A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [120]
Martine made a small, whimperlike sound. “The armored car service came today,” she said weakly, her eyes awash in tears now, “picked up most of the cash we had on hand. All I have is a couple hundred dollars, so I can make change.”
“Shut up,” Carter rasped, poking Martine harder with the gun.
“Easy,” Steven said, in a tone he usually reserved for spooked horses and unfriendly dogs. “You don’t want the kind of trouble you’ll be in if Martine gets hurt. Believe me, you don’t.”
Carter was sweating, and his pupils seemed to be spiraling in the centers of his eyes. He was high, or drunk, maybe both. Very bad news. Drugs, alcohol and stupidity didn’t make a good combination.
“She’s lying about the money,” the thief growled. “She won’t tell me where the money is!”
“I just have what’s right here in the till,” Martine insisted, in a frantic squeak. “We’ve been selling a lot of gas and beer and soda and stuff, with all these people in town for the parade and the rodeo, and the boss wanted most of the money in the bank—”
“I told you to shut up,” Carter said. Then, quicker than Steven would have thought anybody could move, especially when they were stoned, he turned the pistol in his hand and used the butt of it to whack Martine hard in the side of the head.
The sound was like a baseball bat striking a water-melon.
Melissa screamed, more in objection than fright.
And Steven pitched himself over the counter at Carter, who, in that split second, was fumbling with the weapon.
A shot ripped through the air, shattered the glass in the front window.
The alarm began to shriek.
Steven landed on Carter and they both went down, in a tangle, not far from where Martine lay, perfectly still and bleeding.
The quarters were close behind that counter. Carter still had the gun—Steven could feel it pressed sideways between him and his adversary, knew the other man was groping for the trigger, and if he managed to get a finger around it—
Sirens sounded in the distance—too far in the distance.
The struggle for control of the gun seemed never-ending, although it couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. When the pistol went off, Steven froze, waiting for the bullet to tear through him.
But it was Carter who’d been hit.
He looked up at Steven, smirked and then closed his eyes.
Steven raised himself slowly, got as far as his knees, then took the gun from the dead man’s fingers—there was blood everywhere by then, some of it Carter’s, some of it Martine’s.
Melissa scrambled, half crawling, around the base of the counter, her eyes huge, her face chalk-white. Her gaze found Steven, clung to him for a fraction of a moment, skittered over Nathan Carter and fixed itself on Martine, who was beginning to stir. Moaning a little.
“Are you hit?” Melissa asked. And when she didn’t get an answer in the next second, she repeated, “Steven, are you hit?”
“No,” he said. The bloody pistol made a thunking sound as he reached up and set it on the counter.
She wriggled past him, and Carter, to reach Martine. “Hold on,” she murmured to the other woman. “Please, hold on. Help is coming. Do you hear the sirens? You’re all right now, you’re safe—”
The sirens were louder.
Closer.
Steven hauled himself to his feet, dazed.
Flashing lights swiped at the windows, a slap of red, a slap of blue.
He blinked.
Melissa was still on the floor, trying to comfort Martine.
Tom Parker burst in, gun drawn, still wearing his fancy parade uniform. “What the hell—?” he said.
“You can holster that thing,” Steven told him, in a remarkably calm voice. “The shooting is over.”
Tom hesitated as two deputies piled in behind him, their own service revolvers out and ready.
Tom raised a hand, evidently a signal that any immediate danger was past, and ordered, “Tell the EMTs it’s okay to come in, and make sure—make damn sure—nobody else sets foot in here. I don’t want this scene messed up.”
The deputies obeyed.
Things had been happening at warp speed right along, but now time seemed to move even faster.
The EMTs appeared.