Read Online Marrying Mike...Again by Alicia Scott - Free Book Online Page B

turned the corner and suddenly a thick black column of smoke came into view. They were there.
    Yellow crime-scene tape had been hurriedly strewn across Main Street. Two ambulances and a fire engine had managed to get through, but now the street was choked off by a gathering mob attracted by roiling smoke pouring out of the charred police cruiser. Mike came to a careening stop at the edge of the crowd. Two youngsters threw the car a disinterested stare, then went back to watching the wrecked patrol car burn.
    Mike popped open his door quickly, and Sandra was right behind him.
    She was immediately assaulted by the smell. Gasoline, harsh and astringent. Gunpowder, dark and oily. Then she noticed the sounds. Sirens wailing in the distance, sharp male voices adding a staccato beat as officers yelled for assistance and crime-scene technicians, while four other patrol officers kept shouting at the crowd to move back, move back, move back. Finally a slow-building bass of rumbles and grumbles as the crowd murmured their discontent. The east-side civilians were not amused by the show, Sandra realized. They were resentful, suffering the presence of so many uniforms the way other people might suffer an invasion of a foreign army.
    This situation would need to be handled with extreme care.
    Sandra looked at Mike, nodded wordlessly, and let him tuck her into the protective curve of his body. Moments later, he delivered them both to the heart of the yellow tape, where one officer was already loaded into the ambulance and his partner sat pale and shaken on the bumper.
    Immediately, Sandra went to the seated officer. Officer Johnson’s face was streaked with soot. Moisture beaded his upper lip and tracked down his cheeks. Sandra didn’t know if he’d been crying and knew better than to ask. Instead, she took his hand. After a moment, he returned the grip tightly.
    Sandra turned to the EMT standing nearby. She learned that Officer Fletcher had been wounded in the lower leg. Nothing serious, but they had him on oxygen to help with the shock, so he was not available for questioning. Once the crowds thinned, they would transport him to the hospital, where he would most likely be treated and released. All in all, the EMT assured her, the only thing terminal at the scene was the patrol car.
    They had responded to a call of an attempted robbery at the liquor store, Officer Johnson reported after a bit, finally releasing Sandra’s hand. They’d pulled up to the curb, lights out, stepped from their car, and boom! Shots fired from above. They’d flattened behind their cruiser and fumbled with their side arms. The moment they peeked out again, boom! More freakin’ shots. Then suddenly, Fletcher had yelled that he smelled something, and Johnson realized he smelled it, too. Gasoline.
    Their damn car had been hit. Next shot…
    They had no choice. They set their sight on Smithy Jones’s convenience store and started running.
    Boom, boom, boom, boom. The longest fifteen feet of Johnson’s life. Hell, when he got home tonight, he was parking half a mile away from his house because that would still seem like a stroll through a field of daisies after the last fifteen feet.
    Then suddenly, whoosh!
    Shot must’ve finally got the gas tank and it seemed to them the whole world went up in smoke. The next he knew Smithy Jones was screaming down at him, “Are you all right, are you all right?” It took about four times before Johnson could hear through the ringing in his ears.
    “And Officer Fletcher?” Sandra inquired quietly.
    Johnson flushed, glanced at Mike, then turned away.
    “Ricochet,” he muttered. “Maybe shrapnel or something.”
    Confused, Sandra looked at Mike, too, then the EMTs.
    “Ricochet? From what?”
    “I don’t know. A building, a car. It doesn’t matter. It was ricochet. ”
    Dumbly Sandra nodded, though she didn’t understand the vehemence behind Officer Johnson’s words. Mike, however, was looking at her with an