“Police! Don’t move!” Bailey shouted as he drew and aimed his gun. “Put the gun on the counter and put your hands up in the air!”
The roar of blood ringing in his ears was the only sound Bailey could hear as he tightened his grip and waited for the man to obey, and though it felt like minutes, hours, days between stepping out of that candy aisle and reaching for his weapon, Bailey would eventually learn that it all happened within seconds.
“I said put the gun on the counter and your hands in the air! Now!” But as the man’s fingers adjusted their grip on the stainless steel and he went to level his arm out, Bailey’s instincts took over and shots rang out at an ear-cracking level as shell casings hit the floor by his feet—clank, clank, clank.
After that, there was nothing but silence.
“BAILEY?”
SOMEWHERE IN the far periphery of his mind, Bailey heard his name and recognized the voice that had said it. But as he sat in the front seat of a newly arrived squad car and stared out the windshield at the Quick Mart in front of him, all he could focus on were the policemen now marking off the crime scene with a roll of yellow tape.
The flashing lights that reflected in the grubby front doors from the swarm of cops and CFD ambulances that had descended after he’d keyed up his mic and reported shots fired were doing as requested and offering assistance. But as he sat there, motionless, trying to straighten out exactly what had happened in the last however many minutes, Bailey realized he was likely going into a state of shock.
“Bailey?”
There it was again. His name, in a voice he knew as well as his own. As he turned his head to look across to the driver’s side of the vehicle, he saw Sean opening up the car door and slipping inside. Bailey said nothing as his brother closed the door behind him, just turned and looked back out the windshield at the scene unravelling before him.
It was like a dream. No, scratch that. This was a nightmare.
Somehow, up until this point, Bailey had managed to make it through his career without ever firing a shot, or been shot at by a suspect. He’d been in dangerous situations where guns had been drawn but ultimately things had been resolved and everyone had gone home or to a jail cell in one piece afterward. Tonight, that had all changed.
One minute he’d been shopping for Milk Duds, the next he’d ended someone’s life.
“Craig?”
At the use of his first name and Sean’s hand on his arm, Bailey blinked, swallowed, and then faced his brother. “Yeah, sorry. Hey.”
Sean took in a deep breath. His lips were pulled into a thin line. “You okay? You’re not hurt? He didn’t—”
“No.” Bailey shook his head. “I wasn’t hit. Just him.”
“Right.” Sean ran a hand through his hair and down to the back of his neck. “Someone from COPA already talk to you?”
Bailey nodded. He felt as though his body were on autopilot. “Just before you got here. Had to surrender my weapon.”
“That’s standard procedure. Nothing to be worried about. From what I heard, this all seems pretty straightforward.”
As straightforward as shooting someone three times in the chest and ending their life can be, Bailey thought, as he blinked at his brother and remained mute. Bailey’s brain replayed that moment for the hundredth time, until the jingling of that bell above the glass doors somehow made its way through all the chaos and found him.
Bailey jerked his head around in time to see a gurney being rolled out by the paramedics, and his stomach twisted and knotted around itself as it threatened to expel the dinner he’d eaten earlier.
“Hey? Bay?” Sean said as he grabbed Bailey’s arm and shook it. But there was no diverting Bailey. He kept his eyes locked on that gurney, on the body covered under that sheet, and though everyone who had talked to him since arriving had assured him he’d done everything by the book, there was absolutely nothing simple or straightforward to seeing a lifeless body and knowing that you were the one to have made it that way.
As the CFD pulled away, Sean shook Bailey again. Bailey finally turned, and the look of concern in his brother’s eyes was something he hadn’t seen in years.
“Look, I know you’re trying to process a lot right now, Bay. But you listen to me. You walked in on a robbery in progress. There was a hostage. The suspect had a gun, you told him to put it down, he didn’t. When he engaged, you fired.”
Bailey licked his lips, which suddenly seemed dry.
Sean reached for the back of Bailey’s neck and squeezed. “You did nothing wrong tonight.”
Bailey nodded, but said nothing.