After Read Free

like the predator who waited outside the home of a doctor a mile away and shot him outside his house, stole his wallet, and used his credit cards an hour later, or maybe some kid from D.C., out joyriding in the county.
    Carson pulls out of the parking lot and puts his lights on, radioing in to the dispatcher, “I’m behind this guy who’s speeding, no lights, and he’s not stopping.”
    “Do you have backup?”
    “No.”
    Carson hears Jordan’s voice break into the call: “I’ll head back over there.”
    Carson’s all up in the ass of the car, glued to the vehicle, but the driver won’t stop. The black Nissan crosses the intersection and finally the driver abruptly pulls into the near-empty parking lot of a strip mall. By the time the car has stopped and he’s parked behind him, Carson’s skin is tingling and he’s tense, buoyed by the involuntary adrenaline rush that’s an invisible body armor, priming him for action.
    “Get out of the car, sir,” Carson yells, approaching the car, his Beretta pointed at the man behind the steering wheel with his hands in the air.
    “Open the door slowly.”
    The door opens and the driver steps out as Carson moves back. He’s twenty-five or twenty-six, Carson guesses, clean-cut, sober-looking, with a serious, proud, unflinching face. He’s wearing expensive jeans, a bulky sweater, a leather jacket, and Timberland boots. His hair is braided and he’s got a chiseled, tough/soft handsomeness that reminds Carson of the Black male models he’s seen on the pages of
GQ
, advertising Hugo Boss suits, or the actors on Bunny’s favorite soap opera,
The Young and the Restless
. He’s that smooth. And for all his disarming good looks, the man standing before him could be a robber, a murderer, or just an unlucky SOB caught speeding when he thought no cops were around.
    “Turn around, face the trunk of the car,” Carson orders. “On your knees. Put your hands behind your head.” The man drops to the ground and faces the trunk of the car.
    “What did I do? Why was I stopped?” he asks, his voice injured, surprised.
    “What’d you do? You crazy, man? Fleeing an officer. Driving with no lights.”
    “What? I wasn’t eluding you. I didn’t realize my lights weren’t on. I mean, I had an argument with my girlfriend and I’ve been f’d up all evening,” he says, turning to look at Carson to make his point.
    “Where’s your license? Your registration?”
    “In my wallet in my back pocket.”
    Carson begins to approach the kneeling man when he sees him drop his left hand and reach inside his waistband.
    The quick, small movement chills the night and freezes Carson’s blood.
    “Put your hands up,” he shouts, a surging infusion of fear flooding his insides, as liquid and warm as blood.
    He’s no longer a pretty boy but a looming threat. The man is holding an object in his left hand, smooth, hard, shiny as the moon in the sky.
    “Put your hands up.” Uncertainty balloons inside Carson. The words bruise his throat as he issues them with a force he hopes the man will immediately respect.
    “I’m not…It’s not…” the man pleads, again turning his head to face Carson and in one swift move rising from the ground.
    Where is Jordan?
Carson wonders, another surge of fear sliding down his spine. Pointing the object at Carson, the man steps forward.
    “What’s in your hand?”
    “Look, I said it’s…” the man insists, taking another step toward Carson, pointing at him with the hand holding the object. The night, the sky, the stars overhead: they all swirl around him, a dreamy encroachment. Carson is alone. In a darkened parking lot. And terribly afraid.
    “Drop what you’re holding and put your hands behind your head,” Carson orders as his finger trembles, a whisper away from the trigger.
    “Officer, I said…”
    It’s his fingers and his hands, both of them clutching the Beretta, it’s even his body, that pulls the trigger. All he sees is the man’s hand