Shooting Star

by Bradley Wright

  Lawson motioned for Cassie to stay behind him. She nodded. He poked his head out around the door and looked left. There was a man shooting out the dining room window. He pulled his head back in, then looked to his right where he saw another man shooting out the living room window. There were two more men plus Frank. He could hear other gunshots that sounded like they were coming from upstairs. He and Cassie would be able to take down the two men at the windows without alerting anyone. There was so much shooting that Frank and his two men, wherever they were, would never be able to decipher whose guns were shooting. The problem was the sirens, so Lawson knew they had to hurry.

  Lawson turned to Cassie and pointed to himself then the guy on the left, then directed her to take the guy on the right. Cassie nodded and put her hand on Lawson’s shoulder as soon as he turned his back to her. He held up his left hand and counted down, three . . . two . . . one.

  Lawson moved forward and aimed for the man at the dining room window; he gave a one count so Cassie had time to do the same to the other man in the living room. They both fired simultaneously, and both men took two shots to the body and fell to the ground. The sirens were getting closer. Close enough that the shooting outside stopped. Lawson heard the cars loading up and pulling away from the house.

  Lawson heard a female scream and a door slam at the back of the kitchen. He knew it was Frank making a run for it. The coward was not only leaving his men to take the fall, he was taking Erin with him.

  “That’s Frank. Get downstairs and keep Victoria safe. The police are here so it shouldn’t be long.”

  Cassie was dead serious. “Do not let that son of a bitch get away.”

  As he moved toward the kitchen, Lawson said, “No chance in hell.”

  Lawson bolted for the kitchen and threw open the back door just in time to see Frank’s foot going over the privacy fence in the glow of the floodlights. Lawson ran around the pool, jumped to reach both hands on top of the fence, and pulled himself all the way over. He started running as soon as he landed, and he watched Frank and another of his men turning left across the street ahead of him into an alley. The house backed up to a commercial street, and when Lawson caught up to the same turn, he entered into the same alley Frank had. Now Lawson saw there were two men with Frank, and Erin. He was relieved to see that all of them had stayed together; it meant that Cassie and Victoria were out of danger. It wasn’t the case for Erin, but Lawson wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.

  Lawson knew that Frank would do his best to stay off the main road. Up ahead the alley was about to end, opening onto another main road. And just as Lawson began to worry he’d lose them if they made it there, an SUV screeched to a stop right in front of Frank and his men, guns hanging out the window.

  Lawson couldn’t help but freeze in surprise himself.

  One of Frank’s men was gunned down, but Frank pulled Erin down and they were able to duck behind a parked car with Frank’s other man. The car took a hailstorm of bullets.

  Lawson knew, when he figured out Jenny would track Clint’s car on Sloan’s behalf, that Sloan would only send his men to the house. Sloan wouldn’t be involved in the shooting himself. But there was a small possibility he was in the SUV that had clearly waited at the back of the house for anyone who might try to make a run for it. Just as Lawson moved forward again, the gunfire stopped, and under a streetlight Lawson could see Frank holding up his hands.

  Sloan’s men were about to take him. And they were about to take Erin too. If Lawson lost them, there was a strong possibility something awful could happen to her.

  Two gunshots rang out, followed by an awful scream. Sloan’s men had just executed Frank’s men, and now they were loading Frank and Erin into the truck. Lawson scanned the area; he needed transportation, and he needed it fast. The alley was full of cars, but no one in their right mind would ever leave one of them unlocked with keys in it. Not in Los Angeles. Erin was fighting the man, trying one last time to escape, but he took her by the arms and practically folded her inside the SUV.

  Out of the corner of Lawson’s eye to the right he saw the headlights of a car coming to a stop for street parking on the main road. Lawson sprinted over to the end of the building, and just as the man was hitting lock on his key fob, Lawson pulled his gun and demanded the keys.

  “Sorry, but I’ve gotta do it.”

  The man’s hands hit the sky as soon as he saw the gun. Lawson took the keys to the Lexus sedan and jumped in. As soon as he hit the push-button start, he wheeled the car right, then another right down the alley. The SUV was just pulling out onto the cross street.

  Lawson was relieved. Though he had no idea where they were going, he knew exactly whom they were headed to see. And he knew one way or another, this thing was ending tonight.

  48

  “Lawson, are you there? Can you hear me?”

  It was Claudia. Lawson had been tailing the SUV with Frank and Victoria’s daughter inside for almost twenty minutes. They had been heading East and had just turned onto a street called Pico Boulevard. Lawson was completely unfamiliar with the area. There was a Lowe’s just up ahead, which seemed really out of place in the middle of Hollywood, or Beverly Hills, or wherever he was now.

  Lawson took the phone out of his pocket. Claudia’s face was waiting on the screen. “I hear you. How’s Cassie?”

  “Victoria was taken out of the house just a minute ago by police. No sign of Cassie. I’d hoped she was with you.”

  His first instinct was to worry, but as far as he knew, there weren’t any more of Frank’s men at the house.

  “Did Victoria say if she saw Cassie again?”

  “She told the police the last time she saw her was with you. That’s why I assumed you were with her.”

  That was not what Lawson expected to hear, but Cassie could handle herself. Especially when she knew trouble could be near.

  “Keep looking for her, okay?”

  Claudia nodded. “Of course. We’ll find her.”

  “Where am I, Claudia?”

  “GPS says you’re almost to Mid City. Listen, we have two units about a mile behind you. Just stay with the Yukon until they get to where they are going and then move on. You’ve gone above and beyond, but let us handle this from here. If that is Sloan’s men like we think, there is no telling what you might be walking into, so we will take over.”

  Lawson didn’t respond. He was doing his best not to be an obvious tail. This was not one of his stronger skills, and he knew it. The traffic had thinned considerably over the last several miles too, making it even more difficult to be discreet. He was trying to figure out a way to explain that there was no way he was going to leave the situation now. Not with an innocent girl’s life at stake.

  “Lawson?”

  He couldn’t think of a good way to put it, so he ended the FaceTime call. Then he held the button on the side of the phone until the screen prompted him to slide his finger to the right to power off. Then he shut it down. The battery had looked like it was pretty low; if questioned, he would blame the disconnection on that. He knew Claudia would still be able to track the phone, so it wasn’t like he was keeping them from doing their job. He just knew this was the only way he could do his.

  Now he could focus.

  The Yukon turned left past the Lowe’s onto a side street. He followed, keeping his distance. Then Lawson just continued to drive right on by when the SUV turned into the parking lot of a small office building. It wasn’t Sloan’s office, not the one he tracked Hector to earlier, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t belong to him. He turned into the adjacent strip mall, where a few people were dining at Subway, did a turnabout and killed his headlights as he pulled into a parking space. He could see the front of the office building, but the Yukon had gone around back. He would have to hoof it from there.

  He got out of the car and walked to the back of the building behind the Subway. He peered around a dumpster just in time to see a man walk through a back entrance of the
office building. The Yukon was parked beside two other vehicles in back. That’s the entrance he would have to use too.

  As he was making his way toward the building, in the dark, all by himself, he longed to have Cassie beside him. These men weren’t the type to ask questions first, shoot later, so he was going to have to go in with an offensive mentality. This wouldn’t be a problem for him, not when dealing with such high-level scumbags, but it would be a lot more comforting if he had her there to have his back.

  Lawson was at the end of the small strip center, and only a small break in the concrete walkway separated him from the office building’s parking lot. He could see that there were a couple lights on at the top of the building. Far right side. This would help give him direction. He also knew the place would be wired with cameras, so being stealthy would almost be no option at all. Once in the building, he was going to have to move fast. He would also need to pick up another weapon along the way. He only had two rounds left in his ten-round magazine.

  Halfway across the opening between buildings, two cars pulled into the front of the parking lot: Claudia’s team. Once he disconnected from her, she must have given the okay to move in. This meant a task force was close behind. Lawson kicked it into high gear and ran to the back of the building. For a brief moment, he thought about letting them handle it. It wasn’t Lexi inside that building; he didn’t even know Erin or her mother Victoria really, either. Most would question why he would be concerning himself with strangers in the first place, but Lawson didn’t question it. He knew he had to go in after Erin, because if he were in Victoria’s shoes, he would pray to have someone like Lawson fighting for his daughter amongst these savages. Someone who didn’t have to play by the rules. Someone who was capable of being just as savage as the bad guys were.

  He could hear the police in the distance. They weren’t far. This thing was going to get ugly fast. He needed to get in there before anyone else did. He hoped he’d be able to protect Erin from the worst of it. He knew Sloan wouldn’t go down without a fight. And with Frank in the building, Sloan might try to find a way to put it all on him. Lawson imagined, if worse came to worst, Sloan would put a gun in Frank’s hand and make him shoot Erin, just to get rid of the evidence. That thought burned in Lawson’s mind, and he moved for the glass door in the back of the building, his gun out and already in position.

  49

  With a quick peek through the door’s window, he almost gave himself away. There was a man walking right for him, but luckily he was loading a magazine into his pistol. Lawson pulled his head back, waited a moment, and when the man came outside through the door, Lawson brought the butt of his Sig Sauer down like a hammer, creating a dense thud when it struck the man in the temple. He fell onto his side, and Lawson scavenged him like a vulture. First his gun, then his phone, then his keys so at least one of the vehicles wasn’t going anywhere.

  Tires squalled and sirens wailed from the front side of the building. That would draw Sloan’s and his men’s attention and perhaps make them act irrationally, possibly doing Erin harm. Just as Lawson stepped inside the building, he saw two police cruisers come racing around the corner outside. He hustled down a short hallway that opened to the elevators. Down the hall to his left were the stairs. He sprinted that way and flung open the door. When no one was there to greet him, he began his sprint up the stairs. Outside he had counted four stories. He was at the top floor in a matter of seconds.

  The door to the hallway had no window. If it was the same setup as four floors below, he would find rows of offices lining both sides. The lights he’d seen earlier were on the opposite end of the building. There was no time to wait. He pulled the handle on the door and swung a right hand at the man he knew would be waiting, but he miscalculated how short the stocky man would be. The guard was caught by surprise, but because Lawson had thrown the punch too high, he recovered and wrapped his arms around Lawson’s waist, carrying him backward through the door and onto the landing in the stairwell. The trip ended in Lawson being slammed onto his back, the stout bulldog of a man heavy on top of him.

  Lawson didn’t know much offensive Brazilian jiujitsu, but he had been taught a few defensive moves in prison in exchange for some boxing lessons. He’d drilled them enough that instinct kicked in, and he wrapped his right leg around the outside of the man’s leg, trapping it with his foot on the inside of the man’s knee. When the man raised up to punch him, Lawson trapped the man’s left arm, then bucked his hips, pushed forward with his left arm, and swept the man onto his back, Lawson now in top position. The man punched Lawson in the face, but he had no leverage for power from his back. Lawson dropped an anvil of an elbow down on his forehead, and the man’s body went limp.

  Lawson disengaged immediately and moved back into the hallway, jumping through the open door of the first office so the men at the end of the hallway wouldn’t see him. The sound of their voices carried down the hallway. Lawson could hear every word.

  “I told you we should never have picked him up. And then you brought them straight to me!”

  Lawson then heard a gunshot. The man shouting sounded like Sloan, but it wasn’t as if Lawson had known Sloan long enough to be certain.

  “Listen, I can get us out of this. I speak their language. I have contacts.”

  The second man he heard was having a hard time talking. It was Frank and his broken jaw.

  “Your contacts have brought me nothing but trouble. I gave you a million dollars to get this movie for me.”

  Sloan.

  Sloan continued. “And I let you use my men. I told you that if it didn’t work, or if this brought me trouble, I was going to kill you. Not let you off easy like I did last time. Now here we are. You’ve dug your own grave.”

  “If you kill me, you definitely don’t have a way out of this. You see the lights, the building is surrounded. I’m the only shot you have left.”

  “You’re the reason I’m trapped here!” Sloan shouted.

  Lawson heard a thud, then what sounded like a body dropping to the floor. Then a man groaning. Tough day for Frank Shaw.

  “What do you want me to do, Mr. Sloan?” a new voice asked.

  “Kill the girl. Make it look like Frank did it, then killed himself,” Sloan said.

  “No, I can get you out of this!” Frank slurred.

  He heard Victoria’s daughter begin to sob from a nearby room.

  Something was about to happen either way, and Lawson needed to be ready. The gun he took from the guard downstairs was a Glock. It had a round chambered and was ready to shoot. He crouched and put his back to the open door, ready to strike if he had to.

  “Do it,” Sloan said. “But do it downstairs. I’ll call the police right now and tell them there is a madman in the lobby. Marcos, you erase the cameras. We’ll play it like he cut them or wiped them. Just go do it, you know what to do. José, when you’re finished in the lobby, get right back up here and let’s lock off this floor like we were trying to keep him out. It isn’t much, but it’s all we’ve got. The DA will take care of us. She owes me. Now go get it done, they will be beating down the door any second.”

  “No! Wait! I can fix this!” Frank shouted.

  Then the girl screamed. Lawson secured both hands on his gun. Ready.

  “Yes, police? This is Martin Sloan. There is a madman, Frank Shaw, in my office lobby. There are police here already, but I didn’t know what to do, so I called you. I think he has a girl and is going to kill her. It’s the last thing we saw before our camera system went out. He must have someone else working with him. I think he’s trying to frame me. Please help us. I’m afraid I’m next!”

  Lawson wished he could have caught that performance on camera, but it wasn’t meant to be. He could hear movement and muffled groans and cries getting closer to him. He was hoping they would use the stairs to take Frank and Erin down to the lobby, but he heard the elevator ding. He took a deep breath. It was time to move.

  Lawson swung out into the middle o
f the hallway with his gun extended. When he saw a large man holding Frank, he squeezed the trigger three times, and the man dropped out of sight. Frank lunged forward into the elevator, and the man holding Erin raised his gun. It was too risky to try to adjust aim and shoot only him, so he dove to his left into a nearby office just as the man got a shot off.

  Erin was screaming at the top of her lungs, and the men were shouting at each other trying to figure out what to do next. The air was filled with chaos.

  “Stop,” a man shouted. Probably Sloan. “Mack, get her downstairs and finish what I told José to do. You two, get whoever the hell that is who made it up here!”

  Lawson couldn’t let them take her downstairs. She was dead if they did. He rolled over on his stomach, pushed his torso out around the door, and fired low. If he happened to hit Erin, it’s unlikely it would be fatal. He got several shots off before the return fire came. If nothing else, even if Lawson didn’t make it out of there alive, he knew Sloan was done. The story he set up for Frank to take the fall wouldn’t hold up. The police outside would see and hear the shots being fired on the top floor, which would nullify Sloan’s made-up story of holing up in fear of what was happening downstairs with Frank acting crazy in the lobby.

  Lawson knew he’d hit the man trying to get Erin on the elevator, but he couldn’t tell if it was enough to stop him. The man he shot who was holding Frank had fallen forward, keeping the elevator door from closing. The gunshots in the hallway were getting closer. The men were moving toward him.