My Kind of Town
End of problem
>> Portlock
Rosalita Resurreccion rolled off the bed, gathered the top sheet around her. Bleeding from where her attacker had struck her, first the cheek, then the temple, she raised a corner of the sheet to the wounds."It's OK, Rosalita," Quinn Ah Sun said, stepping between the Filipina maid and her attacker. "I'm Quinn, Lily's cousin. I'm also a police officer."
Quinn nodded at the guy who was squeezing himself to stop the blood where Quinn had shot him. "End of problem. I don't think he'll be bothering you or anyone else ever again."
She nodded in relief and thanks.
Keeping his Glock 9mm on the guy, Quinn put an arm around Rosalita and they backed toward the door. "An ambulance is on the way, they'll take care of you."
Quinn was feeling lightheaded from loss of blood where this mutt had shot him in the right thigh. His blue jeans were turning crimson. The adrenaline that for a while made it easy to ignore the pain was now receding. Shock was setting in. He imagined it would be for Rosalita too, and hoped the backups and ambulance he'd called for would hurry. And this mutt was still a problem. Quinn knew a wounded, desperate beast when he saw one, and he knew the danger.
>> On top of her overwhelming fear after hearing gunshots from inside her house, Lily Ah Sun also felt anger and frustration -- what was taking an actual human being at 911 so long to answer?! She'd been on hold forever! Lily was so consumed, she did not notice Elizabeth, her maid's 6-year-old daughter, had gotten down from the couch until she was bursting out the door of the cottage.
Lily dropped the phone and followed. "Elizabeth!"
The little girl was in a panic to see her mother alive and well, and kept running across the lanai and through the open door to Lily's house because Quinn had not closed the sliding screen door when he went to investigate the screaming.
"Elizabeth!" Entering her home, Lily heard the sound of her father's voice on her answering machine and heard her brother Lance's name. How weird, he never called her at home and he never talked about her youngest brother. Lily kept running after Elizabeth, who was now halfway across the living area. "Elizabeth, please stop! It's dangerous!"
Dangerous is what happens when there are three people and two of them are shooting at each other. Lily just had to catch the little girl.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com