After she discarded her umbrella, Randall followed Sara up the stairs, then caught sight of his brother and Sherry, as they took shelter beneath a tree on the side of the driveway.
They were both carrying a sack of money and had their guns out and at the ready.
Randall held up a hand, telling them to wait, then he entered the house with his shotgun up and his finger on the trigger.
Something inside the house was making an annoying sound, and the woman still hadn’t realized he was behind her.
The sound seemed to perplex the woman, because she was creeping toward it. Randall had to slow his pace, or risk walking into her.
Up ahead in the living room, a man stood with his back to them and was holding the thing making all the noise, while staring down at it. Then the woman spoke, and the man spun around. The last sight that Randall ever saw was that of the man moving in a fluid deadly grace while firing a shot.
Randall’s brain had just enough time to register the flash of the gun, before his heart exploded in his chest, and the world disappeared forever.
FIFTY-THREE MINUTES EARLIER
The armored car parked in front of the Fidelity Bank & Trust on Front Street in Ciderville and two armed guards exited by the rear door of the vehicle. They then walked into the bank carrying canvas bags that appeared to hold rolled coins.
The bags did not hold rolled coins; the guards, a man and a woman, were not really guards; and even the armored car was just a panel truck, which had been modified and painted to look as if it were from the armored car service the bank routinely employed.
The only thing real about them were their guns.
Tyler answered the welcoming smile of the armed bank guard by slamming the canvas bag into the side of his head. When the man fell to the ground looking dazed, Tyler snatched the gun from the guard’s holster and dumped out the rocks that the bag held.
Afterwards, he followed Sherry toward the bank manager’s desk, while demanding that everyone, “Get down on the damn floor, now!”
The customers complied, as did the tellers, who disappeared behind their bullet-resistant glass. Tyler and Sherry weren’t worried about a teller activating a silent alarm. They expected it, but also knew the average response time of the Ciderville Police. They planned to be gone before they arrived.
Besides that, they had also phoned in a fake report of gunfire, which would have the police scrambling in the wrong direction.
The bank manager was a portly man with thinning brown hair and bright blue eyes. Tyler placed the tip of his gun between those eyes and made a demand.
“Take me to the vault.”
The man did as ordered, while walking on shaky legs. Within two minutes, Tyler had the coin sacks filled with unmarked bills, while Sherry kept her gun aimed at the bank’s patrons, one of whom kept staring up at her face, which was half-hidden beneath the oversized guard’s cap she wore.
“What the hell are you looking at?”
The man didn’t answer her, but he also didn’t take his eyes off her.
Tyler returned seconds later and passed one of the sacks to her. Sherry took it and looked back at the man in the suit who had been watching her.
She locked eyes with him, raised her gun, and placed a bullet in the center of his forehead. The scrutinizing gaze was no more.
Tyler spun around, saw what she had done, and let out a curse. Several women screamed and began crying, while an older man gripped a silver cross hanging around his neck and recited a prayer.
“Why did you shoot him?”
“He stared too much for his own good.”
They left the bank, climbed into the phony armored car, and Randall drove them away.
The man Sherry murdered was named Michael Ryder. Killing him was the biggest mistake of her life.
157
Man On The Run
Tyler stared at the farmhouse “That wasn’t a shotgun. Somebody’s shooting at Randall.”
Sherry thumbed off the safety on her gun. “Two people, I heard three shots from two different guns.”
They moved out from under the tree. Tyler was faster and was nearly at the steps when Sherry spotted Tanner coming around the side of the house.
She yelled, “Hey!” and Tanner stopped moving and stared at her. When he spotted the gun in her hand, he reversed course and headed for the trees behind the barn. He kept changing direction while he ran, to make himself harder to hit.
Sherry was about to let loose a shot despite knowing it had little chance of finding its target, but then she heard Tyler yelling Randall’s name.
She entered the house and saw Tyler diving back toward her as a shot rang out. Tyler had dropped his sack as he dove for cover, and stacks of unmarked bills spilled out onto the floor.
“What the hell is going on?”
Tyler answered Sherry in a voice filled with hate, as he rose to his feet.
“Randall’s been shot, and the bitch just fired at me too.”
Sherry looked over and saw the soles of Randall’s boots, and the movement of his body.
“He’s alive, Tyler. I saw him move.”
“It’s her; Randall fell on top of her after she shot him.”
Sara called out to them. “I didn’t kill him. He was shot by a man named Tanner, and he’s getting away.”
“He’s dead? My brother’s dead?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, but yes.”
“Why did you kill him?” Tyler said.
“I didn’t, Tanner did, but I’ll shoot you if you come any closer.”
Sherry grabbed Tyler’s arm. “She’s not lying. I saw a man run into the trees in the back, um, dark hair, jeans, and a black hoodie.”
Tyler pointed toward the living room. “I’ll go get the motherfucker; you handle that bitch.”
“No Tyler, first her, then him.”
Tyler spoke as he ran out the door. “Just handle her and see to Randall. This bastard is not getting away.”
Sherry cursed, but she moved toward the doorway to get a look at Sara. She eased her head around the doorframe just in time to see Sara free herself from beneath Randall’s bulk.
“Don’t move!”
Sara answered Sherry’s demand by firing upwards at her. The shot missed by a foot, but it did cause Sherry to pull her head back. When Sherry looked again, she saw that Sara was gone, but heard her footsteps as she fled down the hallway.
Sherry entered the room, knelt beside Randall as if to check for a pulse, but then saw the sightless eyes staring back at her.
“Oh shit. Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Sherry left the farmhouse in pursuit of Sara, amidst the driving rain. In the distance, there came the roar of Tyler’s Magnum, causing Sherry to wonder if the dark-haired man had just been blown to bits.
158
Scared Rabbit
With his gun rendered useless and his hand stinging in pain, Tanner left the farmhouse by the back door. His destination had been the pickup truck parked out front, where he could get a fresh weapon.
He barely had time to wonder at Sara’s appearance on the farm when he saw the woman headed for the porch. She carried a gun in her right hand and a money sack in her left.
Other than a pronounced frown, her face was indiscernible beneath the floppy rain hat she wore, but her shapely body and lithe movement spoke of her youth.
Tanner halted in his tracks, knowing he’d never make it to the pickup truck, then darted for the cover of the trees instead.
A man’s voice came from inside the house, which sounded as if it were calling someone’s name, but with the rain drumming in his ears, Tanner couldn’t make it out.
The same could not be said for the gunshot that followed, which could be heard clearly. Tanner realized that the man and woman must not be working with Sara Blake, but that they were a separate thing altogether.
Whatever it was, it was dangerous, and with his gun ruined by Sara’s shot, he had only a knife for a weapon. That thought made him pause an
d he moved back toward the house until he could see it again.
The woman was no longer there and had likely gone inside.
Tanner estimated that he could reach his pickup truck in less than ten seconds and be armed again in fewer than twenty.
He was lurching forward to sprint toward the truck when the tall man came leaping off the side of the porch.
The man landed in a skid, because of the slickness of the grass, but righted himself quickly and headed toward Tanner’s position. There was a gun in the man’s hand, a huge revolver with a long barrel. Tanner turned and ran deeper into the trees before the man could spot him.
The ground was soggy even beneath the canopy of leaves overhead, as the series of small streams running through the forest had all overflowed. Water was also flowing down from higher elevations, and although the hour was barely past noon, the sky was dark from the black clouds that filled it.
Tanner was moving well and hoped he was gaining a safe distance between himself and the man who pursued him. That hope faded when a shot that sounded like the boom of a cannon roared, and a sapling to his right was shredded at the middle of its trunk and fell over.
“I see you, motherfucker and I’m gonna kill you!”
Tanner glanced over his shoulder in time to see the man rising from the crouching position he had assumed to take aim and fire.
Taking the time to fire that shot had widened the gap between them. Tanner intended to widen it farther still.
He sprinted over the uneven ground, seeking to lose his pursuer, while wishing he had a weapon with which to stand his ground.
And as he ran, he damned Sara and knew that once he handled the crazed man at his back, he would have to find her and put her down, but not before he learned how she had found him.
It had something to do with the phone he had discovered behind the sofa, the one that had emitted the tone, but he had to know if others also knew he was alive. If so, that too would have to be addressed, and he’d been so close to leaving and starting over.
The gun boomed again, and the ground in front of him threw up dirt and leaves in his path.
Tanner grimaced. Running about like a scared rabbit was not his way, but neither was dying because of a bruised ego. He would run from the man, or rather from the man’s gun, and he would live to make him regret the chase.
The trees ended where a swollen stream rushed along, and toward the right was a rise ahead that led to the abandoned building site.
Tanner climbed the hill. When he reached the crest and was silhouetted against the sky, he could sense the man sighting the gun on his back.
He dropped to lay flat in the mud just as the third shot boomed overhead, then he rolled down the hill, oblivious of the two pairs of young eyes watching his every move.
159
Help From Above
On the top floor of the uncompleted office building, two high school seniors, a boy and a girl, stared down at the drama taking place.
Amy Patton grabbed the arm of her boyfriend, Dean White, as they watched the man in the hoodie being chased by the tall skinny man with the gun.
Dean had a freckled face and dark red hair, while Amy was dressed all in black, and dyed her brown hair the same color. The young couple was hanging out on a rainy day after cutting school and sharing a six-pack of beer filched from Amy’s mom.
The woman would never miss it, as she spent her days so locked in a haze of pills and booze that she could never hope to keep track of her supply.
Despite the rain, the hood was lowered and hanging down the first man’s back, so as not to obstruct his vision. Dean caught a glimpse of the man’s face as the man looked about and was shocked at the calm expression he saw. The man showed no trace of fear, as if the man chasing him was wielding a water pistol instead of the hand cannon he carried.
The terrain below offered few places to hide, and Dean could tell that the skinny man would soon have an unobstructed view and a clear shot at his target, who had yet to realize the skinny man hadn’t followed him up the hill but was instead running parallel along its other side.
As the first man paused to take his bearings, the skinny man topped the rise behind him and took aim at his prey, who was unaware that he was in his sights.
“Look out!”
The man in the hoodie heeded Dean’s cry, dove to the right, and rolled, just as the bullet ripped into the spot he’d been standing in.
Both men turned their faces up to stare at Dean, but the skinny man gazed at him with sheer malice.
Dean pulled Amy to the floor just as the man sent a double blast from the gun their way, which tore a hole in the concrete above their heads.
Dean’s hands flew over Amy’s body as he checked her for injuries.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, you?”
“I’m fine,” Dean said as he took out his phone to call the cops. “Damn, there’s no signal. I forgot the rain was screwing things up.”
He moved back to the wall and peered over just in time to see the man in the hoodie charge at the skinny man, who seemed to be fumbling with his gun.
The two men collided, fell to the ground, and rolled down a series of small hills, where they disappeared from sight beneath the branches of a tree.
However, Dean could hear their struggle even above the rain, and he wondered who was winning.
“The house,” Amy said. “I bet the farmhouse has a landline. We can call the chief from there.”
Dean nodded in agreement, took her hand, and the two of them rushed down three flights of stairs and out into the wet day.
When Sara ran out the rear of the farmhouse, it was just in time to see Tyler bolt into the trees.
She had barely entered the dripping foliage that bordered the pines when the loud shot rang out. Sara cursed, thinking that Tyler had killed Tanner before she could. She then slowed an instant later, as she thought about the likelihood of such an event.
Armed or not, Tanner was deadly and had survived tougher odds in the past. She didn’t know who Tyler and his companions were, but she doubted they were a match for the bastard.
However, Sara considered herself a match for Tanner, if only by the iron will of her desire to see him dead. She would not let him slip from her grasp again.
Let the man ahead have his chance at Tanner. Hopefully, he would wear the hit man down and make him more manageable.
Sara tensed, as a sound came from behind and to her right. After ducking down beside a bush, she saw the woman with the floppy hat move past with a gun in her hand.
That meant that there were two armed people closing in on Tanner.
So much the better. Let them face him, and when he was distracted, she would move in for the kill.
Three more shots, spaced apart, followed by a pair back-to-back and although she couldn’t be certain, Sara thought she had heard a voice in between the first two shots.
The woman in front of her quickened her pace and Sara followed, but then slowed as she came to a hill.
Once atop the hill, a confused look crossed Sara’s face as she took in the unfinished office building sitting in the middle of nowhere.
Movement to her left caused her to point her gun that way. She found two frightened kids looking at her, their eyes wide in their sockets as they stared at her gun.
Sara jerked her head toward the farmhouse. “Run!”
The freckle-faced boy nodded at her, grabbed his girlfriend’s hand, and did as ordered. Sara watched them go, but had her attention grabbed once more, as three shots rang out from just past the other end of the building.
She ran down the hill while blinking at the drops of rain falling into her eyes and hoped that Tanner had not yet met his death.
Sending the man to hell was a pleasure she wished only for herself.
After Tanner realized Tyler had fired six shots from the revolver, he charged at him and caught the man just as he was attempting to reload.
Their struggle carr
ied them down a series of small hills, where they lied beside the bank of a stream, amid a stand of trees. In normal times, the trees would be several yards above the waterline, but on this day, the stream was lapping at their roots.
Tyler’s gun, as well as the bullets he’d sought to fill it with, were scattered in their struggle, so Tyler reached up and tried to strangle Tanner, who was on top of him. Instead, Tyler received an elbow to the chin that weakened his grip.
Sensing his advantage, Tanner jammed a knee into Tyler’s stomach and saw the tall man wince in pain, but as he was about to smash Tyler’s nose with his forehead, three shots rang out, and one of them struck the hood hanging limply down Tanner’s back.
It was Sherry, and this time Tanner could get a good look at her. Beneath the dark eyes sat a fierce scowl set in an incongruously pretty face.
Tanner knew that if she hadn’t feared hitting the tall man, she would have fired lower and shot him for certain.
Tanner got his feet braced and propelled himself to the right, where he hoped the tree limbs would shield his location. He landed on his side in a patch of mud and heard the woman call to the man, whose name he learned was Tyler.
As Tyler gathered his wits and the woman helped him to stand, Tanner took off across an open field.
It was a risky move, but profitable if he could make it to the other side, because just beyond the field was a forest that stretched on for several miles. Past that, there was a road at the edge of town with storefronts and people. Once he reached it, Tanner could get lost among the buildings and find a car to steal.
Shots rang out when he was only halfway across, and Tanner braced for the pain they would bring, but when those shots were answered by others, he reasoned that Sara Blake had joined the fray.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 49