Page 54 of Night Watch
Kennedy gaped at him. “I can’t imagine it. But then I’ve never considered it. She lived for work.”
“We have to remember the money in the safe.” Aiden peered at her in the rearview mirror. “Maybe Nora’s behavior was more about your mother being involved in something illegal. I could hear everything you guys said, and it seemed like she was evading answering about the phone.”
“She could’ve deleted the files,” Erik stated. “But what would she have deleted?”
They fell silent as they pondered the questions, and Erik continued watching out the window, looking for anything unusual.
At the corner, a shimmer of light coming from a two-story building caught Erik’s eye. He grabbed his binoculars and searched out the window as Aiden approached the intersection to prepare for a left turn.
The shimmer moved. “Something fishy at three o’clock. Above the drug store. Don’t know what. Sunglasses, maybe, but I don’t like it.”
Aiden shifted to look. “Building has an apartment For Rent sign.”
“Could be a shooter hunkered down in a vacant building,” Erik said.
“Let’s not hang around to find out.” Aiden couldn’t barrel into incoming traffic but he eased into the intersection against the light, horns honking at them.
Erik spotted a rifle being lifted into the open window.
“Gun. Get down.” He tossed the binoculars to the floor as bullets peppered his and Kennedy’s side of the SUV. Each round sounded like underwater explosions as the glass splintered but held fast.
“Get us out of here.” Erik plunged over the seat, scooped Kennedy into his arms, and hit the floor with his shoulder to sustain the brunt of the impact. His shoulder wrenched, but it would take far more than that little bit of pain to make him let go of the woman he’d once loved.
“Truck blocking the intersection.” Aiden laid on the horn. “I have to maneuver around him.”
The vehicle swerved to the right. Metal pinged. Glass popped. Exploded. But the SUV held tight—the safety features doing their thing to protect them, as Aiden moved them through traffic.
“What’s happening?” she cried out.
“Assault rifle trained on our SUV. The bulletproofing should hold.”
“Then why tackle me?”
Why indeed?“I’m not taking any chances.”
The barrage continued, bullets flying. They suddenly stopped. The silence deafening. The shooter likely emptied his magazine and was reloading. Took only seconds before thepop-pop-popstarted again, their vehicle feeling like a tin can downrange at rifle practice.
“Finally!” Aiden snapped then floored the gas, and Kennedy trembled under Erik’s body. She was scared and in danger. His fury exploded inside him with the same force as the bullets trying to pierce the SUV.
Aiden wound in and out of traffic. He must’ve managed to dial 911, because suddenly Erik heard the emergency dispatcher through the speakers. Aiden reported the shooting while Erik’s only job right now was to use his body as a human shield.
The spray of bullets stopped. The windows were marked with spidery webs of broken glass, and he couldn’t see through them.
“We should be out of range now,” Aiden said. “Dispatch is sending units to the area. They’ll come to the office to take our statements.”
“Don’t you want to turn around and stop whoever did this?” Kennedy’s high and stressed tone sounded shrill. “He killed my mom!”
“Of course we do.” Erik adjusted his position to take his weight off her. “But our number one goal is to make sure our protectee remains unharmed.”
“And that’s me? I mean, what you think of me?” She squirmed around to look at him, her eyes wide and dark with terror. “A protectee?”
He brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek, keeping his emotions in check and tamping down the desire to kiss away her fear. “You know that’s not all. And if you keep looking at me like that, I’ll do something that might take my focus off the job.”
She blinked a few times. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like you’re one step from losing it.” Like she needed him to hold her close. Which he could easily do considering his position. Just because hecould,didn’t mean he should.
“I’ve never had anyone shoot at me before. And I’ve never even heard a machine gun.” She shuddered.
