Fire Point Read Online Free PDF

client or not.
    ‘Stay out here with Ty,’ Lock said to her, then turned to his partner. ‘Call nine-one-one. Tell them we have a suspected shot fired inside.’
    Tarian began to struggle, trying to get past Ty to the door. It was no contest: doing his best to keep her calm, Ty ended up lifting her up and moving her back.
    Lock stepped to the side of the door and knocked. ‘Marcus? I need to make sure you’re okay so open up. If you can’t or won’t open up, I’m going to have come in anyway.’
    They could wait for security to appear with a master key, but Lock figured it would take too much time. He also knew from experience that the number of people who tried to take their life with a gun and ended up wounding but not killing themselves was surprisingly high.
    Tarian began to shout her son’s name.
    Ty leaned in close to her, his cell phone to his ear as he waited to reach a police dispatcher. ‘You’re not helping us here, Mrs Griffiths,’ he said to Tarian. ‘Ryan needs quiet so he can listen. Now let’s move back down here. Okay?’
    He guided her along the corridor. A door opened, and an older man popped his head out. He was wearing a bathrobe. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
    Ty turned to him. ‘Go back inside, sir. The police are on their way.’
    The neighbor looked like he was about to argue, until he took in Ty’s full frame and decided against it. He disappeared back inside his apartment and closed the door as Ty gave the dispatcher the details the responding officers would need. He turned back to Tarian. ‘Does your son have firearms or access to firearms?’
    She shook her head. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’
    Ty fed that information back to the dispatcher.
     
    Lock still hadn’t got a response from inside the apartment. Not good. He took a step back and got ready to take a kick at the door.
    ‘Marcus? It’s okay. I just want to know you’re safe.’Not a sound.
    There was nothing else for it. Lock raised his left foot and kicked the door open. Allowing his momentum to carry him forward, he barreled through, his own weapon drawn.
    He stood in a narrow corridor. There was no sign of blood or injury.
    The air in the apartment was stale and fetid. There was the faint hint of stale cannabis.
    ‘Marcus?’
    His question was met with silence.
    He stepped through into the main living area. There was a couch, an armchair, a TV mounted on one wall and a games console. A bag of popcorn disgorged its contents across the grey carpet.
    Lock bent down, checking under the couch for a weapon. As he did so, he felt a breeze on his back. He looked over at the slatted white blinds and the glass sliding doors that led out to a small balcony. A section of one blind was torn, and a hole punched in the pane. Fragments of glass lay on the carpet. Lock followed the path of the bullet to a hole in the wall.
    Someone had been playing with a gun – more than playing by the look of it – but it likely hadn’t been Marcus Griffiths, or anyone inside the apartment. With five quick steps, Lock reached the glass doors and forced them open. His gun drawn, he duck-walked out onto the balcony, staying low.
    He took a peek. Down below was a grassy area, and beyond that the next apartment block. It was quiet. He scanned the apartments opposite. Nothing.
    Lock walked back into the corridor. Tarian broke past Ty and ran toward him. ‘Is he . . .?’
    Lock put a hand on her shoulder. ‘He’s not there. He’s gone. There’s no blood, no sign of a struggle.’
    ‘Sheriff’s Department are on their way,’ said Ty. ‘You want me to cancel that ambulance?’
    ‘No, leave it for now. We may still have a shooter.’
    As Lock turned back to the open apartment door, Ty fell in behind him. Lock prodded the door open with his foot, and both men, guns drawn, pressed forward through the living room toward the balcony.
    A breeze picked its way through the hole in the glass door, sweeping up the pages of a paperback book that lay