“Yeah.” He patted his jacket. “When Smith and Wesson speaks.”
Shorty giggled. “People listen. Right, Pops?”
O’Connor smiled. “That’s right, Son.”
Pops?My heart skipped a beat. Then I saw the similarity. Shorty was a younger skinnier version of the detective—same hair, similar nose and ears. “Too bad you didn’t catch him earlier.”Keeping him talking. Use up time.
O’Connor sat down on a dusty chair. “Oh, I did catch him after the second victim. That was the magic of it. Then he had to go and fuck up the perfect deal.”
“Why the hell you tellin’ the bitch anything?” Buzzcut bitched.
O’Connor turned on the big man. “Because she won’t be telling anybody.”
I couldn’t control the shivers that ran through me.
“And you wouldn’t fucking appreciate the beauty of it,” the detective added.
“Yeah, shithead,” Shorty spat.
“Who you calling names, weasel-breath?”
O’Connor smiled in Shorty’s direction. “But you do, don’t you, Simon?”
“Sure do, Pops.”
“You’re too stupid to even know you’re stupid,” Buzzcut scoffed.
Shorty, rather Simon, looked to Buzzcut and then to his father. “Is it time yet?”
O’Connor nodded. “He’s served his purpose.”
Simon drew a gun.
“What the fuck?” Buzzcut yelled.
Bang, bang.
I flinched at the deafening noise.
Buzzcut fell back against the wall and slumped to the floor, wheezing. The gun he’d pulled out too slowly clattered to the ground beside him. “You?—”
Simon walked up to Buzzcut and fired again. “Now who’s stupid?”
Shivers racked me.
The big man’s open eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
CHAPTER 46
Zane
This was taking too long,then it came to me.
I jumped to my feet. “Jordy. She doesn’t have her phone, but one of her AirPods got stuck in the lining of her jacket.”
“That’s brilliant,” Jordy screeched, holding his hand skyward. “Thank you, Apple gods.” He sat back down. “Give me a minute, I’ve got her phone data.”
“You can track one of those things?” Pete asked.
