The Perfect Shot (Book 3) ✓

24 - Aid

Cleo

Since I started patrolling around town with my messed-up schedule, I was feeling like I was living on the edge of my capabilities. I could feel the lack of sleep was getting to me and it was going to be very soon when I was going to make a mistake and the chief was going to fire me with a smile on his face. But I was doing my best with the cards I had, and unfortunately, that meant seeing Hannah les and les each day. Luckily, with her having a job, it wasn't so bad. She wasn't left alone all the time, plus Lily and Ali quickly took her in their group, and all of them became close friends. Just like this night...or more like morning in my case. They were gathered in Ali's house, and I was on my way to them after yet another night shift. The sun was slowly rising and waking up everyone and everything, but I wanted nothing more than some sleep...

"Hey, are they awake?" I was in front of the house that had the one person who overtook all of my thoughts in the last few months. Ralph was the one to open the door, and from here, I couldn't hear any voices.

"Barely...probably. Honestly, I'm not sure. I wasn't allowed near them. It was a girls' night, and they wanted to gossip freely. I came home a few hours ago and was quickly informed that I couldn't get near them, so I haven't checked them, I just know they became a lot quieter half an hour ago." I walked in the direction of their living room in search of Hannah, and I found her curled up in an armchair, empty wine glass on the table in front of her. The other girls weren't in better shape. All of them were sprawled all around the room, taking a nap in different poses. I could see a few empty wine bottles around them and only could imagine how drunk they were.

I tried to be as quiet as possible while getting Hannah in my arms. Luckily, she wasn't against being moved from her place. She just made herself more comfortable and put her head on my shoulder without even opening her eyes.

"Hi." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Hi there." Her hands snaked around my neck.

"I'm a little drunk." I couldn't hold the snort that left me even if I tried.

"Just a little."

"It was fun..."

"I'm glad."

"But probably won't repeat it soon...my liver won't survive it...nor will my head."

"Yeah, probably."

"Can we go home?" My heart skipped a beat every time she referent to my house as her home, and this warm feeling was spreading all over me.

"Yes, we can." And without waiting anymore, I turned around and followed the path to my car. I was just driving us to my place when the loud noise from my SWAT alarm woke Hannah up. "Shit!" I looked at the message and knew I had to go there immediately and had no other choice but to take her with me. Made I quick U-turn and accelerate towards the address.

"We going directly there?" I took a quick look at Hannah, seeing her wide awake, trying to hold herself in the seat while I was taking the turns quicker than she was comfortable.

"Yeah, sorry about that, but I need to be there as fast as possible."

"O-okay..." Soon after, I was parking my car near the SWAT vehicle that was at the scene. Max was walking towards us even before I killed the engine.

"What do we have?" I got out of the car and tried to look around us to get a feel about the situation. Behind me, I heard a car door open and close, signalizing me that Hannah was out as well.

"We think it's our sniper again."

"What makes you think that?"

"We have a bunch of kids that are acting strange with guns in their hands, obviously not knowing what they are doing. It's just like the last one. They have hostages, but they have no demands. They are in the restaurant on the other side of the street." Since I started helping detective da Silva, my team was quickly informed of all the cases that were held in secret from us. With so many eyes on the files, we quickly found a pattern in all the cases, and it looks like this case was just like all the previous ones. A bunch of people that had no criminal records will do some stupid thing, will go at a random place surrounded by a lot of high buildings, and they will take everyone as hostages. No demands, no personal connection with the place. Nothing. They will hold guns, but they won't even try to shoot with them. They were just... there. Until at some point, our anonymous sniper shot them dead, or if they were really lucky – harm them really bad. The police couldn't find the sniper. The detectives couldn't find the link between all the cases, and my team couldn't prevent the kill shots that were happening every single time. It was a vicious circle that no one saw a way to solve it.

I looked at the buildings around us and could find at least 4 of them that had a perfect view of the restaurant. But they were quite the obvious choices. With every kill, our unknown sniper wanted to show off his skills. At least, that was my conclusion after reading and memorizing all of the cases. Every kill was made from quite the uncomfortable place, and with each case, they were getting further and further away. Like whoever did them, wanted to show us how good he or she was. How much control they had and how precise they could be. Which made my work even harder since I had to look at the buildings with different eyes, so to speak. I needed to find the most unusual place that still had the perfect view of the restaurant.

After a quick look around, I chose 3 of them, but that didn't make our job easier. We couldn't go to all of them, plus they were really tall, so it was going to take us a lot of time to search them room by room. And we needed people on the ground, dealing with the kids that were getting more and more anxious.

"I have no idea how to choose where to go. All of them look like a possible place for the sniper to be." I was putting my gear and Kevlar vest while looking around, trying to make the impossible choice.

"What are the options?" Up until now, Hannah was staying close to me and Max, listening to our conversation, but trying her best not to get in our way. This was the first time she spoke after I drove us here.

"Why are you asking? Do you have any ideas?" I wasn't opposed to getting all the help I could in a situation like this, and I knew her mind was working on a different level than ours.

"I could maybe calculate the probability... which building he chose...if you give me enough information...and some papers to write on..." Max was looking a little bit skeptical, but we had no other options, so he gave Hannah a bunch of empty papers and a pen. And I started explaining the pros and cons of the 3 buildings I chose. Their place, the view, the wind around them. She was listening to me with concentration I didn't expect after the sleepy form I found her a few hours ago. I was pointing at the places; she was writing some notes and then continued to listen to my explanations.

"You talked about the other cases, like every one of them was further from the previous one, could you give me the numbers how far?" And I quickly give them to her, she wrote them down and then started scribbling all kind of strange equations. Max and I were staying silent near her, giving her all the space to do her math magic while hoping that with everything we had, it would work. It's not like we had other options...

***Hannah is trying her best to help Cleo in this messed up situation. Do you think she'll manage?