Sunny Says Read Online Free PDF Page A

gas,” she
shot back. “And,” she added with a saucy grin, “since I have only two dollars
and six cents in my purse, I have to stop by the ATM at the bank. You gonna
fire me, boss?”
    “Not unless you rear-end that
Buick.”
    She slammed on her brakes. “I
saw it.”
    “Ummm.”
    After they stopped for gas,
which Kale insisted on pumping and paying for himself, they drove to the small
branch bank where Sunny kept her account. As they pulled into the parking lot,
she had an eerie feeling—not a weather feeling, but a general, more pervasive
sensation, a news feeling that twitched her nose and put her on guard.
    “Were you serious about a change
in the news policy at KRIP?” she asked.
    “Very.”
    “Then grab the camera from the
back.”
    “Why?”
    “I’ve got a funny—” A commotion
erupted in front of the bank. “Robbery in progress!” she shouted.
    As Kale reached for the video-cam,
two men with paper bags ran from the bank. A guard at the door leveled his gun
and fired as they scrambled for the backseat of a waiting car. A third robber,
a watch cap pulled low over his eyes, stumbled, dropped his bag, then lifted
his gun and fired at the guard. Two shots pinged off the archway pier the guard
used for cover.
    When the robber reached for the
paper bag, Sunny floorboarded the van. “Hang on,” she yelled at Kale, who was
halfway out the window shooting the scene. She rammed the getaway car from the
rear.
    The robber squeezed off a shot
toward her, and a spiderweb cracked across the passenger side of the
windshield. The holdup man threw himself in the front seat of the old Chevy,
and the car burned rubber, with the door still hanging open.
    Sunny tore out behind him,
shouting to Kale, “You okay?”
    “I’m okay. Stop the van.”
    “Not on your life.” She gripped
the wheel and stomped the accelerator harder.
    “Dammit! I said stop the van!
You’re going to get yourself killed.”
    “Forget it, Hoaglin. This is the
lead story on KRIP tonight. Keep filming.” She heard the distant whine of
sirens and grabbed her phone, punching in 911.
    She stayed on the robbers’ tail,
squealing around corners, until another shot rang out. She dropped back but
kept the car in sight until she could describe its route to the police. “It’s
an old maroon Chevy. We’re on Gollihar
Road just past the Parkdale Plaza . Wait!
They’ve just turned left on McGregor.” She hung a left behind them.
    Two white Corpus Christi Police
Department cars—sirens screaming, lights flashing—roared out from a side street
and passed the van. Sunny could see another police car approaching from the
street ahead of them as residents of the neighborhood stood on their porches,
craning their necks to watch the ruckus.
    Trying to avoid the inevitable,
the maroon car whipped around a corner and crashed into the rear of a garbage
truck parked at the curb. A screaming mother yanked her child from his tricycle
on the sidewalk and ran in the opposite direction. Three patrol cars, in a
chaos of whipping red and blue lights and a cacophony of wailing sirens,
converged on the smashed car, which spewed steam from the crumpled hood.
    Sunny screeched to a stop at the
corner, and Kale, the camera on his shoulder, jumped out and ran toward the
cluster of vehicles. Snatching a mike and a battery pack from the back of the
van, she strapped the pack around her waist as she ran behind him.
    Another patrol car roared to a
stop, blocking their path as five officers, guns drawn, spilled from the three
other police units and took positions of cover.
    “Throw down your weapons,” one
of the cops called, “and come out with your hands in the air.”
    For a moment everything was so
quiet that the only thing Sunny heard was the hiss of the damaged radiator, the
rattle of dried palm fronds, and her own ragged breathing.
    First one, then the other door
opened slowly. Three men emerged, hands atop their heads. The fourth stumbled
out, whining, “Hey,