Private Rogue

Chapter 25

Aaron Vance watched with horror as the Mercedes SUV screeched out of the motel parking lot. He surveyed the line of wrecked cars.

This can’t really be happening, Aaron thought with a growing feeling of shock. It was the stuff of movies, but the small part of his brain that wasn’t numb with disbelief told him it was real and that he needed to do something.

He’d managed the Relax Inn Motel for three years. The owner, Esther Tucker, was a mean-spirited, greedy old woman who liked to pay low and charge high. She was probably crooked, but never revealed enough about the business for Aaron to be sure. He had standing instructions never to call the police and to always phone her first if anything happened. But this wasn’t a forged check or a wallet snatched from a room. This was carnage, and at least one of those men out there was seriously injured.

Aaron lifted the phone and dialed.

“Nine one one, please state your emergency,” a voice said.

The first gunshot knocked Aaron back, and he looked down to see blood oozing though his gray shirt. It spread like an ink blot around his shoulder and soaked into the Relax Inn badge that was sewn above his breast pocket. He looked past the hole in the window and saw a masked man moving toward the office, smoking pistol in hand.

“Hello?” the operator said. “Hello?”

Aaron made a rasping sound before he found the strength for words. “I’ve been shot. He shot me.”

He dropped the receiver and shuffled round the reception counter toward the door. He had to lock it and buy a few moments to get the revolver he kept in the safe at the back of the office. He became aware of a burning pain in his shoulder as the reality of the gunshot wound finally hit him. He almost doubled over as the fire of agony spread throughout his upper body, but he resisted the urge and forced himself on. Tears sprang to his eyes but he pressed forward and was a yard away from the door when the masked man crashed through it. The edge of the door hit Aaron’s forehead and there was a blinding flash of light.

When the whiteness faded, Aaron found himself flat on his back. His eyes focused just in time to see the man standing over him and the muzzle flash. He didn’t feel the bullet enter his gut, but the crack of his head against the floor jarred his spine.

I’m hurt, he thought as he watched the masked man walk to the discarded phone.

The gunman kept a disinterested eye on Aaron as he picked up the receiver.

“Yes, hello,” he said. “Yes, that’s right... Yes, gunshots. The manager has been shot. He got into an argument with a man calling himself Morgan. Jack Morgan. The guy shot the manager before abducting a woman and her two kids.”

Aaron’s mind struggled to process the deception. Everything was fading and he sensed time running thin, like the last grains of sand tumbling through an hourglass.

“No, I’m afraid not,” the masked man said into the phone. “The manager is dead.”

Aaron was surprised not to feel sick at those words, and bewildered by how remote the world seemed. Finally, it dawned on him. Time had run out for him.