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“As you can see, I’m fine,” Tilda insisted, shifting her attention to Jericho. “Good to see you, boy. I’m guessing you’re mixed up in whatever’s going on with my girl here?”
“I mixed him up in it,” Rachel was quick to say. She glanced around. “And it’s not safe for us to be out in the open like this.”
It wasn’t, and Jericho had been about to spell that out himself. He had a bad feeling about this, and apparently, he wasn’t the only one.
“You brought a killer to our doorsteps?” Arnez snarled.
“She was worried about me,” Tilda snapped, and she looked at Jericho again. “You can get Rachel out of this mess she’s in?”
Jericho was about to assure Tilda that he would try.
When the gunshot came right at him.
Chapter Five
----- ??? -----
Rachel heard the sound of the gunshot but didn’t have time to react. That’s because Jericho reacted for her.
He caught hold of her, rushing her into the gates and pushing her to the ground behind a concrete pylon that held the fence in place.
“Get down,” Jericho shouted, but everyone had already started to scramble.
And return fire.
Someone shot in the direction of the gunfire. Arnez, she thought, but she couldn’t be sure. She glanced around, looking for the shooter. For the killer. Looking for Tilda, too, but Rachel couldn’t see her.
No.
This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not when she thought she’d gotten to her aunt in time to save her.
“Aunt Tilda,” she managed to mutter though she wasn’t sure how she could speak. The muscles in her throat had clamped shut.
“She’s okay. Tilda’s taken cover,” Jericho assured her.
That eased some of the tightness, but Rachel wouldn’t breathe easier until she knew for certain that Tilda was all right. And that the killer had been stopped.
“Were you hit?” Jericho asked, and it took Rachel a moment to realize he’d aimed the question at her.
Rachel thought she might be in shock, but she wasn’t in pain and shook her head. “You?”
“No,” he answered, his attention pinned to the dark woods to the right of the van. “The bullet skidded off the shoulder of the vest.”
“Oh, God,” she blurted. “You were nearly shot.”
“Nearly,” he grumbled. “So, either this moron has a bad aim or he wanted to take out a perceived threat. I’m going with option one since there’s a boatload of perceived threats around here.”
Yes, there were, and she prayed one of those threats, her aunt, was staying down so she wouldn’t become an easy target. Rachel didn’t dare risk calling out to Tilda though since the killer might indeed use that to locate her aunt and do what he’d warned Rachel he’d do.
Kill her.
“Hold your fire,” Jericho shouted to the others, and then he added in a lower voice. “I need to be able to pinpoint the location of the shooter.”
“I’ll pinpoint his sorry ass,” Arnez griped, and he kept on shooting, unloading a full clip.
“Arnez,” Tilda scolded in a stern whisper when Arnez finally stopped to reload. “Stand down now.”
At the sound of her aunt’s voice, Rachel felt the relief, an entire avalanche of it. This was the second time tonight she’d had to wait to learn if something horrible had happened to Tilda. But she was okay, and Rachel could see that she was behind a pylon on the other side of the gate.
