Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
It was a stroke of sheer luck that John and Trevon spotted Trixie as she ran down the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard.
Poor girl had been going so fast that her feet barely touched the stars that lined the pavement. She was practically flying!
That wasn’t easy to do through the thick crowd, either.
When they saw her disappear into the Target store, John whipped his truck to the curb and hopped out.
Parking tickets be damned.
Hurrying toward the building, John saw four men hot on Trixie’s heels. Two stayed outside. The other two went in.
John went in too, followed by Trevon.
The two guys who’d stayed outside were on the movie, one of them jogging toward the corner while the other stood where he could see the front door.
Probably trying to cover all exits.
Hmm. They had the look of law enforcement. Maybe military. They appeared too capable and disciplined to simply be random mob thugs.
If they were cops, that would certainly change things. Was Trixie being hunted by the police? Could she have done something wrong? Or were they making a mistake? Obviously, law enforcement didn’t always get it right.
They might be trying to catch up to her for protection, too.
Or they were dirty cops.
Maybe not cops at all.
He was about to have his answer sooner rather than later. Going into the store, he saw the two men had Trixie stopped. A woman in a red Target shirt with a name badge and an armed security guard where there too.
John could feel the tension even from where he stood.
He strode forward. His muscles were tight. Both eyes darted side to side taking everything in.
One of the guys had a badge out, claiming to be a cop.
He was lying. He used to be a cop. John knew the guy.
L.A. was a big city. Not all first responders knew each other. But you answered enough calls and you met people. The idiot holding the badge was named Todd Stark. He had an awful reputation on the force, but a bad rep alone isn’t enough to get you kicked off.
Having multiple Internal Affairs investigations that find substantial proof of gross misconduct will get you kicked off.
Such was the case for good ol’ Stark.
He was an asshole of the highest order. The stuff of legends. A cautionary tale told to rookies to make them behave—and a story recounted by fireman in their rivalry with the cops to boast their claims that the LAFD was better than the LAPD.
So, John knew instantly that the badge Stark was holding wasn’t real.
Or at least it wasn’t valid. Might have belonged to a real cop at one time.
“That man’s not a real police officer!” The words surprised John as they left his mouth. He hadn’t formed a game plan or anything. But seeing these guys so close to Trixie had him burning with white-hot rage.
Everyone looked at him, even Stark himself. Stark wore a blank expression, like he had no earthly idea who John was.
Typical. He’d always been an arrogant jerk. And cops meet so many people anyway.
John wasn’t going to give him an inch of wiggle room though.
“Surprised you still have that, Todd. Usually IA takes badges away from cops who get kicked off the force.”
That must have jogged his memory, John figured, because all of a sudden Todd said, “You’re not even a cop, fireman. You don’t know.”
He didn’t sound very convincing though. Tt seemed as if he was trying to inject some bravado into his voice.
“Well, don’t worry. I’ve called the police. So there will be plenty of ‘em around here to sort this all out soon.”
The two guys seemed a bit rattled. Now was the time to shake them up more. John stepped forward. To their credit, they didn’t back up.
When they finally saw Trevon, however, their posture softened a little.
“How are we going to do this, boys?” John asked.
He wasn’t used to talking tough. That wasn’t really his thing. Saving lives was. But unlike his usual situations, he realized he might have to fight a human rather than elements to rescue Trixie.
He’d do whatever it took.
In that moment, John learned that whether he was going up against a natural disaster or a human, his instincts reacted the same way.
It was as if time slowed down for him. He had complete clarity of mind.
The move Todd Stark made was easy to read, and John quickly dodged the punch with inches to spare.
Stark wasn’t so lucky with John’s counterstrike.
The fist crashed hard into the man’s stomach, visibly knocking the wind from him and doubling him over as he sank to his knees.
That other man made a move for John, but Trevon stepped in and simply lifted the man high into the air and tossed him.
“Ahh!” the guy cried as he landed about five feet away, the pain evident on his face as the color drained from his cheeks.
“Hey, what’s going on? Stop!” the security guard yelled.
John felt bad for the guy. He was just trying to do his job and didn’t know anything about what was going down. But they couldn’t hang around to answer questions.
“You’re coming with us,” John told Trixie.
She didn’t protest. In fact, she grabbed his hand, held on tight, and practically yanked him toward the door.
Outside, the third man who’d stayed behind to watch the entrance saw them come out. He started reaching behind him, as if to pull something from the back waistband of his jeans, but John didn’t wait around to see what it was.
Two quick punches to the guy’s face had him falling back against the wall and sliding down the building into a seated position.
John, Trixie, and Trevon arrived at the awaiting truck at the curb just as a parking enforcement officer was about to put a ticket on the windshield.
“I’ll take that. Sorry about the bad parking job,” John said, grabbing the slip of paper.
“Hey!” the officer yelled.
John didn’t wait around. Once everyone was inside, he peeled out and zoomed down Hollywood Boulevard as fast as traffic would let him.
He needed to get his sweetie somewhere safe.
They were going to the Daddy Guard mansion.