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But an even worse feeling started to creep up his spine—the one in his stomach was already working overtime.
“Fuck.”
Lani was right; they’d been effectively separated. Who would break into a police station? The same psychotic motherfucker who’d taken two shots at André, tried to get into Dante’s house, and murdered Lionel Trent, that’s who. Someone extremely dangerous.
“Dante, get your ass down here. One of us needs to get back to the station.”
“Both of you go, sir.” Lani tried to sit up again, gritting her teeth against the pain. “I’ll be fine.”
“One of us needs to stay with you.”
“I don’t think so. Whoever it was is gone now. I think they need both of you at the station.”
Dante crashed to the ground next to them as if he’d leaped out of the tree instead of climbing back down. André glanced around, willing a solution to occur to him that didn’t involve leaving Lani on her own. He wasn’t about to ask a resident to risk their life, even if he suspected that Lani was right, and the shooter was gone. With Trent dead and Lani out of commission, CSPD was down to one person.
Him.
“I have my weapon, sir. Lean me up against the trunk of the tree, like Clint Eastwood. I’ll be good.”
Abruptly, an orange Ford Fiesta came racing down the street and stopped on the wrong side, close to where the three of them were huddled.
Rufus rolled the driver’s side window down.
“Get her in.”
André briefly debated arguing with the older man, to order him to get away from an active crime scene. But what good would it do them? Lani needed to get to the ER. André and Dante had to get back to the station.
“Can you get Lani to the ER?” he asked. “Dante and I have something we need to take care of.”
Rufus lifted his hand to his forehead in a makeshift salute. “Glad to be of service. Load her up.”
Ignoring the little voice in his head asking him if it was proper procedure to ask this of an older civilian, he and Dante lifted Lani off the ground. In under a minute, she was wrapped in a spare blanket and strapped into the back of the Fiesta. All without any more gunshots—Lani and Dante were right, the shooter was gone. Rufus took off, heading south toward Aberdeen, and André and Dante didn’t hesitate.
“I need to clear the house,” André said. “Take my Jeep and get back to the station.”
“Fuck that, we’ll call and tell them to lock up tight. I’m not letting you go inside that house alone.”
There was no time to argue. Ignoring him, André jogged across the roadway to the house in question. A neighbor ventured out onto their porch.
“Get inside,” André ordered. “This is a police matter.”
“The house is a vacation rental. Several men have been staying there a few days now,” the man yelled before scurrying back inside.
“Several men? Surely if one of them had been Deputy Trent, that guy would have said so?” Dante observed.
They mounted the porch stairs. André was already second-guessing himself. Maybe they should have immediately returned to the station. But there was immediate danger right here and it was literally his job to protect the residents of Cooper Springs. Carol had locked all the doors in the station. She and Dani would be fine.
And there was a bridge for sale too.
With Dante by his side, André rapped on the door. There was no answer, not that he had expected one.
“Again?” prompted Dante. “Or should one of us go around back?”
Shaking his head, André banged on the door again, louder and longer. This time he thought he heard a sound. Something anyway.
“Did you hear that?”
“Maybe,” André said. “It could have been the wind.”
