against. Without a brace, it was really long.

  He waited until the targets were set and everybody was behind us. “Okay, you two,” he said. “I want you to load one round—and one round only—into a magazine. This will be a one shot, do-or-die competition. We’ll run you through one at a time. Who wants to go first?”

  “I will,” Toni said quickly. I looked at her, and we locked eyes. She no doubt was trying to psych me out. Good luck with that.

  “Ladies first, then,” Gunny said. “Oh, I forgot. We’ll use the electronic timer. You’ll start from the low ready position, two hand grip—or one hand if you want. Your choice of stances. When the timer beeps, you’re to raise your weapon and fire. You’ll have two seconds to get your shot off before the timer beeps again. If you go over, the timer will tell us, and you’ll be DQ’d. So don’t go over time.”

  Two seconds! Two seconds was very fast from thirty-five yards. I glanced at Toni. If she was concerned, she didn’t show it. She was already concentrating on the target.

  “You two ready?” We nodded.

  “Okay, everyone. Hearing protection on!” Gunny reverted to command voice.

  “Shooter number one, at this time, load and make ready!” Toni slapped a magazine into her Glock 23 and cycled the slide.

  “Shooter, assume a low ready position!”

  Toni crouched down, her weapon held before her pointed toward the ground at a forty-five degree angle.

  “Shooter, watch your target!”

  BEEP! The electronic timer sounded. Toni instantly raised her weapon, sighted, and one second later, fired. BOOM!, followed nearly instantly by BEEP! as the timer sounded again. Toni had beaten the clock by a fraction of a second.

  Everyone looked downrange and strained to see the bullet hole in the target. “One point eight seven seconds, and she’s in the bottle,” Gunny called out, “chin level, just a hair right of center. Seven points. That’s fine shooting from thirty-five yards, young lady. Especially in under two seconds.” The “bottle” is the broad, bottle-shaped area of the target that includes the upper torso and the neck up to the center of the head. Toni’s shot was very nearly right on the centerline in the “neck” of the bottle, but it fell midway between the four-inch diameter “ten” ring centered around the top of the target’s nose and the six-inch diameter “ten” ring centered around the target’s heart—in other words, just under the chin. It was an outstanding shot, but looking at Toni, I could tell right away she was not happy. She felt me staring, turned to me, and stuck her tongue out.

  “The bad guy is definitely down,” Gunny said. “Probably for good, I’d say. But—with a score of seven,” he smiled with a nasty grin, “the door got left open for the staff sergeant just a hair. Ms. Blair, go ahead and unload and make safe.” Toni released her empty magazine and held her pistol up for inspection by one of the assistant RSOs. He patted her on the shoulder, and she holstered her weapon. The RSO turned to Gunny and raised his hand.

  “The line is clear,” Gunny said. “Let’s see if shooter number two can take advantage.”

  As I stepped up to the line, Toni said, “Check your fly, dude.” I smiled. Psych!

  I was in a tough spot. This was going to be a difficult shot. I like to win as much as she does. Lord knows she would’ve liked nothing better than to beat me on the firing range. In four years, it had never happened before. If she won one, she’d be delighted. This could be a good thing. Maybe it was her time. Thinking about it made me consider maybe giving her one—pulling the shot on purpose. But if I did that, I still needed to make it close. She knows I’m a good shot, and if she suspected I’d thrown the round, she’d have my ass. I made my decision.

  “Shooter number two, load and make ready!” I slapped the magazine with the single round into my sidearm, released the slide, and lowered the weapon to the low ready position.

  “Shooter, watch your target!” I crouched and tightened my grip.

  BEEP! All at once, the outside world seemed to recede. Everything switched to slow motion and all my training kicked in. As my arms came up to target, my right thumb pushed the safety lever to the off position. During the same motion, I took one deep breath, then held it. M
y arms steadied on the target. My eyes instantly found the front sight, and the front sight centered on the target’s head. With all my concentration, I focused on the front sight. Steady. Squeeze. BOOM! The round fired. BEEP! The timer sounded. I didn’t need to look.

  * * * *

  We said our good-byes to Gunny Owens at 11:00 and jumped in my red Jeep for the drive back to our office. Our company is Logan Private Investigations—or Logan PI, as we like to call it. We have a small office on Westlake Avenue on Lake Union, right in the middle of Seattle, less than a mile from I-5. Unfortunately, the south end of Lake Union where we’re located was currently wrecked by construction. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen had decided to single-handedly rebuild Seattle, and he was starting with the South Lake Union area. As a result, traffic was stop-and-go. Actually, more stop than go—it was going to take a while. I hit the play button on the MP3 player, and the sound of a very sweet piano started to flow from the speakers.

  Toni listened carefully when the singer started. “Is that—is that Brandi Carlile?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “I’ve never heard this before.”

  “I know. That’s because it’s brand-new. It’s called Bear Creek. Just released today. This song is called ‘That Wasn’t Me.’”

  She listened for a minute, tapping her foot to the beat. Then she said, “Awesome. I love it. She sounds like Adele.”

  I considered this. “Yeah a little, maybe. On this song, anyway. Maybe a bit more country.”

  We listened to the new music for a minute while we waited for the traffic to move. Toni’s cell phone rang, and I turned the music down.

  “Okay,” she said into the phone. “Tell her to wait. We’re down by the park—only about a half mile away. As soon as traffic moves, we’ll be there.”

  She hung up and turned to me. “That was Kenny. He says Kelli’s at the office.”