Banter Series 2: Bantering With A Gun
Penulis
SJ Wilke
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Banter is trying to settle into the quiet life after Corey pulls her out of the line of fire, but calm never lasts long for a woman built for the chase. When a new killer stirs chaos and the cases refuse to make sense, Corey brings her back into the heat with a mix of trust, tension, and just a hint of trouble. As the bodies rise, Banter’s instincts flare, but a stalker circles her steps and turns every shadow into a warning. Now the hunter becomes the hunted, and she must rely on sharp wit, old skills, and the unexpected wisdom of a determined five-year-old to stay ahead. The danger grows, the mystery twists, and Banter steps straight into the storm.
Chapter 1
BOOK 2: BANTER WITH A GUN
Banter watched the car drive past the park for the third time.
It was the same car: a dull metallic blue four-door sedan. A man was driving, but a plain white-and-beige baseball cap was pulled low over his forehead, making him indescribable.
She probably wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was with Kyle, Corey’s youngest son. She was feeling somewhat protective. Kyle was her little buddy.
Not to mention, she was probably being that observant because she and Kyle were the only ones in the park. It was early afternoon in mid-April, a very nice day.
She had picked him up from morning kindergarten to take him to his favorite park after lunch. They planned to stay for another hour before walking home to meet Colo, Kyle’s brother, at the school bus stop.
Banter also might not have noticed the car if it hadn’t been for the way she had perched herself on top of the swing set while Kyle swung with all his might below her. She had a bird’s-eye view of the entire area.
“Did you see that?” Banter said to Kyle.
“See what?”
“When a car comes around, you should watch it and see if you’ve seen it before.” She had been teaching him how to be careful. Kyle was too trusting of everyone.
“Oh. The blue one?”
“Yeah.”
“Baseball cap?”
“Yeah.”
Banter smiled. He had been pulling her leg and had been watching. She was pleased. He was a very smart kid, much smarter than a typical five-year-old.
She thought about Kyle’s brother, Colo. He was eight, showing all the signs that he was his father’s son and probably would become a police detective himself in due time.
Kyle, however, seemed totally enamored with her and did everything she did. She was a little worried about that.
“You gonna get that swing as high as me?” she said.
Kyle giggled, losing his concentration and his momentum. He glanced up at her with a big grin, no longer trying to get the swing as high as he could. His black hair was flying about his face. He had the same brown eyes as his father. In fact, both Kyle and Colo looked like carbon copies of their father.
“Can I jump?” he said.
“No. If I don’t jump, you don’t jump.” She brushed back her wavy brown hair.
She rose, walking along the top of the swing set as if she were on a balance beam. At the end, she placed one foot on the swing set’s support, then bent to take hold before sliding herself down to the ground.
“We gonna have to leave?” he said with a moan. Kyle stopped the swing altogether by dragging his feet on the ground. All the mulch beneath the swing set looked worn away, probably because children dragged their feet, like Kyle.
“That car makes me nervous. Did you get the license plate?”
Kyle shook his head. “No see.”
“Yeah,” she said, feeling uneasy. The person had obscured the license plate with mud. She could only tell that it was from the same state they were in.
“Can we play ninja?” His eyes lit up.
Banter almost laughed. It was a game only she and Kyle played. The game taught him about being careful in public, especially when around strangers. Sometimes it became a game of staying invisible while on the move. The game tended to evolve as different situations arose.
“We can. We have to figure out where that car is and go in a different direction,” she said.
Kyle jumped up from the swing. “Let’s go.” His eyes were bright with excitement. “One hundred points. We gotta make it out of the park without the car seeing.”
When they played the game, she assigned goals and points for him to earn. Points seemed to be the only motivation that Kyle needed. She often wondered when he would decide he needed a reward tied to the points.
“What direction do we go?” She liked having him make the decisions.
Kyle looked around before taking off at a run toward the street opposite the direction the car had last gone. Banter followed, easily keeping up with him. Kyle skidded to a stop at the curb.
He quickly looked both ways, then sprinted across. Kyle had to dash around a parked car. Then he fell to the ground.
Banter joined him, lying on her belly alongside him. They could watch from under the car. The position would allow them to see if a car was coming from either direction. “Good job.” Banter felt as much excitement as Kyle when they played the game. She loved seeing the decisions he would make.
Kyle grinned back at her. They sat in silence for fifteen minutes. Kyle had developed an unusual sense of patience from being around her and playing the ninja game. He didn’t even fidget while they waited.
Banter waited to see how long he could sit there or until the car showed up again. “Car,” she said in a whisper.
The same blue car cruised by slowly, taking the turn to go around the park and drive down the other side. It disappeared in the same direction it had come.
“Now what?” she said.
“We have to go ninja.”
“So, what do we do?”
“Follow it. He’s not gonna look where he’s already looked.”
His logic was solid, and it impressed her. She nodded her approval. He grinned widely.
“The person probably thinks we’ve left,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They both trotted along the street, heading in the same direction the car had gone. Kyle kept slightly bent over, using every car parked along the curb for cover. She was amused, since there weren’t enough cars to provide real cover.
However, she let him do what he felt he needed to do while she kept watch. After two blocks, they stopped at the corner, using a tree to hide themselves from view on one side. This was where they had to make a turn.
“Now what?” she said to Kyle.
Kyle ducked down. “Car,” he said in a whisper.
Banter followed suit. Kyle had heard the car just as she had spoken. The same metallic blue four-door car was coming toward them from the blind side of the tree.
She pulled Kyle close, and they moved around the tree, a big, mature maple, while the car drove past. Banter waited until the car was out of sight before they moved. It didn’t look like the driver had noticed them. “This way,” she said, crossing the street at a jog.
The only problem she had traveling on foot with Kyle was that he couldn’t go as fast or as far as she could. She was used to jogging long distances at a pretty fast pace. However, she was working on his distance.
“You don’t have to go so fast,” she said as he tried to run as fast as he could now that he wasn’t hiding behind cars. “Slower and farther are just as good. We’ve got to make it all the way home.”
She was pleased when he slowed to a pace that she knew he could maintain for more than a block. He kept the jog for four blocks before they stopped by another tree. Banter let him rest.
The last pass of the car had given her a better look at the license plates from both ends. A few of the numbers and letters were clearer, even though someone had muddied both plates. She pushed what she had seen to the back of her mind to mull over and figure out.
“Ready,” Kyle said.
Banter had to admit that he was getting better at running farther and needing less rest in between. “Two more blocks and we’re on the busy street. Can’t use our ears—only our eyes,” she said.
He nodded and set out at a jog. Banter trotted behind him, listening hard in case a car approached from behind.
Still, she glanced back every half dozen steps, just in case. They reached the busy street without seeing the car. Kyle pressed the button to activate the crosswalk.
“I think we earned two hundred points,” Banter said, noting how tall Kyle was getting. He was the tallest kid in his kindergarten class. This didn’t surprise her, since both of his parents were tall.
Kyle smiled. She smiled back at him. He was a happy kid, especially when he was with her. “Five hundred if we make it home without seeing the car,” he said.
Banter figured that was going to be hard. She wondered why they were being followed. Did the guy think she was a kid? A predator thinking he was stalking two kids? Had to be. Why would he be stalking an adult and a kid?
Banter was only a couple of inches over five feet and rather petite. She was often mistaken for a kid. And since she had been sitting on top of the swing set, she had projected the image that she was a kid. What adult would sit on top of a swing set?
She had also been letting her hair grow longer and leaving it down. It probably hid some of her features, making it hard to see exactly how old she was. Her brown eyes were rather large, which also added to the illusion of youth, despite her being twenty-eight years old.
The light changed, and they jogged across the street. “Drugstore,” she said, redirecting Kyle.
Half a block down were a drugstore, a single gas station, and a chain grocery store that served the housing division they lived in. The homes were upper-middle class.
The neighborhood was nice. Banter occasionally did security checks on some older neighbors when she went jogging. Of course, the neighbors she checked just thought she was stopping by for a visit.
She and Kyle ducked into the drugstore. The checkout ladies knew them and waved. Banter waved back as she followed Kyle. He liked to cruise up and down the aisles. She knew he was ultimately heading for the toy aisle.
They passed a new guy working there. He followed them until he figured out she was an adult and not a kid.
Kyle stopped to check out what was new in the toy aisle. Banter had already established that looking and touching were acceptable. However, she wouldn’t give in to any whining if he wanted her to buy anything.
Both boys had already figured that out. Kyle looked through all the toys but didn’t seem excited by any of them. She figured it was because he knew he couldn’t have any.
“Let’s go meet Colo,” Banter said after a while.
