Page 7 of Outlaw Ridge: Reed
Declan and Shaw didn’t hesitate. They made a beeline to their cruiser and got Aaron inside it before they drew their weapons as well.
“How far out is the ambulance?” Hallie asked Marcie as the three of them raced toward one of the other cruisers.
“Less than five minutes,” Marcie blurted, her breathing not any steadier than Hallie’s.
Unlike Reed’s. He seemed unshaken. On the outside anyway. But Hallie knew him well enough to know that his clever mind was already spinning, processing this and coming up with scenarios and key information. Her mind worked like a cop, but Reed’s was a cop mixed with tech skills and a warrior’s drive.
And at the moment he was very much pissed.
Not in shock. But pissed that they’d been attacked like this on what he would consider his watch. Hallie wasn’t so pleased about it either.
Especially since she had likely been the reason this had happened.
The three of them hurried behind the cruiser, dropping down so they wouldn’t be easy targets for a sniper. Hallie fired glances around them, looking for any signs of their attacker. She didn’t see anyone, but the person could still be here, either watching with delight at their sick accomplishments or else looking for the best angle to deliver a kill shot.
In the distance, she heard the wail of an ambulance. Good. Aaron would be on his way to the hospital soon where she hoped he got medical attention in time. Well, he would unless there was another attack that forced her to have the ambulance and EMTs wait until it was safe.
Hallie definitely didn’t want any delays like that.
She continued to glance around and saw that Reed was doing the same. He stopped though, his body going stiff, and she followed his gaze and spotted what she thought was a blur of motion in some trees behind the house. Hallie levered herself up to get a better look.
Just as the second blast ripped through the house.
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Chapter Four
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Reed sat at his desk in the bullpen and watched the dashcam feeds that’d come from the three cruisers that had been at the Garner house. Or rather he rewatched it.
Frame by frame.
Images of what had started as a routine callout for a domestic check and ended with, well, a shitstorm.
The dashcams had captured all their movements in and out of the house. And they’d recorded the final blast that had torn the place to smithereens. Soon, Reed would know just what kind of explosive device it’d taken for that to happen, but for now, the focus was on putting the pieces together.
Literally in some cases.
The bomb squad would be looking for any parts of the explosive so they could try to work out a signature to help ID and find who’d done this. And the CSIs and ME’s teams were trying to get out the two bodies to confirm Walt’s remains and figure out who the female victim was. Along with that, they’d perhaps find some other critical info to help with the investigation.
Good thing, too, because the crime scene had been blown up with the house. That was possibly why the killer had set the explosives in the first place, but Reed suspected it’d had more to do with attempting to murder Hallie.
And that shot raw anger through him.
Hallie had been through enough, and she’d done nothing to deserve this. Hell, the dead couple in the house likely hadn’t either. That made him want to find the asshole killer who had done this and make them pay and pay hard.
Of course, the first step was finding the asshole.
And that’s why he was reviewing the dashcam feeds.
He winced when he shifted in the chair and got a jab of pain. It felt as if his body had been beat to hell and back. And in a way it had been. He had too many bruises and nicks to count, but thankfully he’d need no stitches, and the EMTs had cleared him for duty.
It was the same for Hallie. No stitches and a green light to return to work. And since he could see her—bruised and battered—in her office talking on the phone, he knew she was functioning and focusing on unraveling the shitstorm. So was Owen. He was in there with her and making some calls of his own.
Declan, Shaw, and Marcie hadn’t been seriously injured either. That was something at least. But Aaron was a whole different story. His chest had been crushed by that damn beam that’d fallen on him, and he had broken ribs and other internal injuries. He had come out of surgery to fix those injuries, but he was in critical condition and might not make it.
Yeah, Reed wanted the asshole responsible for this to pay for what had been done.
