Chapter 1

“It looks like the same vehicle that caused the accident on the Interstate.” Sheriff Bert Thomas advised me, while he called in the license plate number of the SUV to the dispatcher. “Could be a DUI, but they also could be running away from something else. Maybe we should wait for backup, kid.”

“For the umpteenth time, I’m not a kid, Bert. I got this.”

My name is Nick Wallace and I am a Deputy Sheriff in Middletown.

We had chased and stopped a SUV that was weaving back and forth over the center line. The driver had been supposedly involved in a three-car crash on northbound Interstate 5 in Portland, leaving one person dead.

I got out and approached the vehicle. I tapped a knuckle on the window of the van and begin to converse with the driver. I noted another passenger in front, a frightened woman. She was making strange movements with her eyes. Something was wrong.

I moved a few feet back and gestured for the driver to step out of the vehicle.

The guy reached to unfasten his seatbelt, but he got a gun instead and shot straight at me. I stumbled backwards onto the road.

Shit! The vest saved me from a serious injury, but even so it hurt like hell.

“Freeze! Drop your weapon!” I heard Bert shouting.

The passenger door opened and the woman fell onto the road, screaming hysterically. “Help me! He kidnapped me.”

“Stay down, madam!” Bert shouted at her.

Just as I tried to stand, the tires skidded over the pavement, spitting up loose gravel, and the SUV fishtailed out of there.

I aimed my .38 and fired off a couple of rounds at the left rear tire. The car did a 180 on the pavement and skidded into the guard rail about a hundred yards away.

“You okay, kid?” Bert asked me, while I was rising unsteadily to my feet. He reached out to give me a hand.

“Yeah, the bastard got me in the vest.”

“I’ll get the woman,” Bert said.

I heard the sound of the minivan engine sputter. The suspect was attempting to make another escape.

The front door of the van swung open. The suspect hopped out and sprinted down the road.

“Don’t even think about it, kid. Don’t try to be a hero. Backup is on the way.”

Sirens wailed in the distance.

“I’m going after him,” I said to Bert, and broke into a run.

I barely registered Bert’s voice calling after me. I probably should have listened to him, but I couldn’t let the suspect get away.

This was my first taste of real action in years. My veins were probably full of adrenaline at that moment. I radioed in my location and followed the kidnapper into a scrap yard.

The guy disappeared around a stack of cars. I followed briskly, pausing at the corner to check my weapon and peer out to make sure he wasn’t positioned there, waiting for me.

He had gained some distance and was scrambling up and over a chain-link fence. I immediately resumed my pursuit and climbed the fence to propel myself over. My chest hurt like hell.

I dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence.

“Stop! Police!” I shouted.

To my surprise, the suspect halted on the spot and whirled around.

I aimed my gun at him. “Drop your weapon!”

He fired at me three times. A searing pain shot through my stomach, just below the bottom of my vest. Another bullet hit me in the leg.

Somehow I managed to fire off a few rounds before sinking to the ground. The suspect fell.

In that instant, two squad cars came around the corner, sirens wailing and lights flashing.

Slowly, wearily, finding it difficult to breathe, I lay down on my back in the middle of the street. I began to shiver.

I turned my head to watch two officers approach the suspect, who was face down in the ditch in front of the hedge.

Then, I heard rapid footsteps, growing closer.

“Nick, are you okay?”

I looked up at Bert. “I think I’m hit.”

“Yeah,” he replied, glancing uneasily at my abdomen. “Help’s on the way. Hang in there, Nick. You’re going to be fine.”

Feeling chilled to the bone, I shook my head. “I don’t think so. You called me, Nick.”

I tried to smile but it only made me hurt.

By now Bert was applying pressure to my stomach, which hurt like hell. He shouted over his shoulder, “Officer down! Need some help over here!”

I clenched my jaw against the burning agony in my guts, and heard more sirens.

“Will they be here soon?” I asked with a sickening mixture of panic and dread.

“Yeah,” Bert replied. “Any second now. Just hang on.”

“It’s cold,” I whispered.

More footsteps. I felt no pain, only relief but was drifting off. It was hard to focus.

“Don’t die on me, Nick,” I heard Bert plead.

That was the last thing I remember from that day.