The Perfect Shot (Book 3) ✓

30 - Again

Cleo

Today was one of the rare days when I was on a day shift. I was wondering what the reason was, but quite quickly, I figured it out.

"Jones! You are going to a new course out of town." I was just walking in the police station when I heard the chief's voice. I knew there was no point in arguing about it, whether I wanted or not, whether my team could afford my absence or not. It didn't matter. The only thing he wanted was for me to stay away from his daughter, and honestly... he was very good at it.

"When chief?"

"Right now." That made me stop in my place in confusion.

"Now?"

"Did I stutter, Jones, or your ears aren't working anymore?"

"But what about the unknown sniper... the SWAT team may need..."

"They are qualified enough to deal with any kind of situations without your involvement. Don't worry about them." He was right that they knew how to deal with everything, but...it was different when you knew someone was watching your back from afar, someone had a bigger picture of the situation, someone had a lot more knowledge about making a long shot. This right now, this course that I had no idea what was for, was interfering not only with my job but with my team's and their safety.

"Did Shaw know about my future absence from the team?" I knew that Max won't be happy about it, and I couldn't see how he'll be okay with it when we were dealing with the unknown threat. The sniper attacked two days ago, which meant that we were expecting another emergency call tomorrow. He was following a pattern, and right now, he was killing every third day. Precisely, he wasn't changing it anymore. It was always on the third day. Which meant I was going to be out of town for his next hit.

"I'll deal with him later." Right, Max didn't know. "For now, I need you to pack your bags and go. The course is three days. Take your riffle with you." And that was it. No more information was given, and I was left to wonder where I was going and what I was about to do there. I left. I quickly texted Hannah, telling her I won't be home for a few days and another one to my SWAT team, letting them know of the new situation. I was hoping they'll be okay without me.

It took me a couple of hours to drive to the unknown place where I was supposed to learn new sniper techniques. Once I entered the building, I quickly figured out that this was the same course I was when I met Hannah. Which meant that I was not going to learn anything new and that the chief was trying anything to get me away from town, even by sending me on the same thing a second time.

"Officer Jones, I didn't expect to see you here. From the last time we met, I was left with the assumption that you have no need of the knowledge we share on these courses." I looked at the voice that was talking to me and was met with an unknown face. The man looked familiar, but I had no idea of his name.

"Well, my chief wanted to make sure I knew anything there is to know, so he sent me again."

"Interesting strategy. Guess he has his suspicions if you have some blind spots in your knowledge... probably because you still haven't caught the sniper in your town."

"It's not only my job to do it..." I wait for him to fill in his name.

"Officer Klerk."

"Right. Officer Klerk. As I was saying, it's not my job to run after criminals and to try and find them and their reasons for doing stuff. That's the detectives' job. I only need to make sure when they are acting that they don't harm a lot of people. And it's a big bonus if we manage to catch them in the act."

"Well, it's obvious you can't do even that since he's so good at killing people and getting away with it." I didn't like the way he was talking about this case.