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RJ tightened his grip on her and took up the rest of the explanation. “After Dwight told me that Melanie had given birth to Kenton, I called CPS. I didn’t mention anything about what I’d learned, but they told me that Kenton and Dwight had requested for him to be placed here with Melanie and me.”
“They requested it?” Mia asked. “Why?”
RJ lifted his shoulder. “I figure Kenton might have just wanted to be around his birth mother, but Dwight would have likely twisted that to his own benefit. He could have planned on using Kenton to blackmail her or something.”
Angel was betting the same thing.
He took out his phone to send a text to Ruby to have her arrange a meeting with Dwight, but some movement from outside the window caught his eye. It was a blur of motion. Someone running.
And a bullet came crashing through the kitchen window.
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Chapter Twelve
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Glass flew across the kitchen, and Mia gasped when she felt one of the shards slice across her arm. Her mind registered the pain right away. But it took her another second to realize what had just happened.
Someone had fired a shot at them.
“Get down,” Angel ordered, and as he’d done at the shooting at her own house, he dragged her to the ground. Or in this case, the floor.
He glanced at her arm, at the blood, and cursed before he lunged across the table, shoving Melanie and RJ down as well. It was the nick of time.
Because another slot ripped through the gaping hole in the glass and slammed into the table, right where Melanie had just been sitting.
Melanie screamed, and even though it was at the top of her lungs, it still wasn’t loud enough to drown out the next shot. That one blasted in the wall above Mia, tearing through the wood and going heaven knew where.
“Crawl to the side of the fridge,” Angel said, whipping out his gun and positioning himself in front of them.
Mia didn’t want him to be her human shield. She didn’t want Angel to get shot or killed. But arguing with him might be enough of a distraction for that to happen anyway.
So, she moved.
Her arm was stinging, and, yeah, it was bleeding, but she didn’t think it was serious. She couldn’t say the same for the back of RJ’s head. There was blood there, too. Plenty of it, and she didn’t know if he’d been grazed by a bullet or if it, too, was a cut from the flying glass.
Melanie and RJ got to the fridge first, and thank God it wasn’t a built-in. There was a two-foot wide gap between it and the partial wall, and the moment they reached it, RJ pulled Melanie to her feet and shoved her into the opening. He motioned for Mia to go in next, but she pushed him in next to Melanie instead before she got behind the cover of the fridge.
Mia wanted to be able to see Angel, and that wouldn’t have been possible if she was crammed in behind RJ.
And she soon saw him.
Damn it.
Angel was crouched down but was making his way to that blasted shot-out window. The shooter must have seen him, too, because a bullet flew in Angel’s direction. He dropped down to the floor, the shot narrowly missing him. But he didn’t stay down. He got up again and darted across the room to the window.
“Danno, call 911,” Angel said without even taking his phone out of his pocket. “Active shooter at this location. In need of backup.”
Mia had no doubts that Danno would take care of that. No doubts either that SAPD would respond. After all, this was smack dab in the middle of the city. But she figured cops weren’t just going to come in with guns blazing when there was a shooter present.
“The shooter just ducked behind the garden shed,” Angel relayed to them. “Male. About five-ten, wearing a ski mask and carrying a rifle. Any chance there are security cameras out there?”
“No,” Melanie and RJ said in unison. “Is it Dwight?”
“Possibly,” Angel muttered, and then he moved.
Fast.
