Page 34 of Wired Fear

Terence would pay.They all would pay. Getting the tip about the location of the investigators’ office had provided a good focus, an easy first target. He wouldn’t even have to get his hands dirty—he’d save that for later.“Like shooting fish in a barrel. All I have to do is wait.”

Akane pointed the rifle at the entrance to the building. He propped a photo of the investigators that his cousin Penny Chang had provided him against the lamp on a side table near his chair. He would easily recognize that ballbuster Sophie Ang and her jock boyfriend Jake Dunn, but a visual aid never hurt.Too bad he wasn’t going to be able to rape the woman before he killed her.

He was saving that personal touch for Terence’s girl, Julie Weathersby.

Akane opened a bag of pork rinds and a Kona Brewing Company dark ale, and settled in to wait.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jake clattered rapidly down the interior stairs of the Security Solutions office building as he usually did. He was already several steps ahead mentally as he pushed through the glass entry door and stepped outside the building, the file Felicia had given him tucked under his arm. The folder slid out and hit the sidewalk, scattering papers.

Jake bent to the side to retrieve it, and heard the sound of a rifle’s report at the same moment a hot shock of pain bit the back of his calf.

Combat reflexes took over. He dove for cover as his brain scrambled to catch up:who would be shooting at him?

From behind an old blue Chevy Impala parked at the curb, Jake scanned the street, applying pressure to his calf.

Yep. He was shot.

Blood saturated his pants and warmed his hand as he continued to apply pressure to the wound without looking at it, his weapon in his hand.

People were going about their business on the busy thoroughfare only a block away and no further shots rang out.

Jake scanned the building across the street. His eye caught a flash, a glimmer of light on metal several floors up, just as the window of the Impala exploded above him.

“Shit!” Jake covered his head with his arms as safety glass showered him in a rainbow of sharp, jagged little cubes.

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and called 911, barking out the street address and reporting that someone was firing at him from the building across the street. Someone else also must’ve called, because Jake could already hear the wail of sirens in the distance. He slid his phone back into his pocket despite the dispatcher’s protests and squinted up at the window from where the shots had come.

No gleam of metal. No rifle barrel.The shooter had pulled out.

This was his chance. The perp was going to be long gone by the time the cops arrived.

When Jake stood up, pain hit him like a baseball bat. His head swam. Shock was setting in. He didn’t need to examine the injury to know that it was just a through and through to the calf muscle.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a mofo, but he’d fought entire battles with worse.

Jake ripped off his black Security Solutions shirt and leaned down to tie it around his lower leg as tightly as possible. Bare-chested, gun drawn, he ran and hobbled as fast as he could across the road and into the building.

The apartment’s entry foyer was unlocked, and he searched wildly for a set of stairs in the nondescript lobby with its wall of mailboxes. Spotting a door marked STAIRS beside the elevator, he paused to consider.

The car was descending, the lights changing above the door.

Maybe the shooter was coming right to him.

Jake took up a defensive position beside the elevator’s entry, his weapon at the ready, and when ading!announced the car’s arrival, he brought the pistol down, covering the man getting off.

“Stop right where you are. Put your hands on your head.”

The passenger exiting the elevator froze, his mouth open. He dropped a bag he was holding and put his hands on his head. Six feet in height, with gray hair in a ponytail, the middle-aged white male wore a really bad tie-dyed sweatshirt advertising a head shop.

“No gun violence!” Tie Dye yelled. “Get the hell away from me with that murder stick!”

Not his shooter.

Jake shoved the man forward out of the way and jumped inside the elevator. He hit the button for the fourth floor repeatedly.

Years of studying maps and floor plans for various missions had trained him to match locations with internal structures seen from different angles. An internal schematic of where the window was relative to Jake’s current position stayed clear in his mind, and he watched the floors changing impatiently. The first rush of adrenaline was wearing off and pulsing pain had set in, a hot poker beating a tattoo on the back of his leg.

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