Page 50 of Burning Justice

“Glad to hear it.” Lori gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Did you get off any rounds?”

“No.” If he had, Lori would have to confiscate his gun, pending the outcome of a shooting review board.

“Good.” Lori nodded. “What do we know so far?”

“One shooter in a large white SUV. Blaze found eight shell casings.” He held up the evidence bag. “I need to fill out a chain of custody form, then overnight these to the lab. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a hit.”

A Lakewood PD officer Brett had worked with on a case last year, Sergeant Penny Anderson, joined them. She held out her phone for Brett to see. “Marty Estevez, the owner, pulled up footage from the cameras facing the parking lot and the street.”

Lori and Tom moved so that they could view the footage.

“This is from the side camera.” Penny pointed to the camera on the side of the restaurant, the one facing the parking area. “I’ve got it cued up to right before the shooting.”

They watched as Brett and Blaze walked into the frame. Blaze lifted his leg and took care of business. Brett watched himself turn to face the road, then the expression on his face changed. That was the moment he’d realized the driver was pointing a gun at him. Half a second before the window directly behind where he’d been standing exploded, he threw himself on top of Blaze, taking them both to the ground. Innocuously soft pops sounded. Gunfire.

“Jesus,” Lori whispered. “That was close.”

More shots peppered the same vehicle, and they watched the other windows shatter and glass rain down on Brett’s back.

Penny tapped her phone and opened another file. “This is the camera facing the road.”

A white SUV stopped—a GMC Yukon. This time, there was no difficulty in identifying the make and model. The front passenger window rolled down, followed by pops and flashes of light inside the vehicle. The driver’s side door opened, and the shooter got out, running around the hood and standing by the edge of the grass, right where Brett had approximated. The shooter opened fire again, aiming in Brett’s direction. Seconds later, the driver ran back to the car, firing one more shot over his shoulder before getting back in and speeding west on Morrison Road. Until that moment, the camera angle had been facing the side of the car.

“Replay it.” Brett had a bad feeling. “Enlarge it on the shooter and then as the car drives away.”

Penny recued the footage, enlarging it with her fingers. In the shadowy dim light, the image of the shooter held no detail, other than that he was wearing dark clothes and a ball cap.

As Brett suspected, the area on the rear bumper where the license plate should have been was empty. “He took the tags off.” Even if the cameras at the C-470 interchange a mile down the road picked him up, they’d have nothing to identify. Nothing but the make and model of a vehicle that had to be owned by lots of people in this area, let alone the entire state.

Lori pointed to the phone in Penny’s hand. “Was this random or something else? As in, something connected to the case you’re working on.”

“Don’t know.” Yet. But his instincts were firing up full blast.

Brett’s phone rang. Evan. His friend was probably calling to confirm he’d arrived at Gemma’s. “Evan,” he began, but his friend cut him off.

“Sorry, man. I’m not at Gemma’s yet. I witnessed an accident with injuries on I-70 and had to stop. I called Deck to back me up, but he’s tied up with something for another half hour up in Longmont. Just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks. Gotta go.” He ended the call, immediately cuing up Gemma’s number. The need to check up on her, hear her voice, was a repeating drumbeat in his head. He completely understood Evan’s moral and ethical obligation to render aid, but he didn’t like that Gemma was alone in the house. After the fourth ring, his call went to voicemail. He hung up, then called her again. “C’mon, pick up.”

“Something wrong?” Lori asked.

“Don’t know.” He hoped to hell not. There could be a dozen reasons why she wasn’t picking up. She could have fallen asleep and not heard the phone. She could be in the shower. She could be—

Penny’s radio crackled. “Two-seven-five, two-four-two, attempted burglary at 146 Field Street, Lakewood.”

Brett’s heart seemed to stop, then began pounding furiously.

Gemma’s address.

“Blaze!” he shouted, already racing back to his Expedition.

He loaded Blaze into the kennel, then jumped in and cranked the engine. Luckily, his SUV hadn’t been hit by gunfire.

He hit the strobes, then blasted the airhorn so the officers blocking the entrance would make a hole.

The second there was enough space for him to squeeze through the patrol cars, he punched it onto Morrison Road. Behind him, several other sets of strobes followed—the Lakewood PD cavalry.

“Blaze, down!” He glanced over his shoulder to verify his dog had lain down, then hit the C-470 onramp doing eighty, slowing only enough so he didn’t tip over in the curve and fly into a ditch. As he merged onto the highway, he flipped on the siren.