Hidden Summit - By Robyn Carr Page 0,104

to Mathis.

And then there was the sound of gunfire. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Mathis crumbled. His lawyer crumbled. One of his sons fell.

Scott pushed Conner to the ground and covered his body with his own, but Conner lifted his head to look out, to see what was happening. There was more gunfire and Conner wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Then next thing Conner knew, Scott moved enough for him to see the young woman was tackled by two very large, uniformed police officers, and immediately following that, there was a rush of people swarming the area. A couple of men ran to the SUV, but an officer, with gun extended toward the driver, blocked it from moving. That’s when he noticed that even though Scott was lying on top of him, he had his gun out, too, leveled in the direction of the shooting.

“Holy shit,” Scott muttered, pulling Conner roughly to his feet. While Conner instinctively started in the direction of the melee, Scott strong-armed him in the direction of the courthouse doors, wrestling him inside.

“What the hell?” Conner asked.

“Shooting,” he said. Scott pulled out his cell phone and plunked in some numbers. “415A in progress in front of the courthouse. Wounded. Looks like they might have one in custody. It’s a mess of people out there.” He leveled a steely gaze at Conner. “Do. Not. Move.”

Scott stepped out of the building, but only for a second. Then he was back. The sound of sirens seemed to accompany him.

“Did you get help?” Conner asked him.

He gave a nod. “There’s more help than we need out there. Every person with a cell phone on the courthouse steps or on the sidewalk called it in. Looks like they have the woman with the gun on the ground, disarmed. And there are a couple of guys who decided to get away, too, who are detained, but I have no idea if they’re part of this.”

Conner poked a finger in his chest. “You wearing a vest?”

“Not today. Not to court.”

“You covered me with your body!”

“Yeah, you lucky devil. It was instinct, that’s all. Let’s get you inside.” He pulled out his ID and escorted Conner through the metal detector. Scott showed his ID and badge and set off the alarms with his gun; the guards and marshals gave him a lot of attention before they passed him through. And then he took Conner not to the courtroom, but to the room where the A.D.A. met witnesses.

And there they sat.

Conner was in a state of shock for a good fifteen minutes before he finally said, “I thought if anyone got shot going up the courthouse steps, it would be me.”

Twenty

It was an hour before Scott was informed that court was canceled, and he relayed this message to Conner. “I’ll take you back to the hotel.”

“What happened?” Conner demanded.

“Details are fuzzy, but our defendant has been injured and is being treated. His injuries are serious. There were two other injuries, as well.”

“Can’t you get more information?”

“Eventually you’ll get information, but for right now court is canceled. Come on,” he said. “This time, the back door.”

“Yeah, you bet,” Conner said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Me, either,” Scott said. “And I’ve seen stuff. The homicide unit usually shows up after, not during.”

“You going to wear a vest from now on?”

“I wear a vest when I’m on a case, but this is court. I go to court all the time. I usually wear a tie!”

They took the elevator down to the ground level, through a bunch of corridors to an exit manned by marshals and out into the sunlight. They drove back to the hotel without talking, and Scott left Conner in his hotel room.

“I’m sure you’ll hear from the D.A.,” he said. “Just lock up and don’t open for anyone but me or the D.A.”

“Sure,” Conner said. “Thanks. Really.”

“Anytime, Conner,” he said. Then he grinned. “All in a day’s work.”

Alone in the hotel room, Conner looked at his watch. Almost ten and about an hour and a half of excitement under his belt. He turned on the TV, and unsurprisingly, the shooting at the courthouse was all the news. He watched for a half hour. Details were still sketchy, but two of the shooting victims were in surgery, one of them being Regis Mathis, both in critical condition. The third victim, his son, was treated and released. The woman in custody was a former girlfriend and employee of Dickie Randolph. The two men trying to