"Copy that, Wells. Advising Palmer PD of your response. Notifying Sheriff Blackwater."
I'm already moving, yanking open my truck door and firing the engine. Palmer PD units will be rolling from all over town, but I'm two blocks away. Close enough that I might beat the first responders to the scene.
I flip the lights and pull out of the courthouse parking lot.
Two blocks disappear fast. I run tactical scenarios in my head while navigating traffic that's pulling to the side to let me pass. An active shooter in a hospital parking garage means confined space, multiple levels, civilians everywhere. Law enforcement nightmares don't get much worse.
Except something doesn't fit.
Active shooters don't operate in parking garages. They want visibility, body count, maximum terror before getting taken down. Parking garages are execution sites, locations for targeted hits and professional work done by people who understand how to control the environment.
My thoughts crystallize as I push well past the speed limit. Montrose used contractors—clean operators who knew how to make problems disappear without leaving evidence that pointed back to the network. We found two of them during theinvestigation, both dead before they could talk, both killed with the kind of precision that told us someone was cleaning house.
If this connects to Montrose's operation, if the network he built is still running, they'd use the same playbook. They'd deploy professional hitters with suppressed weapons. They'd eliminate targets in locations where witnesses scatter and evidence gets contaminated by panic.
Palmer Regional's parking garage sits on the north side of the hospital, a multi-level concrete structure that serves staff and visitors who don't want to walk from the main lot. I pull in hard, tires squealing on the ramp down to the lower level where dispatch said the shooting occurred.
Chaos hits me all at once.
People are running, scrambling for cover, some pressed against concrete pillars with their hands over their heads. A woman is screaming somewhere to my left. Gunpowder hangs sharp and chemical in the air, recent enough that my nose burns with it. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, half of them flickering like they can't decide whether to stay on or give up entirely.
A Subaru Outback sits in the middle of it all with three holes punched through the windshield.
I'm out of my vehicle before I've fully processed the shot pattern. Training takes over—years of CID work and enough firefights to know the difference between panic fire and professional marksmanship. I draw my weapon, scan the garage for active threats. Nothing moves except terrified civilians trying to make themselves smaller.
A tight grouping shows through the windshield, center mass, angled from a position of cover. Whoever fired those shots knew precisely where their target would be sitting, knew the vehicle, knew the timing. This was planned and calculated.
"Sheriff's deputy," I call out. "Anyone injured?"
A man crouched behind a pickup truck points toward the Subaru. "Woman. Behind the car. She's pinned down."
I move tactically, using vehicles for cover, weapon up and ready. The shooter could still be here. Could be waiting for law enforcement to arrive, setting up for a second engagement. I clear angles as I advance, checking sight lines and potential ambush points. My boots echo on the concrete, too loud in the unnatural quiet that follows gunfire. Everyone's holding their breath, waiting to see if the violence is over or just paused.
Then I see her.
A woman, maybe early thirties, is pressed tight against the rear quarter panel of the Subaru with her back to the tire. Hair pulled back, scrubs stained with what looks like coffee. Her hands are steady. Her breathing is controlled. She's not panicking, not frozen, just calculating her options with combat veteran calm, knowing how to wait for her moment.
"Sheriff's deputy," I announce, keeping my voice level. "What's your situation?"
She doesn't flinch at my approach. Her eyes track to me, assess, and then flick back to a point across the garage.
"Shooter's gone," she says. "Left through the stairwell on the east side a few minutes ago. Male, maybe six feet, dark jacket, moved like he knew what he was doing. Three shots fired, all through my windshield, suppressed weapon based on the sound profile."
I blink.
Most civilians in a shooting freeze up or lose their ability to articulate anything beyond "someone's shooting." This woman just gave me a tactical brief that would make a field commander proud. Her hands are steady. Her voice is even. Tension around her eyes shows fear, but she's functioning through it with discipline that doesn't come from weekend self-defense classes.
"You see the weapon?"
"Handgun. Couldn't tell you the model, but the suppressor was professional grade, not some homemade can. He fired from cover behind that concrete pillar." She nods toward a structural column across the garage. "Had the angle on the driver's seat through the windshield. I went low and came around the back before he could adjust."
I study the angle she's describing. The pillar provides clean cover with a direct line of sight to the driver's seat through the windshield. From that position, you could wait for a target to approach their vehicle, take the shot while they're still processing movement, and be gone by the time anyone reacts.
"You military?"
"Trauma nurse. You learn to stay calm when things go sideways." She meets my eyes, and intelligence sharpens her gaze despite what just happened. "He wasn't trying to scare me. He was trying to kill me, and he knew where to wait to do it."
That's what matters. Not just that someone tried to kill her, but that they knew her vehicle, her schedule, her routine well enough to set up an ambush in precisely the right location at the right time.
