Free Sketch Me If You Can by Sharon Pape Page B

just let him get away.
    “Go get help,” she shouted to the group on the porch as she raced on down the walkway and into the street. Her progress was slowed by the thick fire hoses that were writhing through the street and the crazy quilt of emergency vehicles she was forced to circumvent.
    The suspect was out of sight by the time she reached the lawn where he’d been spotted. Assuming he’d disappeared around the back of the house, she kept going in that direction. There was no sign of him there or in the adjoining yards. Fences of various heights and styles prevented her from seeing any farther. She supposed that he might have fled into one of the closest houses through an open back door. There was a good chance that the residents, routed by the police or by the general excitement, hadn’t bothered to lock up. But it would take too long for her to check each house, and there were too many places in them where he could be lying in wait to ambush her. If that’s where he’d taken refuge, her colleagues would find him eventually. For now her priority was to make sure he hadn’t left the area.
    The best option for an arsonist on the run was probably to cut through one of the unfenced backyards to the next street. If he’d planned ahead, he might even have left his car there. Rory’s hand went to the gun holstered at her waist. Reassured by the weight of it, she charged on, slowing only to pass between the arbor vitae that separated this house from the one behind it. Still no sign of him. When she reached the next block, she saw him scuttling across the street toward a small, dark blue car with a dented back door that had seen its best days back in the eighties. He didn’t appear to have a weapon in his hands, and since the weather was warm, he wasn’t wearing a jacket that might have concealed one.
    Still, Rory would have liked to hear the pounding of other police racing to the scene, but the only pounding was her own heartbeat echoing in her ears. Since she couldn’t very well ask the suspect to hang out a while and wait for her reinforcements to arrive, she stopped and drew her gun, steadying it with both hands.
    “Stop, police!” she shouted. “Stop or we’ll shoot.” No harm in letting him think there were several guns ready to take him down. With any luck there would be, and hopefully soon.
    The suspect slowed and glanced back over his shoulder. He was out of shape and breathing hard, his eyes skittering back and forth as he tried to decide on the odds of making it to his car without being shot.
    “Forget it,” Rory said with conviction, “I always hit what I aim for.” The suspect didn’t need to know that she’d never had to shoot a real person before.
    “Okay, okay.” He turned to face her, arms raised in surrender. “But you got the wrong guy.”
    Rory kept him in her gun sites as she moved toward him. “It’s amazing how often that happens,” she said wryly. Where the hell was the cavalry? “I need you facedown on the ground, now!”
    “I’m in the middle of the street. What if a car comes?”
    “I guess you’d better start praying that doesn’t happen.” Of course, he did have a point. It probably wouldn’t sit well with the brass or the media if she let him get run over without benefit of a trial. But she couldn’t let on that she was such a novice that she hadn’t thought of that herself.
    “I got rights,” he was sputtering. “Hey, tell her. Tell her she can’t treat me like this.”
    Who was he talking to? She resisted the urge to look behind her in case it was a ruse.
    A moment later Leah was standing beside her as two uniformed cops ran past them to take the suspect into custody. Rory thought he looked as relieved to see them as she was.
    “What the hell were you thinking?” Leah asked her. They were alone, walking back toward the tumult of the fire.
    Rory stopped short, frowning at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “You’re kidding, right? I was