"Damn it, Tim, it's your turn to write up the report, I'm telling you!" Raylan exclaimed, exasperated, as they entered the Marshal's office, each taking up one of the glass doors. Rachel glanced up from her phone call and smiled at them. Tim waved back before setting his face into a frown again.
"No, Raylan, it's not," Tim insisted, starting to feel his blood boil a little. "I'm not going to tell you this again. And, frankly, I'm insulted. I wrote a masterpiece of a report last time you and I partnered up, and now you attempt to disrespect me in such a way?" Sarcasm at it's finest.
"If you're such a masterful writer, why don't you do it?" Raylan saw the hole in his logic, and he was going to milk it for all it was worth. "Surely, you can duplicate this 'masterpiece' of yours."
"My writing hand needs time to recuperate," Tim drawled, giving Raylan a look as he planted his butt in his swivel chair and leaned back. He stared up at Raylan and took a sip of coffee: "You can argue this all you want, Raylan, but the fact of the matter is that if you hand me the report and tell me to do it, it ain't gettin' done. And then you and I will both be up the creek."
"God damn it," Raylan hissed, picking up the file and walking over to his own desk to get started. He was just getting pen to paper when the door to the bullpen, as they called the main office area, opened. It wasn't the sound of the door that made him glance up, but rather the unfamiliar redheaded girl standing there that peeked his curiosity. Raylan glanced up to get an inconspicuous look at her, and he wound up double-taking and looking up entirely.
Maybe she wasn't all that unfamiliar after all.
Tim, noticing Raylan's sudden head-movement out of the corner of his eye, glanced at the girl, then at Raylan. The girl herself was incredibly pretty, and she'd be downright stunning if she wasn't in what looked to be travelling clothes: a dark grey tank top; an unbuttoned, military green shirt; tight khaki pants; and some... were those boots on her feet genuine, military issue?
The look of recognition on Raylan's face and the girl's good looks and easy confidence led Tim to one conclusion, and one conclusion only:
"Another ex-wife?" He asked Raylan, mostly serious but the small part of him that was joking left him smirking nevertheless. He just loved to get under Raylan's skin - it was better entertainment than cable.
"Uh, no... She and I worked together in Houston." He stood up and walked over toward the new presence in the office, who was nonchalantly standing near the door, leaned up against the wall.
"Maxine O'Nan!" He called, stretching his arms out. She jumped slightly at the sudden exclamation, but her wide-eyed look morphed into a smile once she saw the familiar hat and stubble-bearing chin. He was a bit longer in the tooth than she remembered, but there was no denying it that it was him.
"Raylan Givens, as I live in breathe!" She met him halfway between his desk and the wall she was stationed by. They hugged tightly for a bit and pulled back, Maxine's hands still on his upper arms and his still on her hips.
"I heard you got transferred from Miami," Maxine said, "for the Tommy Bucks incident, but I didn't know you wound up here!"
"Unfortunately, I did. Why are you here?" He finally dropped his arms.
She rubbed the back of her neck, letting out one of those laughs that people gave when they were in a bind. "Well... I was undercover trying to get information on a fugitive and my cover got blown. A major shit storm ensued and the fugitive we were after is still on the lam. Chief Deputy Stevens down in Mobile sent me packing. So, here I am."
"That sounds familiar," Raylan muttered, referring to his own transfer not too long ago. "Anyway, the Chief just stepped out for coffee. He should be back in soon."
"Oh, alright. Thank you."
"Come on, I'll introduce you to everybody while you wait." He gestured for her to follow and led her over to the desk beside his. "Rachel, this is Maxine O'Nan. Maxine, this is Rachel Brooks."
"I'm the only one here that has any sense," Rachel told Maxine in a conspiratorial whisper, shaking her hand. Maxine smiled, matching Rachel's grip.
"Oh I don't doubt it," Maxine replied, sounding just as conspiratorial. "Lord knows these men need a bit of a guiding hand from us ladies." She gave a pointed look at Raylan out of the corner of her eye.
"I like to think that most of the Marshals in this office need less guidance that Raylan. You should find a new guy to set everybody standard to," a Midwestern drawl said from behind Maxine and the hatted man the speaker referred to.
She spun around to put a face to the voice, and Maxine nearly creamed herself. God, this guy was handsome; all sinew and muscle against a tight-fitting Henley t-shirt. He had a rather scrutinizing, unreadable gaze, but his solid blue eyes more than made up for his tactlessness.
Tim stood with his arms crossed, legs spread slightly to shoulder-width apart, silently assessing the newbie. Maxine leaned back on Rachel's desk, legs crossed at the ankles, appraising this blond guy and his pouty lips.
Tim wondered if her hair was naturally that color red.
She wondered how much effort it would take to get this guy into her bed. Then, almost immediately after she thought it, she felt like such a slut. She'd never thought about a coworker like this before. To console herself, she tried to explain that, really, he wasn't her coworker until tomorrow. She had better get this 'swooning over her cute coworker' thing out of her system, before things took a turn for the worse.
Raylan spoke when neither of them made any attempt to have a conversation and just continued to stare at one another, like they were in an old west movie. "Maxine, this is the major pain in my ass here in Lexington."
She smiled. "Wow. Major pain in his ass. Let me know when you become a royal pain in his ass and then maybe we can talk."
"I'm Tim Gutterson," he said, holding out a hand as he smiled - or at least came fairly close to smiling. This girl was snarky. He could put up with her... for now.
She shook Tim's hand, noticing the firm grip and the callous on his right index finger that came only from a trigger. He was either incredibly trigger happy, like a certain Raylan Givens she knew, or he spent most of his free time at the firing range.
God, this man had her drooling a little, Maxine realized as she retracted her hand. She wanted nothing more desperately in that moment than to tear open his shirt, right then and there, and lick every inch of his torso... as unprofessional as that would've been.
"Maxine O'Nan," she told him, snapping out of her thoughts.
"Maxine here was in the Navy," Raylan interjected randomly. Maxine arched an eyebrow at Raylan, wondering why he thought it was pertinent to share that information, while Tim arched an eyebrow at Maxine, wondering what, exactly, it was that she did in the Navy. In the next second, he decided it didn't really matter, because she was on land now, but he was glad to have a partial answer about those boots of hers thanks to Raylan's tidbit.
"Really?" Rachel asked from behind Maxine, suddenly invested in the conversation now.
"Uh, yeah, I was a clearance diver. It's not all that glorious."
"She blew shit up under water and helped get soldiers and sailors where they needed to go." Raylan reiterated, despite Maxine shooting him a serious stink-eye. "Pretty glorious sounding to me." Raylan shrugged, like he didn't notice her glare.
Tim nodded, finding himself a little more respectful of the new girl with auburn hair and dark brown eyes. On the one and only instance he had an exfiltration by water, the diving squad had really saved his and his spotter's ass by spending the three days prior clearing out the water ways, which locals had filled with so many cinderblocks that Tim probably could've walked on them for the length of the river to the safe point. But, frankly, the pontoon boat was faster.
"So, frogman, where are you from originally? You don't sound like you're from Alabama... Or Texas, for that matter." Tim recognized that she had a drawl, which had faded, he supposed from years away from home. But it wasn't the right kind of drawl for Kentucky or Alabama or Texas.
"I'm from West Virginia," she told him. That explained it, Tim accepted.
At that moment, the door to the bullpen opened again and three members of the quartet near Rachel's desk glanced over at the door. Tim, however, kept his gaze trained on Maxine. He'd have to dredge up and read her personnel file later, because there was obviously more to her than he was getting. Don't get him wrong, she hadn't lied to him - he was attentive enough and good enough at his job to know that - but he couldn't help this nagging feeling at the back of his head that said he should be getting more, he should know more.
"Maxine O'Nan! How are you? I haven't seen you since Seattle!" Art Mullen screamed, sweeping into the office with two drink holders of coffee. Tim took the holders from Art's hands during his awkward, impeded attempt at a hug, and began to distribute the coffee, just as something to do. He needed to look busy to recover from his prolonged staring at the new transfer. And, no, he wasn't checking her out, he was... surveying. Yeah, that's a good word for what he was doing: Surveying.
"Yeah, let's refrain from talking about that," she laughed that awkward laugh again. "It scarred, you know."
"Yeah, well, bullets will tend to do that." He ushered her into his office, pausing to yank his coffee out of the holder in Tim's grasp, before going inside and shutting the door. Tim frowned, sitting down in his desk. Usually, because of his desk's position, he could hear all of Art's activities if the door was open. But the instant he closed the door, it was like a damned, heat-sealed mason jar.
"Ain't she a pretty little thing?" Raylan asked, taking his coffee from Tim as Tim watched her and Art talk through the glass, trying to reconnoiter what exactly their conversation was about by only reading Art's mouth.
"I suppose," Tim said, shrugging noncommittally. She didn't really look to be his type, but he could see how she would be appealing. Especially to Raylan, who always seemed to get himself tangled up with these light-haired, confident, southern girls that were miles outside of his league.
"Raylan," he spoke, softly. He had a concern, and a fairly well based one at that. "You didn't put your dick in her, did you?"
Raylan sputtered on his coffee, coughing to clear his airway as he stared at the blond man in front of him. "What the hell, Tim? No! I was like a mentor to her for about a year before I shipped off to Miami. She's a good kid, and pretty as a bouquet, but I'm not gonna fuck her!"
"You say that a lot... Does it ever work out?" Tim taunted, smirking at the man about 12 years his senior. Raylan fake-lunged for him and Tim didn't flinch away. He stood stock still and, after he was sure Raylan was done, merely raised his hands in surrender and walked away.
"Touchy, touchy!" Tim called over his shoulder. Sometimes, Raylan was just too easy.
Maxine sighed as she took a seat at her new desk. She didn't appreciate having her back to a window, which you could have perfect view of from a nearby rooftop, and she didn't like being the closest desk to the main entrance. But, it would do, she supposed - after all, it wasn't like she had much say in the matter. She started on the work of re-registering herself into a new computer with the help of one of the techies, and she had to run a quick inventory of her weapons once that was completed. They were government issued, after all, and said government liked to keep track of them.
She finished up the paper work on her weapons and glanced around. She needed someone to sign it as a witness and she couldn't find anyone that looked familiar until - thank heavens - Raylan walked in.
"Ray, can you sign this for me?" Maxine asked, waving the file full of papers and a ball point pen at him.
"Weapons relocation forms," Raylan said knowingly, taking the file from her. He initialed in the right places and signed the witness line and dated it before he handed it back to Maxine. "Those were a pain in the bitch for me when I transferred here."
" 'A pain in the bitch?' " she repeated, not quite sure she heard him right. Raylan had always had a pretty colorful vocabulary, one that Maxine had, unfortunately, picked up. She had heard plenty of times that being so vulgar wasn't lady-like, but lady-like got you nowhere in a predominately male workforce. Damned glass ceilings and all that.
She wondered about Rachel briefly. Maybe her fears of being regarded as someone who wasn't an equal is what had her running around in uncomfortable looking pant suits and keeping her hair up like that. Maxine had never been one to do such things, preferring her own clothes instead of pant suits that looked like they belonged to someone else - like she was masquerading as a responsible adult.
"Yeah, a pain in the bitch."
Honestly, she wondered where Raylan got a phrase such as that one
"Tell me, Raylan," she said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap. "Where, exactly, on the human body does one find a 'bitch?' "
"Well, if you're Raylan," Tim spoke, gliding through the morning office chaos with five cups of coffee (one in his left hand, and four in a holder balanced in his right,) "they tend to be on his left ring finger."
Maxine snickered. Oh, Tim was a God send: Pretty and snarky? She'd hit the coworker crush jackpot.
Raylan rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, Timothy, when was the last time you were happy?"
Maxine rolled her eyes as well. Like the key to happiness was getting hitched. Maxine had never really gotten the idea of marriage. Sure, it had certain tax benefits and such, but it seemed dumb to drag the law into the midst of love between two people.
"I'm sorry, pot, I haven't introduced you to my friend, kettle, have I?" Tim asked, giving Raylan a look that said 'if we play this game, I'll win.'
Maxine snickered again and stared at the paper cup when Tim handed her a coffee. She glanced at it and then up at Tim. Back in Mobile - and in Houston - it was a free-for-all when it came to coffee. This was only her second day here, but she'd already noticed that someone brought everybody else coffee in the morning.
"Oh, you didn't have to," Maxine told Tim. She hadn't asked for it, and she hadn't told him how she liked it.
He shrugged. "It was my turn to buy. Anyway, I didn't know how you took it so I just left it black."
"Well... thanks," she said, smiling and taking it from him. She reached into her purse, which was in the bottom drawer of her desk, and pulled out a couple of shots of dairy creamer and a packet of Splenda. She was glad that she had the foresight to grab some of those that morning.
"I didn't know they let girls into the Boy Scouts," Raylan commented, obviously a little surprised at her preparedness. Maxine smiled and replied, "They don't. I didn't get caught impersonating a boy until my tits came in -"
She was cut off by a rather strange noise from Marshal Gutterson and she glanced up just in time to see that in fact, it was him laughing. He caught himself and replied, "Yeah, I could see how that would make things just a little more difficult."
"Tell me about it," she snickered. It was nice to see that Tim wasn't only funny, but he could appreciate the humor of others as well.
"Hey, stop shootin' the shit!" Art barked, walking out of his fishbowl and picking up one of the coffees on Tim's desktop with his name on it's side. "Just got a call from WITSEC. Someone's location has been compromised and we need a team to escort them to the safe house."
"How could someone's location be compromised?" Maxine asked, arching an eyebrow. In her almost-four years of working for the Marshal Service, she had never had to relocate a witness before. But, then again, most witnesses weren't stupid enough to violate the guidelines. It was probably something like them making a phone call they shouldn't have, or someone's young daughter revealing where they used to live.
"It could be any number of things," Raylan told her, running over to his desk to grab his gun and jacket. "They could've just walked by at the wrong time when a news crew was filming and someone just... recognized them in the background. Or, they could've contacted someone from their past life. It -"
"Raylan, I want you to hang back for this one," Art cut him off, causing everyone to halt where they were. "Rachel needs back-up down in Versailles. Maxine and Tim can handle this one." Art paused and turned to Tim. "That is, if you don't mind picking up a stray."
Tim smirked, recalling that he had been the 'stray,' following around on Rachel's heels near a year ago. Hell, Garcia had even taken to calling him 'Ole Yeller.' "Nah, I'd be happy to," Tim conceded, shrugging his shoulders. He pointed at Maxine, a warning look in his eyes. "Just don't piss in my car."
"I'm not promising anything."
The drive to the witness' home was a fairly quiet one, with Tim behind the wheel of a government-black SUV filling her in on the witness for the first bit of the journey. Apparently, the man they were relocating had witnessed some crime up in Boston that involved a human trafficking ring, and while his testimony put most of the men away, a couple of the higher ups in the ring didn't get pegged with much. They could still be after him for revenge, and thus, they were relocating the witness.
"I'm warning you, he's kind of a dick to women," Tim spoke after an hour of driving and about 34 minutes of no conversation. "Last time when it was Rachel and I, he gave her all sorts of shit. Kept asking her if she wanted to help him christen the bed, trying to grope her, not taking her seriously when she gave him orders."
Maxine snorted. "I don't know if you've noticed, but male fugitives don't seem to really perceive female officers as threats. And men have issues seeing women has someone capable of protecting them, which is bullshit, as I'm sure you've come to know."
Ain't that the truth, Tim thought.
The drive to Ashland, normally, only took about two hours, but they wound up sitting in traffic in the SUV for about 45 minutes because of a big rig that hit another car and rolled, killing a guy in the process. Tim wanted to ask her some questions, but he had thirty million of them running through his head and he couldn't figure out which ones to ask. And he thought she wouldn't want to reply to any of them anyway, so he stayed quiet. He knew how he hated getting the third degree when he was the newbie in the office, so he was going to extend her the courtesy no one had offered him when he was the new guy. Plus, Tim Gutterson wasn't usually one to engage in superficial, idle conversation. It was why he spoke such fluent sarcasm; it was usually off-putting enough to get the conversation to a quick end.
"What's your sign, Gutterson?" Maxine asked, glancing up from her phone. He noticed she had two, one was the standard issue Marshal Service Blackberry, and one was the latest model of iPhone, which he figured was her personal. She had the iPhone in her hand now.
"My zodiac sign? You know that horoscope shit is all lies."
"I dunno," Maxine drawled. "I think there's some truth in it, just like the truth that when it's a full moon, people start acting stupid."
"That one's easily explainable though -"
"What's your sign?" Maxine interrupted again, glaring at him and tilting her head to the side.
He sighed, hands lifting in a helpless motion but his wrists still resting on the wheel. "I dunno. Scorpio, I think?"
" 'You think?' When's your birthday?"
"November third."
"Yep, you're a Scorpio. Let's see... Ooh, what Scorpio's like in bed." She wiggled her eyebrows at him, smiling. She was hoping to make him uncomfortable, but when he'd seen what he'd seen, and when he'd dealt with Raylan Givens for long enough, he didn't get uncomfortable that easy. He didn't even get out of bed for that wimpy attempt at uncomfortable.
"Honey, if you're that interested, I'm sure we've got enough time," he taunted, gesturing to the miles of traffic stretching out before them. "Whattaya say we just hop in the backseat and fuck each other into oblivion?"
"Only in your dreams - and good luck then, too. I'm sure Dream-Me has high standards." She smirked at her reply, and Tim had to admit: She thought quickly.
"Oh, this is good," Maxine said, laughter in her voice. " 'Scorpio men always aim to please, but watch out with the dirty talk - you might bite off more than a mouthful.' " She looked up at Tim. "Sound familiar, Timothy?"
He scoffed and looked over at her out of the corner of his eye. "Which part?"
She snickered and placed her phone in her bag, in the floorboard. That's when Tim noticed she was wearing the military boots that he'd noticed yesterday. "Nice boots," he told her.
"All the better to store knives in, my dear," she said, winking as she pulled a knife out of one.
Huh. And here he thought they were a fashion statement, like her black denim shirt and black and red plaid skirt seemed to be. But, nope, they were practical.
He had noticed before they left the office that she didn't dress as coldly and professionally as Rachel or some of the other women around the courthouse, especially today. She was in a short skirt which (he hadn't been looking, promise, but she bent down to grab something and he had just... noticed) she wore spandex shorts underneath. A skirt that short wouldn't be inappropriate for any other office, but for a law enforcement office?
Raylan had brought up the same point just as Maxine was gathering up her things to leave the office an hour and change ago, and Maxine arched an eyebrow at him. Tim thought about it and figured that a pencil skirt that came down to her calves would be hard to maneuver in during a firefight or a foot chase. He could just tell by Maxine's vibe she was going to say that, and she did, all while tearing Raylan a new one right in front of the other Marshals.
"So. Were you in the military?" she asked, eyes on the fringes of his cross hair tattoo.
Tim had a reflex response of "Huh?" whenever someone brought up his service, but sensing that she was just curious about the tattoo, he replied. "Yep."
Tim stared at his tattoo, a rifle's silhouette spanning horizontally across the diameter of the cross hairs and degrees one would typically find when they looked through a rifle scope. He remembered getting it when he was hammered the day after he graduated sniper school. He and his buddy Mark staggered into a tattoo parlor, and Mark had convinced him that it was a good idea.
Despite how drunk he was, Tim remembered Ranger-ing through the pain and not saying a damned thing, but he did recall having half-moon shapes indented into his palms from his nails as he walked out of the tattoo parlor.
She nodded and guessed, "Marine?" All Marines were trained infantry men, she knew. But she had to ask because Tim didn't seem to have the arrogance that came with being a jar-head.
"Hell no. Army."
"Ah. I was about to say, you look like you've got too much brains to be one of the few and one of the way-too-proud."
He felt his lips twitch upwards and that was the end of conversation for about three minutes. Tim had no issue with uncomfortable silences, but it was the comfortable one settling around the two of them that had him turning on the radio. The comfortable silences were the dangerous ones - they made you put your guard down.
"What're you up for?" Tim asked her, scanning the radio stations. She held her hand out at a familiar drum beat, gasping.
"Stop! There!"
I got my mind set on you,
I got my mind set on you,
I got my mind set on you,
I got my mind set on you.
"I haven't heard this song in forever," she laughed. "God, I remember my daddy singing along to the radio when he was cooking and this song was on every damn station, almost like clockwork, for dinner every day, no matter how early or late Dad started on it."
Tim arched an eyebrow at her. She had to be close to his age, then, because he remembered the song as well. He didn't reply, mainly because he didn't know how and secondly because he didn't want to disturb her campy, George Harrison hum-along.
"Scott, it's Marshal Gutterson," Tim barked, pounding on the door of the bungalow in an Ashland suburb. "Open up!"
There was the sound of footsteps on floorboards, and, on a precautionary whim, Maxine scanned the road and neighborhood for movement. She noticed a cat running across the road with a chipmunk in its mouth and an elderly woman sipping sweet tea on her porch, but she didn't see any threat.
It was unseasonably warm for November in Kentucky - so unseasonably warm that no one needed coats and men were doing yard work shirtless.
She turned back just to see Scott Richards, or as the Persian traffickers knew him, Allen Tate, open the door. Scott Richards was a middle aged man with an inch or two on Maxine, which meant about two or three on Tim. He had short hair, that was slowly receding, and he was dressed casually.
Well, Scott Richards was as casual as a man could be with an aluminum baseball bat in his grasp.
"Oh, it's you; the big, bad, Army-man. I was hoping for the cowboy." He had a voice like broken glass: it just grated over Maxine's skin and made her itch. Something about his demeanor told her that he didn't exactly have a clean record before he witnessed whatever it was that he witnessed.
"He's otherwise engaged. We're here to escort you to a new location," Tim said, all business.
"Why?" Scott demanded.
Maxine and Tim glanced at each other. You would think that, if his attackers noticed him, he'd have received a threat or two by now and he'd be, at the very least, aware that he needed to get the hell out of Dodge as fucking quick as he could.
"You gave yourself away the other day," Maxine elaborated, turning back to look at Scott. "You walked across the background of a news crew's camera."
"Oh, hello, you're new," Scott commented, eyes raking down Maxine's body. "I didn't know the Marshals Service was employing such whores now." Maxine wanted to give him a snappy reply akin to something like 'Well, both are the nation's oldest professions,' but Tim beat her to the punch.
"Sir," Tim butted in, jaw clenched. "Pack up your things. We have to relocate you. Sooner would be better than later."
Maxine appreciated the silent, subtle defense of her honor, but she could've done it herself... in a lot louder, less subtle, and more memorable way.
"Alright, alright. Come on in."
Tim rolled his eyes and entered. Both he and Maxine knew it was merely a formality to be invited inside the house because USMS owned the the building and property, or at least paid the rent on it. But, still, they allowed the man his moment of pride and waited.
"Oh, hey," Tim said, just thinking of something. "Go back out to the van, pick up the vest from the trunk, and bring it in here. We'll have Scott put it on under his shirt. Never know what might happen between here and Lexington."
It was a good point. If there was backed up traffic on the way back like there was on the way up, she'd prefer to have Scott in a vest in case someone had an ambush set up.
She nodded and headed out to the van to get it, but paused. Someone had joined the old woman on the porch with a newspaper. There was no second glass of sweet tea on the table between their chairs. Suspicious. What Kentuckian in their right mind walked out into a humid, warm fall day ("an Indian summer", the radio meteorology called it earlier that day) to sit on the porch and read their paper and not bring a glass of iced tea with them?
She grabbed the vest and speedily, but nonchalantly, made it into Scott's house. She handed it to the man to put on under his clothes. "Scott, is there a man that lives in the house across the street?"
"No. As far as I know it's just the old lady and her terrier." He peeled off his shirt and Maxine stared at his face, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of her staring at his beer gut. "Why? You gotta itch that you need a man to scratch? Baby doll, I could do that for you right here, right now. Army-man could watch, if that's what gets you purring."
God, he was deplorable. But there was no time to think about that. She grabbed Scott by the ear and dragged him into the downstairs hallway, where there weren't any windows. "Tim," she hissed into the first-floor bathroom door.
"Yes?" Tim replied, and she could practically hear the exasperation in his voice. "Is there a reason you feel the need to interrupt a man mid-stream?"
"There's an issue: the man across the road on the porch."
"Oh, heaven forbid a man sit on his porch and enjoy the nice weather," Tim murmured sarcastically above the sound of the toilet flushing. She heard him wash his hands and then he opened up the door. "What's got you so out of sorts, now?" he asked once more.
"Look." She led him to the living room and pointed at the window he needed to look out of to see what she saw.
Tim did look, and at first he figured it was nothing, just a man on a porch with an elderly lady reading his newspaper. But then he noticed the same thing Maxine did: Only one glass of sweet tea. Then he noticed two things Maxine hadn't: the man was in all black and the elderly woman was fidgeting and nervous.
"Damn it," Tim muttered. He looked over at Maxine. "Check out the back." He noticed Scott shifting nervously and pointed at him. "Stay still, get in the bathroom, lock the door."
He paced up and down the hallway, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do. He had a hostage situation on his hands here, his rifle was in the SUV, and he was one of the hostages. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Scott hid in the bathroom, as instructed, and Maxine returned from scoping out the backyard. "The neighbor across the way either has targets set up on the roof for rifle practice, or we got a real problem."
Tim cursed again. So much for a routine relocation. That traffic must've really hit at just the right time for them to set up - now that he considered it, the traffic didn't really seem like that much of a coincidence.