Mortal Dilemma Read Online Free

than was prudent.
    The Camaro started to speed up and the right passenger window slid down. She saw a shotgun barrel poke out of the opening. Instincttook over and she slammed hard on the brakes. She heard the squeal of tires behind her. The minivan. The Camaro shot ahead and braked. The shotgun fired, the slug passing over her hood. In the same second J.D. hit the gas and accelerated into the middle lane, winding up the Interceptor engine in her unmarked police car. She was going to ram the Camaro, but the driver must have seen her move into his lane. He accelerated.
    J.D. pulled her pistol from the equipment belt on the front passenger seat. She didn’t know what was going on, but she was pissed. She would take her shot if she had a chance. She was closing on the Camaro’s rear bumper when she felt a hard impact on her right rear quarter panel. The rear of her car was pushed to the left. She steered in the same direction, trying to regain control, but she was hit again in the right rear.
    She straightened out the front wheels and found herself headed directly into the low land of the prairie. She slammed on the brakes and fought to bring her car under control. She saw the minivan in her peripheral vision. Its front end had sustained severe damage and it had crossed the berm. It was out of control and was starting to roll over as it continued down the steep slope that defined the edge of the highway.
    J.D. had regained some control and turned the front wheels slightly to the left, trying to stay on the shoulder. The brakes were gaining traction on the grass berm when her car seemed to teeter on the decline that sloped down to the prairie. It slid right and began to roll. It turned all the way over and came to rest on its wheels, finally coming to a stop. J.D. took stock of herself. Nothing broken. No pain. She’d have a bruise on her left shoulder where the seat belt strap had dug into her flesh as the centrifugal forces tried to throw her out of the vehicle. The device had done its job and held her in the cruiser.
    J.D. let herself out of the car, pushing the crumpled door with her feet. She was still holding her pistol as she ran back toward the van.The Camaro was nowhere in sight. The van was upside down laying just off the road’s shoulder, several feet down onto the prairie. Was the driver part of the attempt to kill her? Was he working with the people in the Camaro? She didn’t know, but she had visions of a family trapped in the vehicle. She approached at a run, her pistol still in her hand. As she neared, she saw a man crawling out of the driver’s side door.
    â€œAre you all right?” she called to him. “Anybody else in the car?”
    The man was beginning to stand upright. She was about thirty feet from him when she saw the pistol he was holding. Her brain automatically assessed the situation. The pistol was a semiautomatic, a nine-millimeter perhaps, or a forty-five. Very dangerous, either way. The man was raising the pistol in her direction. Her brain was telling her to react, raise her weapon, defend herself.
    The man took his first shot as J.D. was moving to her left and dropping to the ground, aiming at the man. “Police officer,” she said. “Freeze.” The man shot again, the bullet kicking up dust a foot to the left of J.D.’s head. She shot him. Twice. In the middle of the chest. In less than a second. He fell and she got to her feet and ran to the man, now lying on his back, his gun still grasped in his right hand. She picked up the pistol by its barrel and placed it on the ground out of reach of the shooter. She checked his pulse. Nothing. He was dead.
    She looked into the van. Nobody was there. The dead man had been driving alone. Was he part of the group in the Camaro? No way to tell. She needed the local law to figure all that out.
    J.D. pulled out her phone and dialed 911. “This is Detective J. D. Duncan of Longboat Key PD. I’ve been