According to Marty's quick exploration of social media, Sarah McKinley, a vivacious and attractive junior at Cal State Northridge, enjoyed partying, beach-going, supporting her sorority, and pop music. She would no doubt fit right into the long line of women he'd dated. Only that wasn't a possibility here because the California Bar frowned upon defense attorneys making contact with witnesses like her. Notably, her willingness to testify against someone affiliated with the Russian mob didn't jibe with the shallow image Marty had cobbled together on-line, which reminded him to avoid judging her too harshly.
The afternoon stretched on, and Marty had yet to decide how to proceed as five o'clock came and went. Should he call the jewelry store and speak to Sarah anonymously? Should he phone in a tip to LAPD and urge them to take care of it? Unfortunately, he didn't trust LAPD to follow through, especially to do so fast enough to ensure her safety. Inaction was simply not an option, so he left the office, got in his Jeep, and without a clear plan in mind, found himself driving in the direction of the jewelry store. He would simply have to figure out what to do once he arrived.
The store was located out in the Valley in Sherman Oaks, not far from the increasingly hip shops and restaurants of Ventura Boulevard. The drive in rush hour traffic, up the 101 through Hollywood and over the Cahuenga Pass, took a good forty-five minutes, and the closer he got, the more the responsibility to ensure Sarah's safety weighed on him.
He pulled into the Oaks Square Shopping Center parking lot as the sun had begun to set. The place appeared less hip than retro, or maybe just old and tired. A two-story mini-mall occupied the center of the huge lot, with an In-n-Out Burger on the front left corner. Keller's Jewelers held a spot behind the mini-mall structure, at the far back corner of the lot. The store stood alone there, a squat structure with secured windows and doors beneath red and white awnings, its old-fashioned red sign of a gleaming ring sitting atop a letter K providing evidence of the store's age. It looked like a mom and pop operation, likely what made it a good target for extortion and kidnapping by the local mobsters.
A few people were coming and going from the Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill that occupied the opposite side of the back lot, but otherwise the area was quiet. Marty hesitated for a few minutes but then, with a sigh, got out of his Jeep to go inside to see if Sarah was even working. Then he could decide if it made sense to speak with her directly. One step at a time.
The jewelry store was still an hour away from closing, and Marty wandered in as nonchalantly as he could manage. The pressure of holding a person's safety in his hands weighed heavily on him, yet it was balanced by the pressure to avoid screwing up his case - and his entire career. Under the circumstances, nonchalance was perhaps too high a goal. His tie suddenly felt like it might strangle him and he pulled it loose, telling himself to calm the hell down.
He glanced around and spotted Sarah in a corner of the store helping a couple who appeared to be checking out rings. He decided he'd start with a little eavesdropping, so he headed to a nearby case of necklaces and bracelets and pretended to study the sparkly contents while he attempted to listen in. Unfortunately, the couple didn't stay long and as he turned away from the case to watch them walk out the door, his indecision remained. A throat cleared behind him and he startled as he turned back around to see Sarah standing right in front of him.
"Can I help you?" she asked with a small smile. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a tidy bun, showing off her tired-looking green eyes. He reflexively smiled back.
"I'm just looking, thanks," he began, postponing the inevitable, buying a little time to decide exactly what to say.
"A gift for a girlfriend or wife?"
He should have told her, Actually I'm here to tell you you're in danger and you have to trust me even though I can't tell you who I am, but instead stammered out, "Um, yes, how did you guess?"
"It was either that or your mom. I figured my chances were better than fifty-fifty."
He smiled again and moved his gaze back to the case, trying to find a delicate way to broach the subject. He'd just opened his mouth to speak when a man he assumed to be the manager called over, "Sarah, can you help me for a moment?" She excused herself and Marty used the opportunity to beat a hasty retreat back out to his car.
He sat in the driver's seat with the engine off, yanked his tie all the way off and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt as he continued to debate about the best way to handle the situation. He cursed Nikolai under his breath for putting him in this position and cursed himself for failing to commit to a path forward. He lost himself in his indecision.
When he finally glanced down to check his phone, he couldn't believe another hour had passed. Looking back up, he saw Sarah exiting the store. "Shit," he muttered, continuing his expletive-filled monologue. He opened the door and stood, determined to speak with her before she could drive away and drag this whole ridiculous escapade out further. She stopped in front of a green MINI Cooper a few cars away from him, and just as he began to call out her name, tires squealed from across the lot. He whipped his head around to see a dark SUV with tinted windows headed straight for them and without any further overanalyzed thoughts, he turned back and ran toward her, shouting, "Sarah, get down!"
She shifted her head in his direction, eyes wide and mouth agape, and before she could react, or even understand what was happening, Marty reached her and shoved her to the ground behind her own car just as shots rang out. The popping of bullets firing, the pinging as they hit metal and the shattering of windshield glass echoed all around them. His pulse raced a mile a minute but he forced himself to peek around the back end of the car to see if the attackers would drive away or get out and try to surround them. The SUV had come to a halt and as the front and back doors opened, the adrenaline already surging through his system ratcheted up another level.
"Come on!" he shouted as he grabbed Sarah's hand and yanked her toward the busier part of the lot with more open stores and people, hoping the bad guys would retreat rather than risk being caught on surveillance cameras, and gambling that he wasn't about to get a lot of innocent people caught in the crossfire. They ducked down as they ran, dodging between the few parked cars as bullets continued to fly in their direction. Marty turned to see if they were being pursued and breathed a quick sigh of relief at the sight of the two attackers seemingly content to fire from the side of their vehicle. At least something was breaking their way. He pushed Sarah ahead of him and urged her to keep running, not daring to relax. As a hot, sharp pain sliced through his left bicep, he had no time to fully process what had happened, choosing to use his few functioning brain cells to focus on his and Sarah's survival. He prodded her forward, toward the lot's front end.
When they'd nearly reached the mini-mall's front corner, with its shops and safety in numbers, he heard tires screech again and turned back to watch the SUV peel away into the night out the lot's back entrance, and he slowed down and then stopped altogether, panting and leaning over and placing his hands on his knees. Sarah kept running and he shouted after her, "Sarah, stop! They're gone. I think we're safe."
She slowed and turned back, assessing the situation. She stilled, but didn't return to his side, looking around in all directions, searching for danger, or help. In the distance Marty could make out the sounds of people shouting, and of sirens. "The cops are coming - can you hear them?" he asked. Adrenaline continued to surge through him, along with a disorienting stew of emotions. Among them were terror at nearly dying, shame at nearly allowing Sarah to be killed, and beneath it all, a strange sense of accomplishment, ghosts of feelings he'd experienced only once before.
As he sat huddled on the living room's wooden floor, eleven-year-old Marty's mind barely registered the sound of sirens growing louder. Even his dad's curses had faded into muffled background noise. Maybe he'd stopped listening, or maybe his dad had finally quit shouting at the top of his lungs. His vision had tunneled itself into a single focal point: the blood slowly pooling on the floor next to his father.
He was in trouble. Big trouble. His actions were shameful. What had he done? Yet even as waves of guilt engulfed him, some sort of burden had also been lifted. Even as his senses had been overloaded and his heart pounded a million miles an hour, something had fundamentally shifted within him. He had stopped his dad. Stopped him from hurting his mom, something she had been incapable of doing for herself. In the process, he'd likely stopped his dad from hurting him too. A foreign, but not unwelcome, sense of power surged through him.
This moment would change his life forever. He'd definitely be sent to jail. At least there he'd be far away from his dad. Even if they locked him up in prison, there'd still be a kind of freedom there he'd never had at home, a freedom from constant fear and stress and worry, from shame and blame.
He pulled his attention away from the blood and up to his dad's face, scrunched in pain, still mumbling angry words. Looking around some more, he noticed the shotgun laying right next to his dad's head. He looked down at his own hands to see the revolver still there. He stared at it. He was glad Ray had given it to him, and he wasn't sorry he'd used it. If he had the choice to do things all over again, he'd do the same thing. Heck, how different might his life be right now if he'd done it a long time ago? The sirens grew louder and he waited to see what would happen next.
The increasingly strident wail of sirens registered in the back of Marty's brain, indicating the growing proximity of the cops. Sarah's voice pulled him all the way back from his memories as she asked him, "Just who the hell are you?" She hugged herself and hesitantly walked back in his direction.
"Just a guy looking for a present for his girlfriend," he lied. Granted, if the case went to trial she would find out his true identity, but she didn't need to know quite yet.
"Why… Why were you still in the parking lot?" she asked, suspicion lacing her tone.
Still trying to catch his breath and figure out why his hands were shaking so badly, he replied, "I ended up on the phone with a friend. It was... an intense conversation and I didn't want to talk and drive."
She'd continued to slowly shuffle back toward him and by now had reached his side. She hesitantly pointed toward his left arm, telling him, "You're bleeding."
He looked down and confirmed that, sure enough, he was bleeding. Huh, he thought. I guess adrenaline really does help you ignore pain.
"Hmm, I am," he confirmed as he began to lead her back toward the jewelry store entrance. As the first police cars pulled up, Sarah's manager exited the store, jogging over to see if she was OK and letting them know he had called 9-1-1.
Sarah kept her gaze on Marty, then took his hand and told him, "Thank you. You saved my life."
"Happy to help," he replied, squeezing her hand and finding he was being completely honest. Protecting someone from flying bullets was a terrifying way to spend an evening, but there was definitely a lot less grey area than trying to do the right thing every day as a public defender.
A/N: The jewelry store is fictional, but there is a Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill off of Ventura. I've never been but I liked its name. According to Yelp, it's a fine establishment and a great place to watch a game.