Bad Shoot

By Patti Larsen

When Gerri’s partner, Detective Jackson Pierce, comes under investigation for a wrongful death, it’s up to her and her friends to exonerate him—as much as it kills her to prove him innocent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patti Larsen
• Release date: Jun 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781989925041

Patti Larsen

About me, huh? Well, my official bio reads like this: Patti Larsen is a multiple award-winning author with a passion for the voices in her head. But that sounds so freaking formal, doesn’t it? I’m a storyteller who hears character's demands so loudly I have to write them down. I love the idea of sports even though sports hate me. I’ve dabbled in everything from improv theater to film making and writing TV shows, singing in an all girl band to running my own hair salon.But always, always, writing books calls me home.I’ve had my sights set on world literary domination for a while now. Which means getting my books out there, to you, my darling readers. It’s the coolest thing ever, this job of mine, being able to tell stories I love, only to see them all shiny and happy in your hands... thank you for reading.As for the rest of it, I’m short (permanent), slightly round (changeable) and blonde (for ever and ever). I love to talk one on one about the deepest topics and can’t seem to stop seeing the big picture. I happily live on Prince Edward Island, Canada, home to Anne of Green Gables and the most beautiful red beaches in the world, with my pug overlord and overlady, six lazy cats and Gypsy Vanner gelding, Fynn.

Book preview

Bad Shoot

The Nightshade Cases: Book Twelve

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 by Patti Larsen

Find out more about Patti Larsen at http://www.pattilarsen.com/home

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Chapter One

DROP YOUR WEAPON! Gerri’s sat steady in her hands, perfectly in balance, finger on the trigger, ready to do what she needed to do to end this. Now. Tonight.

You drop yours. He sounded far too calm for someone about to die. But it was clear to the detective her partner wasn’t about to stand down.

Jackson Pierce had her in his sights as clearly as she had him in hers and she could only see one outcome.

As everything in her hyper-focused to the center of his chest, the body memory of three quick squeezes that would put a trio of lead in his heart. If he had one.

Inhale. Exhale. Time stopped.

Just as his eyes widened and, with a hate so powerful she could feel it from twenty feet away, he stilled and, in that instant, she knew what she had to do.

While he pulled the trigger.

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Chapter Two

24 Hours Earlier

Gerri didn’t bother to sit in the creaking chair, hardly able to stop herself from pacing, her heavy and well-worn cowboy boots begging her to thud out her unhappiness against the industrial tile of the captain’s office floor. Instead, she held her tall body rigid and just under control while the whining continued.

And I’m telling you, Captain King, Jackson Pierce said with that particular level of objectionable complaint lingering behind each and every word that made her want to take him out, regardless of their present circumstance, Meyers is, yet again, acting outside department regulations and, in doing so, is putting my hard work and this case at risk. His shark-like gaze lifted to Gerri a moment, enough satisfaction behind that Hollywoodesque pretentiousness she could barely breathe through the forced flaring of her nostrils, the overlaid vision of his previously broken nose—now, sadly, all healed though she’d done her best to ensure it would never come out straight—so distracting she had to fight to keep herself from repeating the performance. If she continues to take liberties at crime scenes and push the boundaries of procedure, I’m not the only one who will be down your neck about her.

The captain glared, but he didn’t argue, the hulking form of Dominic King perched in rather comical precision behind his wooden desk, giant linebacker shape barely contained by the surface in front of him, massive upper body straining against the crisp white of his dress shirt. Now that Gerri understood who and what she was—though the term bheast still gave her the willies and sometimes pissed her off enough she felt like biting someone, so that wasn’t helping—and that, like her, the captain was also of that paranormal variety, his familiar feel and similar character to hers made sense. Gerri loved orderly, structured, logical. It made her happy to put things in categories and situations in spaces and people in boxes. Something, she hated to admit, came from her rather wolf-like inner self and its need to—shudder—herd the world around her.

Typically, that meant her captain was on her side in these matters. Mind you if he ever found out she thought of him as hers? She’d die of horrified embarrassment. Not to mention the fact their last conversation about her friend Kinsey had him tell Gerri to protect her until someone rando she didn’t answer to told her to kill the anthropologist.

Not going to happen and put a definite damper on her previously solid ground with her captain.

The problem was, there was so much of her that the bheast controlled, now that she was willing to explore it and do some digging into her race, which meant despite her normal needs and desires, it was hard to fight her inner wolf’s powerful instinct to obey her superior. Still shudder worthy to think of herself as anything but human, despite the fact knowing had a rightness to it that matched firing her gun, running at top speed, taking action. Her favorites.

As things stood now, however, she could already see from the mimicked tension in King’s shoulders and the way he tilted his head when he met her green eyes with his black ones, he wasn’t seeing things her way this time. Because of her head-butting rebellion? Even Gerri knew better.

Damn it. She was going to make sure Pierce paid for this, one way or another.

I questioned the suspect’s daughter, Gerri said, keeping her voice as level and controlled as possible despite knowing the captain had to see her anxiety and the stress-level she carried in her own body. This was one time when facing off against another bheast wasn’t serving her at all. He could read her as easily as she could read him, from the subtle change in the scent of the air, the weight, even, of the oxygen as the entire room took on his disapproval. She fought off the need to whimper and grovel, hating her true nature for the first time since