Page 14 of Tasting Fire
“Don’t worry,” Emmy whispered to him. “You know it’s not real. Just paintball.”
He lifted his eyebrows because paintballs could hurt like a son of a bitch, especially at close range.
“Riley and Evie both have on vests, too,” she reassured him.
Before the negotiator could respond to the latest details, two shots went off in rapid succession. Even though Cash had known it was coming, the sound sent a jolt through his body. Didn’t matter how many training exercises he’d participated in, they still tightened his gut.
Was Emmy testing him by using his family members in this scenario?
Captain Styles’s order came through Cash’s headset. “Wedge formation, heavy right, on west corner of the house. Get ready to breach.”
The SWAT team made a tight triangle to approach the bunkhouse. Just before entry, they stacked up close on one another. They breached the bunkhouse door with a small explosive that took the whole damn thing off its hinges.
“Reid’s not gonna be happy about that,” Cash muttered.
Once the team was inside, another shot sounded. And then one more. In such a small physical space, they’d had no choice but to take out the threat, which meant shooting the shooter.
A SWAT operator called back over the comm, “Three down, and the scene is secure.”
Cash jumped up and was the first of the TMT through the door. He took in the situation with a sweep of the small space. Hostage one—aka Riley—had taken a bullet to the left arm. Her dark hair looked as if she’d stumbled into a wind tunnel, and her blue-framed glasses sat cock-eyed on her face.
Evie, hostage two, was lying still. Too still.
And the subject Shep had been disarmed and was on the floor with a sucking chest wound. As tough as it was to ignore the women, Cash dropped down next to Shep to attend to what looked to be the most life-threatening wound in the room.
“Hostage one appears to have a compressible wound,” he called out, then directed Jackson, “check the second hostage for pulse.”
As if they had their own minds, his hands pulled supplies and executed the actions to pack Shep’s “wound” with QuikClot. His brother’s head lolled to the side as if he were unconscious. He was doing a damn good job at playacting and would’ve fooled even Cash if it weren’t for the tiny smile lifting one side of his lips.
“Enjoying this, aren’t you?” Cash muttered to him.
“Maggie said to milk it for all it’s worth. I don’t know what she expected me to milk.”
Well, there was his answer to the Shep recruiting question. Maggie, not Emmy.
“Did you know that fake blood isn’t actually ketchup like a lot of people think?” Shep asked. “I’m glad because that would be a waste of good ketchup. But not if they used the grocery store kind. That shit is nasty.”
Yeah, Shep was picky about the quality of his diet. When they were kids, their dad started making organic ketchup and soon Shep loved the stuff so much that every restaurant in town stocked at least one bottle for him.
And the few times he ventured outside the Steele Ridge area, Shep carted along a little bottle in some sort of holster cooler he’d come up with.
“Emmy said it’s corn syrup. Did you know that dark corn syrup is a good stand-in for drying blood? I had to give Puck a down command so he wouldn’t lick it all off me.” Sure enough, Shep’s golden retriever, trained as a comfort and service dog, was lying in the corner, watching Cash’s every move. Worry for Shep or interest in the syrup, Cash wasn’t certain. Puck was one crazy-smart animal but had a reputation for eating just about anything. “At first, they weren’t going to let me bring Puck, but I told them—”
“Shep,” Cash interrupted his brother. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be talking.”
Shep went quiet and let his body go limp again. Cash regretted his comment immediately because his head was now full of thoughts of Emmy. He forced his focus back to his work, finishing the wound packing. “This one’s ready for transport,” he called out.
He and Jackson transferred Shep to a plastic litter and lifted it under the close observation of Emmy and three SWAT operators. Once outside, Cash and Jackson slid Shep into a waiting ambulance and closed the back doors. Two other team members were directly on their heels, wheeling Riley and Evie into another rig.
Emmy came jogging out of the bunkhouse, a stopwatch held over her head. “Time!” When she glanced down at the piece in her hand, a frown formed between her eyebrows, which said she was less than impressed with their performance.
What the hell? They hadn’t made a misstep in there.
“All right, everyone!” The captain made a lasso motion indicating everyone should gather around. “Let’s debrief up at Tupelo Hill. Miss Joan’s got coffee for everyone.”
Coffee on Tupelo Hill’s porch with its colorful Adirondack chairs should’ve made the debriefing friendlier and less fraught with tension, but even Miss Joan’s special pecan blend and cookies couldn’t unite a team that was making it clear Emmy was an outsider.
An unwanted outsider.
