Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Buckshot.
Allen did get him.
“Lower your weapons!” Rus shouted, causing Harry to stop moving and cast a quick look around.
Pete wasn’t the only civilian training a gun on Abernathy.
“Lower your weapons!” Rus bellowed.
“He preyed on our women!” Tim, the manager of the tack shop, who was pointing a revolver at Abernathy, shouted.
Abernathy swung around wildly.
Shit!
“Lower your weapons!” Rus repeated.
“He killed Sonny and Av!” Chuck, the owner of the greengrocer, who was pointing a rifle at Abernathy, yelled.
“You are putting my deputies and my civilians in jeopardy!” Harry boomed. “Lower! Your! Weapons! NOW!”
Weapons lowered.
“Back away from the suspect!” Harry ordered.
Everyone backed away but Harry’s crew.
Abernathy turned on Harry.
Harry’s adrenaline spiked.
Quick assessment: gunshot wound to the shoulder, probably from George. Mangled gun arm, one of his dogs. Torn leg of his pants, blood visible, another one of his dogs. Further weeping at his side, maybe Kimmy.
Hollowed cheeks, sharpened cheekbones, that slight gut Harry saw in the video from his house was gone. Too busy hunting or not enough money meant he’d done without food, and from the sunken look of his eyes and the dark circles under them, also sleep.
“You’re injured and you’re surrounded,” Harry told him. “Lay down your weapon. Put your hands behind your head. And get on your knees.”
Abernathy just stood there, staring hate at Harry, his gun aimed at Harry’s chest.
Harry had put on a vest, but he didn’t like this one fucking bit.
He’d already shot at Harry, but Harry knew it, he saw it.
The man was already dead, he understood that. He just had to make it happen.
“Lay down your weapon, Karl,” Harry commanded. “Do not—”
Harry didn’t finish that.
With a primal yell, Abernathy ran toward Harry, raising his gun’s aim to Harry’s head.
“Don’t shoot!” Harry shouted, tilting his eye to the sight of his weapon and lowering his aim to the man’s thigh.
His shout was drowned by a blast.
Abernathy’s chest exploded in a cloud of crimson, and he collapsed to his back, his gun clattering off to the side.
Harry turned and looked up to see Karen on the roof two buildings down. She had a tactical rifle.
She always got the blue ribbon in their marksmanship competitions.
Christ.
Harry holstered his weapon and raced to Abernathy.
Wade was kicking away Abernathy’s gun.
Rus had already gotten to him, and he was on his knees putting pressure on the wound while yelling, “Get an ambulance here!”
Harry dropped to his knees on Abernathy’s other side, and he put his hands over Rus’s.
He looked to Abernathy’s face.
He was staring, glassy-eyed, at the sky. A weak buck of his body, and blood bubbled out of his mouth. He expelled a breath, and it sprayed his skin and once-obsessively trimmed, now scraggly beard with crimson dots.
“Do not fucking die on me,” Harry demanded.
How did you get Sonny and Avery out of their motel?
How did you subdue Sonny enough to put bullets in Avery, and him?
Where is his wallet, her purse?
Did Leland tell you to target them?
Why did you take it that far?
Why did you hurt women the way you did?
Where is Cheryl Ballard?
Why did you waste your life?
Why?
Another bubble of blood erupted from Abernathy’s mouth.
“Do not fucking die on me,” Harry whispered.
The tension leaked out of Abernathy’s body, and the light winked out in his eyes.
“Goddamn it,” Harry kept whispering.
Rus took his blood-covered hands from under Harry’s and checked for a pulse in Abernathy’s neck.
Harry looked to Rus.
Rus caught his gaze and shook his head.
Harry surged to his feet and shouted, “Goddamn it!”
“Stay back. Back. Stay back,” he heard Wade order and felt his deputies milling around them, keeping the perimeter clear.
Another siren was heard and then Harry and Rus were shifting away as the paramedics moved in.
They did what they’d been trained to do, but for naught.
He was gone.
“Goddamn it,” Harry whispered once more, fifteen minutes later, as he stood on the sidewalk outside Kimmy’s store and watched the paramedics load the sheet-draped body of a monster in the back of their ambulance.
He had a fresh shirt on and was conferring with Patterson and Bakshi in the open hall beside the bullpen when it happened.
A hush came over the bullpen.
He turned toward the front of his station and saw Lillian, with George and Ronetta following, coming in.
Her gaze came right to Harry.
Raul opened the front bench to let her in, and Lillian ran toward Harry.
He turned fully to her and started walking her way.
She hit him like a rocket, so hard, he went back on a foot.
He thought this was a demonstration of her relief it was over.
But she pulled away and patted him down frenziedly, mumbling, “You’re good. You’re safe. You’re good.”
“I’m fine, honey,” he murmured.
She looked up at him.
He caught her face in his hands and put his to hers.
“It’s over, Lilly.”
The tears hit her eyes before she planted her face in his chest and circled him with her arms.