Footsteps behind him contradicted his comment. Something stirred in the shadows. Ella and the man eyed each other, neither saying a word, both aware that their roleplay was fast coming to an end. Ella really didn’t want it to end this way, but it looked like it was inevitable.
“Bret, cops!” the man shouted and slammed the door in the agent’s faces.
That was all the signal she needed.
Ella went to boot the door down, but instead stepped back and drew her pistol. There were only so many places Bret could escape from. She and Paige could easily cover every exit.
“Ellis, watch the front. I’m going round the back.”
Paige already had her gun pointed at the front window. “On it.”
She might have been lacking on the profiling side, but with a gun in her hand, Paige seemed as confident as a lion
“Try not to kill him,” Ella called as she navigated the side of the house. Two back doors. Four windows. The place might have been a dump but it was a large one. She edged closer to the windows and tried to look inside but the crust made it impossible. She tried the handle on both doors. Locked. If Bret was listening, it might have prompted him to make a move.
“FBI. Come on out, Bret,” Ella shouted.
Nothing. The house settled into an eerie silence.
Ella weighed up her options. Break into the home and risk fighting this maniac on his familiar territory, or wait him out. Even though both she and Paige were armed, there was nothing stopping Bret taking them out from the shadows. The third option was to call in back-up, instill a crippling sense of hopelessness in the man and lure him out that way.
Then something roused on the other side of the home.
“Hands up!” she heard Paige shout. Ella edged back around, spotting her partner locked in a firing stance. Kenny was standing on the porch.
“I come in peace,” he said, both hands raised. “Don’t shoot.”
“Where’s Bret?” Ella demanded.
“Who?” Kenny asked.
“Bret. You said his name. Don’t bullshit me.”
“You’re crazy, lady. I never said that.”
“Whatever. You’re coming with us.”
Then Kenny ran, across the porch and out onto the lawn.
Ella panicked. She couldn’t shoot an unarmed suspect, and a chase might give Bret the chance to escape.
But as quick as a thunderbolt, Paige struck. Before Ella had even finished her thought, Paige was halfway across the lawn, leaning to one side, her foot firmly planted in Kenny’s face. The big man topped to the ground, clutching his fast-bleeding nose.
Ella closed in, grabbed the cuffs from her back pocket and snapped them around the man’s wrists. “You’re Kenny, correct?”
Kenny cursed, every four-letter word under the sun. “You tell me,” he spat.
Ella hauled Kenny to his feet, jolted him towards their car and threw him in the back. It was an unmarked cruiser, so the only way out was through the double-pane windows. Unless Kenny’s forehead was made of iron, he wasn’t getting out of there.
At the moment of distraction, a thunderous engine roared to life behind them. Ella spun around to see a black Sedan, sans license plate, tear up a strip of grass beside the house. It sped past the agents, knocking over a pile of trash cans as it hit the road.
“Ellis! After him!” Ella shouted, but Paige was already on the mark. She rushed onto the sidewalk, aimed her Glock down the deserted street and fired three deafening rounds at the vehicle.
A fleeing suspect. No chance of hitting anything other than her target. No protocol violation. Ella thanked her lucky stars.
Then Paige was on foot, a blur of human proportions as she hauled like an Olympic runner. Ella followed, barely able to close any distance between her and her partner.
Up ahead, screeching breaks signaled the driver’s desperation, and Ella could just about make out the getaway vehicle idling in the middle of the street. The door flung open and Bret Styles, the man she’d heard so much about but not yet seen in the flesh, jumped out and ran for his life. Paige disappeared down a side street, possibly having been swerved in a wrong direction. That meant it was up to Ella to catch the suspect.