Chapter 35 - Insecurity

Immediately I heard a little whimper along with the sound of muffled scratches, a loud thud, and then nothing but the sound of rapid, muffled panting.

"Freeze!" a voice yelled, a voice wholly familiar to me. Wait—was that… Tackleberry's voice?

"Don't shoot! I'm unarmed!" Harris yelled back, his voice muffled. "Please, God! Don't shoot! I didn't do anything!" Why was his voice so muffled? Was he lying down? Proctor gave me a look of alarm from the driver's seat.

I heard a faint click—a light switch, perhaps?

"Lieutenant Harris?"

"Tackleberry? What the hell are you doin', barging in—"

"I could ask you the same."

"I asked you first."

Proctor seemed to deflate with relief, his look of alarm replaced with his usual dipshit smile.

"They told me it was a drill for passing the first part of the interview," Tackleberry explained, his words followed by the sound of a door shutting. They gave me this gun, which they said is loaded with blanks, and told me to simulate my dispatching the fake thief in the safe room."

I could hear the shifting of fabric now, the metallic clicking of a revolver, and the voices were no longer muffled. Perhaps Harris had stood up.

"Oh my God," Tackleberry muttered, the clinking of bullets faint in the background. "These aren't blanks. Holy shit, Harris. I could have killed you."

"Damn. Carnegie was right."

"What?"

"She told me they were trying to kill me. They gave me an unloaded gun—that gun right there—see it?—and told me to aim it at the door when it opened, for orienting purposes. Oh God; they were gonna have you shoot me!"

"But wait," Tackleberry cut in. "There's something I don't understand. Why would they want to kill you?"

"Because I'm on to Mr. Allen. I have it under good authority that he's doing something illegal in his business. And he knows that I know."

"And you came here to do what, exactly?"

"It was merely an exploratory, fact-finding mission. I was going to question Larry Allen himself, see if I could find any cracks in his statements. You can see that my gut wasn't wrong."

"Right," Tackleberry replied. "Well, do you have any backup? A warrant?"

"You of all people got some gall to bring up police policy with me, Tackleberry."

"What about you and your bullshit conspiracy theories about everyone on the news last night? You're going to make the public lose their faith in law enforcement, not to mention destroying my caree—"

"I just can't believe they were gonna have you be the one to kill me," Harris interrupted. "Makes perfect sense though. You have every reason to wanna do it, and just the itchy trigger finger to go forward with it."

"I guess they believed I'd just start shooting without seeing who you were first," Tackleberry muttered. "I must have that reputation now. No thanks to you."

"No thanks to you, you mean. I didn't shoot those two kids."

"Point taken."

"You both need to get out of there!" I exclaimed into the police radio. "You can talk about this somewhere else. You're both still in danger!"

I could hear the door open.

"Freeze!" several voices yelled at once. "Freeze or we'll shoot!" Oh shit oh shit oh shit….

I grabbed the police radio and radioed the station while Proctor gaped at me with confusion. I was glad I'd already done this once before, after Harris had arrested Ace at the game lands a couple of weeks ago.

"Lieutenant Carey Mahoney speaking…" the voice answered pleasantly enough. Ugh, this prick…

"They've got Lieutenant Harris and Captain Tackleberry!" I shouted, already out of breath. "At the First Bank building downtown, 16th floor!"

"Slow down…. Who is this? Who's got Harris and Tackleberry?"

"This is April Carnegie. Larry Allen's security guards! They just tried to have Tackleberry accidentally kill Harris and now they have them both in a room with safes and they—"

"What? Miss, I'm having trouble following you…"

"There's no time to lose!" I yelled, clearly too frazzled to explain things carefully. "Please just get down here and save them! The First Bank Building downtown, 16th floor!" My heart racing, I threw down the police radio, reaching over and grabbing Proctor's gun from his belt and shoving it into my jeans. Before Proctor could even react, I got out of the car and ran down the street to the building.

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I raced through the lobby, ignoring the front desk as I slithered into the open elevator door and hit 16. There seemed to be two elevators in this building, I noticed. Side by side. Would they take the other elevator? Would I make it in time? I hit the button, shutting my eyes to say a little prayer.

I listened to the soft bings of the elevator as I headed up to the 16th floor, so gentle in spite of the terror I now felt. It was then I thought of the weapon I had instinctively grabbed. What should I do with the gun? I was dressed like a civilian in a t-shirt and jeans, with a loaded police revolver stuffed down my pants. When the elevator door opened to reveal a civilian woman with a gun, I'd be shot on sight.

14…. 15….. 16….

I shut my eyes, my heart pounding. My spit was as thick as molasses and my legs felt like Jell-O. Now that I'd left the radio behind, I had no idea where Harris and Tackleberry were or what was happening to them. Stupid decision, April. You should have stayed in the car with Proctor…

As soon as the elevator opened, I was met with a sea of cubicles in front of giant frosted glass panels apparently dividing off the fancier offices. I didn't hear any yelling or shooting, so perhaps Harris and Tackleberry were still safe. No one was around at the moment—could it be that they were all where Harris and Tackleberry were? If there had been a gunshot in the time it had taken me to reach the floor, surely people from other floors would have heard it and sent actual police to investigate. I could only hope I was right in thinking that way.

I walked as slowly and casually as I could down the hallway, my eyes scanning for sign of Harris or Tackleberry. My ears were on high alert for the sound of gunshots and yet I kept the elevator within sight, in case they were to emerge from some corner room and be quickly shoved into the elevator.

As I continued slowly down the hallway to a branching point, I could hear a definite commotion coming from somewhere ahead of me, somewhere even further away from the elevators. I decided to retreat back toward the elevators again, being as if they were to be taken anywhere, it would be the elevators. Unless of course Larry decided to have them pushed down the stairs…

I didn't have time to consider it further. Quickly I ducked below the level of the cubicles and moved back towards the elevators again. I glanced around myself to see that no one else was in the hallways behind me. I squatted on the floor next to a potted plant just off to one side of the elevators, and I waited.

"Where are you taking us?" I heard Tackleberry say. "You do realize that the further you take this, the heftier the charges. It's already attempted murder one, unlawful restraint, kidnapping—"

"Shut up," a guard snarled, and slugged Tackleberry in the back. Now I could see that there were two security guards leading Harris and Tackleberry down the hallway. Harris's fake glasses and moustache were gone, eyes wide, his bandanna having been forced down over his mouth, effectively gagging him. I slid the revolver out of the waistband of my pants and lifted it up, steadying my aim by setting my elbow on the pot next to me.

I could see that the guards stayed off to one side, Harris and Tackleberry to the right. The guards's hands seemed to be physically holding Harris and Tackleberry, rather than keeping a gun on them. The fact that they weren't overtly aiming guns meant that they were less likely to kill me outright, let alone misfire if I happened to actually successfully shoot them.

In three seconds or less, they would turn down my branch of the hallway and see me. Tackleberry was still attempting to talk and I could feel my finger trembling on the trigger.

I was terrified. I'd never shot someone before. What if I missed and hit Harris or Tackleberry?

"The roof's got quite the view," the guard in front said with a chuckle. So they were going to throw them off the roof as well, just like Harris's brother had died? I could only imagine his terror at that.

They emerged into my hallway, able to see me now. It was go time, whether or not I was ready for it.

I looked at the legs of the four, security guards to the left, Harris and Tackleberry to the right.

"Hey!" the first guard yelled, his face turning ugly. "What the hell do you—"

I pulled the trigger. Guard one fell forward, screaming as I'd apparently shot him in the leg. Guard two was now reaching for the weapon as his belt. I pulled the trigger again, thankful that the revolver was a semi-automatic. Now he yelled out in pain, falling on top of the first guard. The eyes of Tackleberry and Harris were locked on me, wide with shock as I stood up off the floor, gun still in hand.

"Miss Carnegie?" Tackleberry blurted, panting now, sweat running down his temples. I didn't know what to say in reply and stood there, my eyes moving from his down to the guards on the floor, who were at least temporarily out of commission. Suddenly he seemed to snap out of his shock and looked down at the second guard, the man's hand having moved to his weapon, and threw his large body on top of the man, pinning him to the ground.

Harris could only gape at me, his bandanna wet with saliva, standing helplessly in the hallway with his hands cuffed behind him. I ran over and pulled the bandanna down off of his face as he just stared. After a couple of seconds, he seemed to snap out of his terrified trance.

"Now, what did we learn about shootin' first and asking questions later?" he said, his mouth twitching. I could see Tackleberry look up from the floor and frown.

"We learned that sometimes it's the only thing that works," he added, looking down at Tackleberry with a gracious bow of the head. "I'm sorry, Tackleberry."

Now the elevator opened to reveal several Metropolitan police officers, shouting at me to put down my weapon. It was all too much—I'd just shot two men, almost watched my boyfriend get killed, and now my own life was on the line again. I saw stars and then I blacked out.