I sucked in air, keeping my body low, trying to see the shooter. It was too dark. The wind increased in force, scattering snow and ice. My entire body was cold, but adrenaline was keeping me from shaking too much.
The sound of an engine ripped through the quiet night.
“Damn it.” Bud angled around the car and kept low, running across the street.
I straightened, my aim at the darkened forest, ready to provide cover for him if necessary.
He reached the tree line and disappeared from sight.
“Bernie?” I called out, ducking and edging toward my client.
He crawled out from beneath some snow-covered holly bushes, ice and snow clinging to his wool jacket. “You okay?” he asked, reaching his feet and running toward me.
“Yes.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him down behind the car. The wind speared through my jacket right to my spine, freezing me head to toe. My teeth started to chatter, and my knees had gone numb from kneeling to shoot. “You sure you’re all right?”
He patted himself down and then coughed several times. “Yeah. I wasn’t hit.” He looked over the car at the silent forest on the other side of the road. “Now we know. The shooter was definitely aiming for me and not for you.”
I gulped and nodded, the cold slithering beneath my skin to attack every bone. I shivered. “You’re right. I couldn’t make out the features of the shooter.”
“Me either, but it had to be Hoyt,” Bernie said, gasping for air, his breath puffing out. He leaned over and spat into the snow. “Man, it’s cold.”
My hands shook so hard I put my gun back into my purse. “Let’s get in the car. Bud will yell if he finds anything.”
“I didn’t,” Bud said, appearing by the trunk.
I gasped and lost my breath, my ears ringing. Where had he come from?
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” He opened the back door for Bernie. “Inside.”
I stood and tried to brush snow off my body, but it was clinging with icy clumps. “Did you see anything?”
“Taillights of a truck down a logging road,” Bud said, snow covering his uniform to his thighs from his run through the forest. “That’s it. Only saw the shape of a truck and no plate. Nothing.”
Bernie lumbered into the backseat, and Bud shut the door before opening mine.
I stomped my boots somewhat free of ice and sat, waiting until he’d shut my door to put my purse on the wet floor.
He started the engine, and forceful heat washed over me. My hands and feet felt dead, and they instantly started to warm up with painful tingles. I winced and rode out the agony.
Bud called in details about the shooting, and sirens already sounded toward I-90. Apparently the apartment residents had called for help as well.
I pressed my head back on the headrest and tried to warm up, but a hard ball of ice remained at my core.
Within minutes, detectives and uniformed officers appeared, followed by crime tech analysts. Thank goodness we were in Idaho and not Washington, considering I’d had a concealed weapon that I had fired several times.
Detective Pierce was one of the first to arrive, and after having taken our statements, went door to door to interview people from the apartments.
From what I could make out, nobody had seen the shooter or could think of any odd trucks or happenings during the last few days.
Finally, Pierce strode to the car, where Bud, Bernie, and I waited out of the billowing snow.
He leaned down to look through Bud’s window. “Owner of the complex is a guy named Joe Jonsson from JJ Realty, and he said that the apartment in question, the one you asked about, was rented to another corporation for about three years before the current resident moved in.” Snow covered his head and landed on his thick eyelashes.
I leaned closer to Bud to see Pierce. “What corporation?”
“Forrest Land Development,” Pierce said quietly. “A very quick glance at the Secretary of State’s office confirmed that Lawrence was the sole member of the LLC. Only a couple of neighbors were here long enough to have seen anything, and apparently, Lawrence used the apartment for extra storage. The closest neighbor, just two doors down, also reported that there were often loud poker parties in the apartment.”
“Hoyt,” I murmured. “The man does have a gambling problem.”
