A Grant County Collection by Karin Slaughter Read Free Book Online Page A

was the only other cop from the county.
    'Lena,' Frank said, waving her over. Blood streaked down his shirt, but from what Lena could tell, it wasn't his. He looked sick as hell, and Lena didn't know how he was standing up on his own, let alone trying to run this thing with Nick.
    On the table in front of them was a rough map of what had to be the station. Red and black X's riddled the areas by the coffee machine and the fire door, each of them with a set of initials to identify a person. She guessed the oblong rectangles and lopsided squares were desks and filing cabinets. If the map was accurate, the room had been pretty much torn apart.
    'Jesus,' she said, wondering how the prisoners had managed to take the squad room.
    Nick motioned her closer as he finished drawing a long rectangle for the filing cabinets under the window to Jeffrey's office. 'We were just about to start.' He indicated the map, asking Pat, 'This look right, buddy?'
    Pat nodded.
    'All right.' Nick dropped the marker on the table and indicated Frank should begin.
    'The gunman was waiting here with his accomplice here.' Frank pointed to two spots in the front lobby. 'Around nine a.m., Matt came in. He was shot in the head at point-blank range.'
    Lena put her hand on the table to steady herself. She looked across the street at the station. The front door was propped open a few inches, but she did not know with what.
    Frank pointed to a desk by the fire door. 'Sara Linton was here.'
    'Sara?' she asked, unable to follow. How had this happened? Who would want to shoot Matt Hogan? She had assumed the prisoners had rioted, not that someone from the outside had come in to kill in cold blood.
    Frank continued, 'We got two kids out.' He pointed to other red X's near the door. 'Burrows, Robinson, and Morgan were taken down in the first minute.' He nodded at Pat. 'Morris managed to break the window in Jeffrey's office and drag out three more of the kids. Keith Anderson jumped over me through the fire door. He was shot in the back. He's in surgery right now.'
    When she could speak, Lena asked, 'There were kids?'
    Nick provided, 'Brad was giving them a tour of the station.'
    Lena swallowed, trying to get enough spit in her mouth to talk. 'How many are left?'
    'Three,' Nick said, indicating the three small black X's by a larger one. 'This is Brad Stephens.' He pointed to the others. 'Sara Linton, Maria Simms, Barry Fordham.' His finger rested on a black X by a filing cabinet that indicated Fordham. There was a question mark beside it. Lena knew Barry was a beat cop, eight years on the job, with a wife and kid at home.
    Nick said, 'Barry was injured, we don't know how bad. There was another shot fired about fifteen minutes ago; we think it was from an assault rifle. Two more officers are unaccounted for. We don't think anyone else is in there.' He amended, 'Anyone else alive.'
    Frank coughed into his handkerchief, his chest rattling like a chain. He wiped his mouth before he continued. 'Two cruisers came in right at the beginning of it.' He indicated the cars on the map. Lena saw them still parked outside along with a third that she recognized as Brad's pulled into his usual space. She had not noticed them in the street, but from this vantage point she could see four cops crouched behind the cruisers, their guns drawn on the building.
    Frank continued, 'Old man Burgess came out with his shotgun.' He meant the old guy who owned the cleaners. Burgess had a difficult enough time hefting her laundry. She could not picture him with a shotgun. 'His granddaughter was over there,' Frank said. 'She was the first one Sara got out.' He paused, and Lena could see the pain it caused him to remember what happened. 'Burgess tried to shoot through the glass, but –'
    'It's bulletproof,' Lena remembered.
    'It held,' Frank told her. 'But a ricochet hit Steve Mann in the leg down by the hardware store. Everybody backed off after that.'
    Nick said, 'Between Burgess and the patrols, they