“Let’s head out. There isn’t anything here,” one of the other men called out and they all agreed.
Down on the first floor, the rest of the crew silently fell back to the vehicle tucked away behind another building. Preston and Dylan agreed to one final sweep of the perimeter. Something to Preston felt off and took one last glance over his shoulder before exiting. That was when he saw them approach. A red light pointed directly at their chests.
He couldn’t make out their faces, but the moment the smallest person spoke, he knew the identity in an instant.
Chills ran down his body as a second laser pointed on Dylan’s chest and then his own. They were outnumbered, and he wondered the whereabouts of the rest of his team.
“They’re all gone,” the female voice said with certainty. “We picked them off like cattle, killing each on.”
“Why, Jackie?”
“Why not? Fortune, fame, a private island in the Pacific. Pick your choice.”
“But what is this about? How is this happening? It doesn’t make sense. You have a family.”
“I’ve been trying to get you and your nosey staff out of the picture for months, but you can’t see to take the hint. The longer hours didn’t bother ypu until that girl moved to town, messing everything up.
“And Family? You mean my son Damon? He was easy enough to disguise with a name change. See, when he fell into drugs in high school, I borrowed some money to get him into rehab. That was when I got the job in the office under the old Sheriff. He didn’t pay enough attention to me or what I was doing, so I found the right people to make contact with. Drugs were the easiest sell, and soon I had enough money for my divorce. Then weapons and human trafficking seemed like the easiest next choice. That little boy you keep around was going to be my next venture, but you kept getting in the way. See, Harposia says you know too much and she wants you gone. It’s my job to do her bidding. Except, of course, she doesn’t know my plan to fly off into the sunset. My plane is taxiing as we speak.”
“But, Jackie, I thought. . .”
“Well, you thought wrong!” she shouted. “Everyone thought wrong!”
The next moment seemed to go in slow motion. Preston watched in the moonlight as Jackie tightened her finger on the trigger. He wasn’t sure who she was aiming toward, but he knocked Dylan to the ground without a second thought and Preston covered him with his body. Even at the weird angle he laid, he focused on his night-vision goggles' green screen figures and fired until they laid at a pool on the floor.
Preston wasn’t sure how many bullets he had taken to the chest, legs, and arms, but he knew he was losing blood fast.
“You okay, man?” he asked his best friend, who rolled out from underneath his heavy body. He wasn’t sure if Dylan responded because the sound of his slowing heartbeat echoed in his ears until he heard the telltale sound of silence.
***
“Shelly! Please open up!” Incessant knocking on her door woke Shelly up from a fitful sleep. Hearing the agony in how her name was called had her running from her bedroom and opening the door.
“Sydney? Amy? What’s going on?”
“I don’t have time to explain, but you need to come with me. There’s been an emergency and we need to get to Atlanta now. Amy is going to watch Abel until we get back.”
Fear pierced her heart as she instinctively knew that Preston was in trouble.
“Okay, Give me a minute to change,” she pleaded as tears welled up in her eyes. She couldn’t see what clothes she threw on her body, but frankly, she didn’t care. And in less than an hour, she was careening down a runaway with Sydney on a private plane to Georgia.
“Family members only,” a nurse said as they approached the station in the emergency room.
“She’s his fiancée,” Dylan replied for her when Shelly couldn’t form the words. He had met them at the airport and sped them to the hospital Preston was admitted to.
“Follow me,” the nurse said with a nod.
Shelly didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t want to know how bad he was or how close to death. She just knew that when he had a single moment of consciousness, he had asked for her. And her heart pieced itself back together at the knowledge.
“Oh, Preston,” she whispered as she walked into the room and found him lying in a hospital bed. His head was wrapped in gauze and his skin was paler than usual.
Dylan leaned toward her ear and said in a choked-up voice, “I can’t tell you what happened, but he’s going to be okay. He took a lot of bullets, but he saved my life. I will never be able to repay him.”
“Shut up, you don’t owe me anything,” Preston groaned as he shifted in bed.
“Oh, good. You’re awake, grumpy. You have a visitor.”
Preston seemed to work hard to pry his eyes open, and when they landed on Shelly standing at the end of his bed, they widened in surprise.