The Good News
The good news was that Evan Cross had no appointments on Wednesday, planning to spend the entire day in his loft writing. An easy day for me. Good. Maybe I could relax a bit.
I opened the car door and climbed out, feeling a sudden sharp pain in the small of my back. An old injury that acted up every now and then, more so now that I was approaching middle age. Then there was the ache in my left knee, another injury incurred during the same time period. Oh well, at least I’m still here. Some others I had known had not been so lucky.
I locked the door to my Taurus and shut it, then glanced around again before lumbering across the parking lot toward my apartment. I was in the middle distance when something suddenly moved through my guts and I knew that I was not the only one in this parking lot.
I dropped down to the pavement just a fraction of a second before the first shot was fired, muzzle flashes visible off to my left. My next move was to shoulder-roll over toward a green pickup truck that was parked in front of the apartment next to mine, getting out of the line of fire as more shots rang out…
