Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9)

masterminds decided simply to slip into the woods and wait out the cops’ patrol.
A few vehicles dotted the lot, empty and dark and unmoving. In Sean’s opinion, leaving any car here after about nine p.m. was asking for trouble, but that didn’t stop people from doing it.
In any event, he hadn’t paid any more attention to the Lincoln when he’d entered the lot than he’d paid to any of the other cars currently occupying the park and ride. That all changed when he observed the vehicle begin to drive slowly out of its spot and angle toward the far side of the lot. If that weren’t enough to set off alarm bells in Sean’s head, the driver didn’t immediately turn on his headlights.
Illegal activity, he thought, although whether the activity involved drugs or hookers was at this point a tossup. Given the make and model of the car, it could just as easily belong to a successful drug dealer as to a successful pimp. Or a successful customer of either, for that matter.
In any event, the Town Car’s driver hadn’t provided any probable cause for Sean to chase him down and pull him over. Moving a good twenty or more feet out of the parking space before flicking on his headlights gave a potential opening, particularly given the poor lighting inside the lot, but at this point Sean decided not to bother pursuing a questionable traffic stop.
The car had been parked next to a much lower-end vehicle—a Toyota, it looked like, although from this distance and in the semi-darkness Sean couldn’t be sure—and he felt certain the two drivers had been participating together in whatever criminal activity had taken place. The Toyota’s driver either hadn’t noticed Sean enter the lot or was playing possum, hoping to be mistaken for just another parked vehicle.
Sean decided he would continue his slow roll through the lot and hit the Toyota with his spotlight when he reached it. That should shed a little light on the situation pretty quickly, he thought with a grin.
He picked up his pace, hoping that when he spoke to the occupant of the Toyota, he could intimidate that person into giving up the identity of the Lincoln driver. Whether the bust ended up being for drugs or prostitution, he suspected the driver of the Town Car would make a much sweeter prize than the driver of the Toyota, although he wasn’t particularly fussy. He would be happy to take either one.
He rounded the corner and moved along the rear of the lot, rolling to a stop in front of the Toyota, which hadn’t moved or shown any sign of life. Sean bathed the car in high-intensity light, certain the sudden brightness would result in a flurry of activity inside it. A head would pop up from the back seat, or a person would attempt to flee, or something along those lines.
Instead, the tableau was horrifying. So awful, in fact, that for just a second he froze, unable to quite process the information his eyes were sending to his brain.
The interior of the Toyota still looked empty. But crumpled on the ground next to its driver’s side was what appeared to be a single white male, age unknown, his head surrounded by blood and gore.
He was unmoving.
He might well be dead.
And Sean had just watched the man’s likely assailant drive unimpeded out of the lot.
Goddammit.
For half a second, Sean contemplated spinning the wheel hard, punching the accelerator, and trying to overtake the Lincoln on I-264, which was almost certainly where it had gone. Assume the victim was dead and attempt to apprehend the perp after he’d been less than fifty feet away, practically within arm’s reach.
Goddammit.
No. Much as it galled him to let a likely murderer escape, Sean would never forgive himself if it turned out the man on the ground had been alive, but died because he hadn’t been provided medical attention.
Sean flicked on his emergency lights, jammed his cruiser into Park and leapt out. He drew his service weapon just in case his assumption about the attacker being the Lincoln driver was wrong, and approached the downed man cautiously. Both of the victim’s hands were visible, so it didn’t seem likely he was trying to draw Sean closer in order to pull a gun and blow him away, but he’d heard plenty of stories about similar attacks on cops and had no desire to add his own to that disturbing genre.
He arrived at the man’s side and said, “Sir? Can you hear me? Hello, Sir?” he spoke loudly, feeling stupid, and when the man didn’t answer—or move, for that matter—Sean decided the fallen man was exactly what he appeared to be: a shooting victim.
He crouched next to the man, careful to avoid stepping in the blood or doing anything else to disturb what was becoming increasingly clear was a crime scene. Checking for a pulse, Sean was surprised to discover he was alive. Maybe he wouldn’t be for much longer, but he was alive right now, and that was better than nothing.
“Hang in there, brother,” Sean murmured as he sprang to his feet and hurried back to the cruiser. He radioed for backup and an ambulance, wondering whether what was about to unfold would be a murder investigation or attempted murder.
Either way, Sean knew he was going to take some serious shit when it came out that he’d let the shooter drive right past him on the way to freedom. He didn’t have a crystal ball, he couldn’t have been expected to know he was about to stumble onto a gunshot victim, but none of that would necessarily matter, either, when the inevitable second-guessing began by the guys who got paid to bust the chops of the cops doing the real work.
He replaced the mic into its stand and returned to the victim, determined to