No Woman Left Behind Read Online Free PDF Page B

the kitchen.”
    “Whoa. Wait.
You
have a boyfriend?” Beau interrupted.
    My dad harrumphed. “His name is Slash.”
    “What? Slash is your boyfriend?” Beau and Slash sort of knew each other from a case I had recently wrapped up.
    Before I could reply, another figure stepped into the room. “There’s no one else here. But the back door leading out from the kitchen is open and there’s blood in the kitchen.”
    My heart skipped a beat. Blood? Where was Slash? Was he okay?
    The policeman in the doorway shined the flashlight at Beau. “So, Detective Carmichael, can you tell us what’s going on here?”
    “I have no idea. I came late to the party. I was on my way here to visit my parents when I heard on the scanner there were shots fired at this address. Came in a side door and found my family hiding here. My sister, Lexi, wasn’t in the closet with the others and jumped out at me, hurling something at me and startling me. I discharged my weapon, but missed her. You’ll have to ask her for an accounting of what happened before that.”
    The policeman shined his flashlight at me. “You’re Lexi?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “What’s that in your hair?”
    I shook my head and something plopped to the floor. “Chowder, I think.”
    “So, what happened?”
    “Someone shot at us through the dining room window while we were having dinner. The first shot...it almost hit me. About the same time, we lost electricity. Slash called the police from his cell, I think. A minute or two later someone entered the house through the kitchen—I don’t know if it was the same person who shot at us or someone else—and starting shooting again. My boyfriend returned fire and chased the intruder. While he did that, we ran back here to hide in the study. Then Beau, my brother, came in. I thought he was the intruder, so I attacked him. In turn, he shot at me, thinking I was the intruder, but missed. We all jumped on him until we realized who it was.”
    My brother narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m damn lucky you’ve got bad aim. You almost brained me with that paperweight.”
    “Well, you almost
shot
me.”
    My mother wailed and collapsed into the chair I’d been hiding behind.
    The officer let out a loud sigh. “So, Lexi, is your boyfriend in law enforcement?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Not exactly?” The officer paused, considered. “But he was carrying a weapon?”
    “Yes. He usually does.”
    “Wait. I thought he was a computer geek,” my dad interjected.
    “He’s that, too.”
    Beau frowned. “Um, I thought he was a federal agent.”
    “He’s definitely a federal agent.”
    “So, which is he?” the policeman asked. “A geek, a police officer or a federal agent?”
    “A mixture of all three, I guess.”
    “I thought he looked manly,” Sasha offered.
    The policeman held up a hand. “Stop, everyone. Let me get this straight. An unknown assailant shot through the window from outside the premises, followed by an armed intruder actually entering the house and continuing to discharge a weapon. However, no one is clear if the intruder in the house is the same individual who shot at you through the window. So, technically we could have two perpetrators. Then your boyfriend, who was also armed, returned fire on the intruder in the house and chased after him. You’d all run in here to hide when Detective Carmichael arrived and discharged his weapon at you, his sister, after you attacked him, thinking he was the intruder.”
    “That’s it in a nutshell,” I said.
    “Right. At this point, no one knows where your boyfriend Slash—who is either a member of law enforcement, a federal agent, or a simply a poser—is located.”
    “He’s not a poser,” I said. “In fact, there should have been an FBI tail on him. You should check that out, too.”
    The policeman sighed, punched some numbers on his phone, strode to the doorway and began talking rapidly.
    I let out a big breath and leaned