Brass in Pocket (25 page)

Catherine broke into a run as soon as she heard the shots, holding her badge out in one hand and her weapon by her side in the other. Liz Tavrin came behind her. Catherine picked one of the store employees, a thirty-something African-American woman who struck her as anxious but not panicked, and approached her.

“LVPD!” she called. She moved right in front of the woman, so her badge would be seen, and stopped, blocking her way. “What's going on inside?”

“I don't know,” the woman said, halting suddenly. “Someone's shooting in there!”

Shoppers and store staff streamed past them. The woman was obviously ready to move on, but Catherine grabbed her arm. “Did you see any police officers inside?”

“Two or three went in. Not all together, but separately. That's when the shooting started, when they went toward the back.”

“Okay,” Catherine said. “Thank you. You'd better move on away from the windows.”

The woman nodded and hurried away. Catherine looked toward the doors again, but they had gone still. She couldn't see any movement from inside.

“You still want to go in?” Liz asked.

Clichés warred in Catherine's head.
Discretion is the better part of valor. Fortune favors the brave
.

Hell with it. Brass is in there, and Tavrin's partner. Maybe Antoinette O'Brady
. Caution dictated waiting for backup, but when lives were on the line, sometimes cops had to take chances.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“What are we standing around for, then?”

I think I like this lady
, Catherine thought. She gave Tavrin a grin and started for the doors.

She approached the big plate-glass windows from the side, not wanting to present an easy target in case someone was inside drawing a bead on the doorway. Hanging her badge on her belt, she pressed one hand against the glass to cut the glare and peered into the store.

She saw no movement at all. Lights burned in fixtures hanging from the high ceiling, and others glowed at cash register stations, indicating which lanes were open. Those were probably the first employees who had exited, though, since they had been so close to the doors when the shots rang out.

Just as it struck Catherine that there had been no other shots, she heard two in quick succession. Muzzle flashes flared near the back of the store, briefly illuminating the far wall. There was no indication of backup on the way, but Catherine had to get inside just the same. She hurried to the door, moving at a crouch in hopes that the cash registers would block her from the view of anyone inside. Liz Tavrin followed suit.

At the door, Catherine paused for the briefest
instant, swallowing hard. Time to get it done. She raised her weapon, supported it with her free hand, and swung inside. Liz moved almost simultaneously, covering the lower half of their field of view while Catherine took the upper, tracking across the store, point to point. The faintest scent of disinfectant hung in the air; the floors had probably been mopped during the night.

“Las Vegas Police Department!” Catherine shouted. “I need everyone in here to put down their weapons and move slowly toward the front, hands on your heads!”

A shot rang out. Catherine and Liz both ducked, and one of the big windows took the bullet, cracking but not shattering.

“This is your last warning!” Catherine called. “You're shooting at a police officer!”

“Catherine?” A familiar voice.

“Jim?”

“They don't care, Cath! They
are
police officers!” Brass's voice came from the left rear of the store, but she couldn't pin it down more than that. She couldn't ask him for his location because he might be hiding from someone.

Not just someone, she was certain. Officers Wolfson and Tuva.

She beckoned to Tavrin and the two of them hurried at a crouch to the nearest register lane. The heavy counter and machinery would help block any rounds from deeper in the store. But they couldn't stay there for long. They had to keep moving, find out what was really going on.

Like Tavrin, Catherine had been inside other
Select Stop Mart locations. As far as she could tell from here, this one was laid out in a similar fashion to the others. Off to the right of the cashier lanes were sections of cleaning supplies, then pets, cosmetics, and health and first-aid supplies. Groceries started after that, wrapping around the corner. Across a wide aisle from those were cards and gifts, then linens, kitchenware, and small appliances. Directly across from the registers were women's clothing and a small glass jewelry counter. Women's clothes blended into children's wear, then men's, with shoes at the very back. Going left from the registers took one into office and school supplies and crafts, then around the corner into housewares, home improvement, and home furnishings. Beyond those, along the back wall, came toys, electronics, CDs and DVDs, and books.

“How many are there, Jim?” Catherine called.

He wouldn't answer if doing so would put him in danger.

“Three,” he said.

A shot sounded, then a ricochet. Something smashed, back in Jim's corner.

“Jim?”

“Fine,” he called.

Something had been nagging at her, and she had just figured out what. Where was Antoinette? If the suspects had her, they would be using her as a hostage, trying to lure Jim into the open. If Brass had her, he would be trying to get her out of the store. As it was, it seemed like everyone had claimed a protected area and was essentially trapped there.

“Backup will be here any second!” she called. She hoped, anyway. But the bad guys didn't have to know that part.

“A bus?”

“Someone hurt?” Was that why Antoinette wasn't a factor?

“Cop got shot in back. And a security guard.”

“Dave?” Tavrin asked.

Oh, no,
Catherine thought. Tavrin tensed up, her eyes saucering. Catherine knew what she would do possibly before she did. “Tavrin, don't!”

She was too late. Tavrin darted out from the protection of the cash register and darted toward the back of the store, weapon out to fire, as if she could get off a decent shot at a full sprint. “Dave!” she screamed.

Her voice echoed through the empty space. Her boots thundered on the linoleum floor.

The gunshots that cut her down were louder still.

Catherine watched for muzzle flashes, light blooming in the store's center right, and she squeezed off two shots in that direction. Brass did the same.

A spray of blood burst from Liz Tavrin's left shoulder. The round caught her in midstride, spinning her so the blood arced around her as she fell.

Catherine ducked back behind the register and used her radio to call for paramedics. Dispatch assured her that backup was less than five minutes out, and that multiple units were responding. Not wanting them to sound off and give her position away, she switched off her radio and her cell phone.
Once that was taken care of, she had to get Tompkins out of the line of fire. Then she had to reach Brass, needed to find out what the score was. Catherine felt like she was stumbling in the darkness. Dangerous enough under ordinary circumstances, far worse when bullets were flying.

You're a scientist, Willows
, she reminded herself.
You're not a street cop. Wait for backup
.

The world outside had gone silent, though. No sirens wailed in the distance. It was as if the store had been cut off from everything, untethered from the earth and floating alone in the vacuum of space.

No, she couldn't wait. With Tavrin down, Catherine and Brass were on their own.

“L
IZ
,” C
ATHERINE CALLED
, remembering Officer Tavrin's first name. “Can you move?”

The downed cop groaned and shifted position on the floor. She pressed her right hand against the wound on her shoulder. “Not much,” she said.

“I'm coming,” Catherine promised. “Jim, give me cover!”

She started toward the fallen officer. Jim waited until she had covered about half the distance, then fired three shots in the direction from which the last muzzle flashes had come, spaced well apart. They kept the bad guys, who she still believed were Officers Wolfson and Tuva, pinned down long enough for her to get to Tavrin. Moving her might be rough on the officer, but it would be better than getting shot again.

She looped an arm around Tavrin's shoulders and hoisted her up. The officer shrieked in pain and tears sprang from her eyes as Catherine half-dragged
her, aided by the slick linoleum, back to relative safety between two of the cashier stands. “Stay put,” she urged. “Help's on the way.”

Tavrin grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Thanks,” she whispered between clenched teeth.

Catherine nodded once, then abandoned her there. She went back around to the front of the register stands and moved at a low crouch as far left as she could. From there she headed for the far wall, racing past aisles of pens and markers and envelopes, paper and poster boards and scrapbooking supplies. At the corner she passed through housewares and into home improvement. So far, no one had shot at her.

Spotting a lightweight hammer, she yanked it off the shelf and went to the end of the aisle. It was a good weight, and she wouldn't have minded having something like it at home. For the moment, though, she had a different use in mind. She cocked her arm back and Frisbee'd it through the air. It spun and spun (the rubberized handle throwing its arc off, curling it left and down sooner than she had hoped). It crashed into a shelf somewhere amidst the kids' clothing and hit the ground with a raucous clatter. Shots came from somewhere off to the right—but not as far back as before, Catherine believed—tearing toward the sound.

So the bad guys were on the move. Good to know.

She was too.

Ducking back to the far aisle, she continued toward the rear of the store. In the furniture section, tall bookcases and heavy desks offered cover. She
used it to move closer to the store's center. Catherine was pretty sure Jim was somewhere in the men's clothing, sheltered by shelving units thick with denim jeans and cotton T-shirts. In winter he would have had more protection, with the fleece and hoodies and heavy coats out. No one bought winter clothes in Las Vegas in the summer, not with temperatures hovering in the triple digits. Maybe the occasional adventure tourist preparing for an Antarctic jaunt did, but those people didn't shop at Select Stop Mart.

Lowering to her hands and knees, she sighted across the floor and saw a shoe that seemed out of place. When she found the sock and dress pants connected to it, she knew it was Brass. She crept forward, making sure there were plenty of racks or shelving structures between her and the far side of menswear. “Jim,” she whispered. “Behind you.”

He twisted, looking back over his shoulder. He didn't quite smile, but acknowledged her with the arch of an eyebrow and a finger raised to his lips. She went closer, stopping behind a circular rack of dress pants. “Where's Antoinette?”

“She was in custody,” he said at a low whisper. “But they got here before me. They were taking her out when I showed up. The store security guard tried to play hero and they shot him. Then that other cop barreled in and they got him, too. Antoinette broke free during the shooting and I haven't seen her since.”

Catherine scanned her memory, but she hadn't seen Antoinette leaving the store after the first gunshots she'd heard. She had stared long and hard at
the woman's picture during the night, and she had known Antoinette might be in the store, so she had studied each face coming out.

“I think she's still in here,” said Catherine, “unless she went out the back.”

“No. We all started out in back. She took off into the front. We followed, and here we are.”

“Backup should be here any second,” Catherine said.

“I don't hear any yet.”

“I don't either,” she admitted.

She was about to ask if he had a plan when a voice sounded. She recognized Wolfson's high-pitched tone. “I see you, Mrs. Blago! Hold it right there!”

“Damn it!” Brass said. He burst from his hiding place and ran toward the voice, toward the rear wall.

Instead of following, Catherine stayed low and dashed toward the front, cutting across to the center at the same time. She stopped in the boys' department, breathing hard, her back against a solid blond oak cube holding shirt-and-tie combinations wrapped in plastic.

From there, peering under the miniature suits, she could see Antoinette O'Brady, frozen close to a swinging door that led into the back area. Wolfson was close to her and moving in, his gun pointed at her head. Brass closed in too, but Wolfson had the advantage. Wolfson stopped with the barrel of his weapon just inches from Antoinette's head.

“Just put that piece on the ground, Captain,”
Wolfson said. “And maybe everybody'll come out of this alive.”

“Look,” Brass said. “You know how it works. This place will be surrounded inside of two minutes. Then things get complicated. Nobody's going to let you walk away, but if you hurt me or Mrs. Blago, then things get that much worse.”

“Don't listen to him!” another voice called. It didn't sound like Tuva, and Catherine didn't recognize it. “There's already a dead security guard and two shot cops. How much worse can it get?”

“Yeah, well, if you had hit her in the first place we wouldn't be here,” Wolfson said.

“If you're going to kill us anyway,” Jim said, “then I got nothing to lose, do I?”

Catherine didn't like the way the conversation was headed. She decided to bring an end to it while she could.

Brass had not shot at Wolfson while he was standing behind tall, voluptuous Antoinette. Catherine didn't have much of a shot either—she would have to thread it under the boys' suits and between a couple of CD racks. But Antoinette wasn't directly in her line of fire. And Brass was right—these guys were in too deep to let anybody out alive. They had to close it down before backup came, which meant life spans were measured in seconds.