CHAPTER 13
A gunshot rang out.
“Get down!” Brooke screamed.
She took a running leap at Cameron and they crashed to the ground in a heap. The air flew from Brooke’s lungs, and Fenway was on her instantly, barking and nipping with his sharp teeth.
Brooke flattened herself over Cameron as he yelped and kicked. Kaitlyn’s shrieks surrounded them.
“Stay down!” Brooke yelled.
More barks. A squeal of brakes. Teeth clamped around Brooke’s elbow, and she tried to shake off the dog.
“Cameron! Cameron!”
His mother’s voice was shrill with panic as she grabbed Brooke’s arm and pulled her off her son. Brooke cast a frantic glance at the street, but the pickup was long gone.
“Cameron!”
Brooke turned to the boy. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth and he looked dazed.
Kaitlyn crouched beside him, yelling and crying and running her hands over his head. Blood streamed down Kaitlyn’s arm, and Brooke couldn’t see where it was coming from.
“Oh, my God! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Kaitlyn touched her hands to her son’s face, smearing his cheeks with red.
“What was that? Mom, what happened?” He grabbed Fenway and pulled him against his chest.
Brooke pushed to her feet, but her knees buckled and she sank to the ground. Her heart pounded as she fumbled to pull her phone from her pocket.
“Call 911!” Kaitlyn shouted. “Cameron, answer me, baby! Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.” He blinked up at her. “But . . . Mom, you’re bleeding.”
• • •
Brooke cast an anxious glance around as she leaned against her car.
“Could you describe the vehicle, ma’am?”
She looked up at Jasper. “A black pickup truck,” she said for the umpteenth time. “It was old. I didn’t get the make or the model.”
“When you say ‘old’—”
“Nineties or earlier. I don’t know, really. I only saw it for a second.”
Jasper jotted something in his notepad.
Brooke looked around impatiently. She’d been through this already with the responding officer. She shifted her gaze to the middle of the street where that officer was now using a police department camera to snap a picture of the skid marks at the end of the block. Brooke had already taken the same shots with her cell phone so she could trace the tire marks without having to wait for the police to get around to it.
“Ma’am?”
She sighed. “Would you stop with that, please?”
“Sorry. Brooke.” Jasper shifted on his feet. “Do you remember the window color? Was it tinted? Clear?”
“The window was rolled down. I don’t remember.”
“Did you get a look when it sped away, maybe?”
“No. I didn’t see him leave. I just heard him. I was on the ground with Cameron.”
Brooke looked at the house now. Even from the street she could hear Cameron’s little dog inside barking up a frenzy as police swarmed the property. Both ends of the street had been barricaded, and uniforms were combing the asphalt for shell casings.
“Brooke?”
“Sorry. What?” She snapped out of her daze and looked at Jasper. He was being incredibly patient with her as her attention hopped around like a rabbit on speed.
“I said, don’t you want to get that checked out?” He nodded at her arm. Brooke had wrapped it in a T-shirt from her car.
“I’m good.”
He gave her a disapproving look as he flipped shut his notepad. “Suit yourself. If you do go to the hospital, maybe swing by the station house after. You could look at our vehicle photos and something might jump out.”
A gray pickup halted beside the barricade. Brooke’s heart skittered as Sean got out and homed in on her instantly. His look of relief turned to determination as he strode over.
“Why aren’t you at the hospital?” He looked her up and down. She’d mentioned the dog bite when she talked to him on the phone earlier.
“Because I’m fine.” Especially now that Sean was here. Even with all the police milling around, she felt better with him near her.
He took her good arm and shifted her behind the door of her car, as though to shield her from stray bullets. “That dog could have rabies, Brooke.”
“He doesn’t. Cameron’s mom said he’s had all his shots.”
Sean didn’t look placated.
“How are they?” Brooke asked.
“Ric’s with them. Kaitlyn is getting stitches where the bullet grazed her. She’s lucky she wasn’t killed.” Sean’s eyes held Brooke’s, and she knew what he was thinking.
Brooke was lucky, too. And Cameron. Just thinking how close they’d all come to something catastrophic made Brooke break out in a cold sweat. She looked away, hoping Sean wouldn’t pick up on her distress. It had been almost an hour, and her pulse was still pounding as though she’d just run a sprint.
“Hey.” He took her hand. “Look at me.”
She did. His hand felt warm and infinitely reassuring, and she couldn’t bring herself to tug hers away this time. It was all she could do not to wrap her arms around him and bury her face against his chest.
“Let me get you out of here,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll take you to get your arm treated and then have an officer take you home.”
She wanted him to take her home. But of course he couldn’t do that because he had way too much going on now. This was his case. She got it. But that didn’t make the reality any easier to swallow. It was going to be a long, anxious, solitary night.
Brooke pulled her hand from his.
“I don’t need to get it treated. It’s a scratch, I told you.”
“Mind if I look?”
She shrugged. He carefully lifted her arm and unwrapped the T-shirt. The pink fabric was dark with blood where he peeled it away from the wound.
He gave her a grim look.
“It’s no big deal. I cleaned it up inside the house. I’ll put some ointment on it when I get home.” She replaced the makeshift bandage. “Tell me more about Kaitlyn. Has Ric interviewed her?”
Sean watched her a moment. “Yes.”
“And Cameron?”
“Callie talked to Cameron. She’s good with kids.”
“And?”
“And Cameron says he went by Samantha’s house that night. He said he rang the doorbell, but she wasn’t there. Then he headed home and crashed his bike on the way.”
Brooke’s heart sank. “He really said that?”
“Yes.”
“He’s lying.”
“He’s terrified. We need to get a child psychologist in to talk to him, see if we can get the real story out of him.”
“Well, what was he doing there?”
“His mother said he goes to Samantha’s house sometimes to hang out while she’s at work, sort of an informal thing. Samantha gave him a key, which makes me doubt his whole story that he rang the doorbell that night.”
Brooke shook her head, frustrated. “What about protection for them?”
“I’m working on it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m working on it.”
Brooke looked at the weedy lawn that was now a crime scene. The sight of the bloodstained grass made her stomach tighten. “Sean . . . I feel like I led him here.”
“Who?”
“Whoever it is that’s after Cameron.”
“You didn’t.”
She searched Sean’s face, looking for clues that he believed that. “How do you know?”
“Because you didn’t. We’re not even sure this drive-by is related to Samantha’s murder.”
“But . . . why not? What else would it be related to? The killer had to have seen him flee the scene. He knows he has a witness, and he’s coming after him.”
“Take a step back, Brooke. It’s a drive-by shooting. Maybe there’s a drug connection here. Or some kind of gang violence. We have to look at everything, and right now we don’t know nearly enough about Samantha Bonner or Kaitlyn Spence, or who would have wanted to target either of them.”
“What about Cameron? He’s the target here. He’s an eyewitness, and someone’s trying to silence him.”
“Maybe. We have to look at all possibilities.” Sean paused. “Which is why I need to ask you something you’re not going to like.”
She drew back. “What?”
“Any chance you might have been the target?”
Brooke went cold.
“You told police the vehicle was a black pickup. Matt Jorgensen drives a black pickup.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“You ex could be involved here. You have to at least consider the possibility.”
“No. Never in a million years.”
Sean stared at her, his face unreadable.
“It isn’t possible.”
“Anything’s possible.”
Brooke shook her head, frustrated beyond words. She slid behind the wheel of her car.
“Where are you going?”
“To the police station. To comb through vehicle photos. To identify the truck from this shooting so that we can develop real leads and stop wasting time on wild theories.”
“I can take you,” Sean said. “It’s on my way to the hospital.”
“I’m fine.”
“Brooke—”
“Stop worrying about me!” She started up her car. “The person you should be worried about is Cameron Spence!”