Justice for Corrie (Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes Book 3) by Susan Stoker
Date of Publication: March 8, 2016
Blind since birth, Corrie Madison relies on her other sharpened senses in her job as a chiropractor. Never did she imagine she'd have to depend on them to identify a killer. But when a man enters her practice, murdering everyone in his path, Corrie is the only witness—putting her directly in the killer's crosshairs.
Officer Quint Axton wasn't looking for love, or even a relationship, until he meets Corrie. Beautiful and brave, resilient and intelligent, she's everything Quint wants—if he can keep her alive long enough to explore their mutual attraction. The threats on Corrie's life are escalating. Surely a blind person is helpless against a ruthless killer?
Hardly. Corrie is about to prove that disabled does not equal defenseless.
She debuted her first series in 2014 and quickly followed that up with the SEAL of Protection Series, which solidified her love of writing and creating stories readers can get lost in.
It wasn't until she heard Cayley's scream cut short that Corrie figured out something horrible was happening.
Knowing better than to open her door and try to stop whatever was going on, Corrie stepped quickly away from the door and imagined her office layout in her head. As the popping noises and the screams continued—and got closer to her office—she frantically thought about where she could hide.
Her desk was large, and sat perpendicular to the doorway. She could walk from the door straight to the chair at her desk without having to swerve around any furniture. She kept her office purposely free of extraneous chairs and tables so she didn't have to worry about tripping over them. She could hide under the desk, but wasn't that where everyone always hid—and died doing it? If she was a crazy person hell-bent on killing everyone around her, that's the first place she'd look for stragglers who might be hiding.
The exam door down the hall was opened and Corrie heard Mr. Treadaway ask, "Who are you?" before the awful popping sound came again.
Knowing time was running out, the gunman would be at her office within moments, Corrie made the split-second decision to see if she could fit in the small area under the sink. There was no other place she could hide.
When she'd been hired, there hadn't been any extra space for her to have an office in the small clinic. A small break room had been converted for her, and the sink and cabinets still lined one wall. It would be a tight fit, an extremely tight fit, but Corrie didn't hesitate.
Hearing the unsteady gait of someone walking down the hall, Corrie raced over to the sink and opened the cabinet underneath. She shoved her butt in first and wiggled it around, knocking over a few odds and ends that were stored under there in the process. She drew her knees up as close to her chest as she could get them and sighed in relief as she realized she fit, barely. Her neck was bent down at an awkward angle and she couldn't breathe very well, but Corrie quickly, and quietly, closed one door, then the other, praying whoever was shooting wouldn't think to look under the sink for anyone.
At the same moment Corrie heard the soft click of the cabinet door to her hiding place engage with the small magnet that kept it shut, she heard her office door burst open.
Because Corrie was blind, her other senses had always been more acute than a sighted person's. She seemed to hear, smell, and taste what people with no disabilities couldn't. The man who'd entered her office walked straight to her desk. Corrie heard her desk chair being pulled away. Yup, he'd immediately checked under there to see if someone was hiding from him. She heard him walk to the small window and held her breath.
