“I’m sorry, Wade. I told you I’d kill Billy Brannicks, and I meant it. But not with my gun. I won’t take that chance. What if the bullet gets lodged in a floorboard or the wall? What if it doesn’t go through and it stays in the body? We have another weapon, and it belongs to someone else. And a dealer was shot here before. You already know that. And this way I make sure you don’t hurt me when it’s done.”
A bead of sweat rolls down his cheek. I’m inside his head, confusing him.
“I want this to be over. I want this man dead so I can sleep at night and not fantasize about finding him and gathering evidence and watching him skip out on some technicality. So let’s go in there and take care of business. Time is not our friend in this situation.”
Wade’s hand begins to shake as he holds my gun. “I don’t believe you. There’s a reason you came alone today after you knew where I was. After you saw me on the recording coming back last night. I was expecting Rowan to be with you. It was a test. If you came with Rowan or another team, I had a way out. If you came alone, that meant you wanted to take care of me your way. And that’s what you did. You came alone, which means you aren’t worried about justice for me either. You want me gone.”
I can’t argue with him. I did come alone when I could have brought an undercover team. I had most of the night to prepare. To bring in a large unit. This was the last hotel. The chances were damned good he was in it. They could have come in through the service entrance. Gotten his room number. Guarded every door. We’re not as incompetent as Wade thinks. And he’s not as smart as he’s come to believe.
“Fine,” I say. “You keep my gun. And I’ll keep this one. You can hold it to my head until it’s done. You can even drop me on the main road once we get clear of this place.”
Wade thinks for a second and then waves his hand toward the Kill Room. I don’t let him get behind me, so we walk side by side, guns drawn. It’s only a few steps before we clear the entry and find Billy Brannicks huddled against the wall.
He’s so young, this kid. Jeans and a hoodie. Clean shaven. Short hair. He could be one of the students I used to teach at the community college, except for the terror in his eyes.
I turn my gun from Wade and aim it at him instead. He lets out a muted scream and shakes his head back and forth.No, no, no...
“Yes,” Wade says, mocking him. “Yes, yes, yes. You are going to pay for giving that gun to Clay Lucas. For being responsible for his death and for stealing something from every person in that store. You are a murderer and a thief, and this is your sentence.”
Wade looks at me and nods. I release the safety on the rifle and take proper aim at the quivering young man on the floor. What I see in his eyes is different from what I saw in Clay Lucas’s that day in Nichols and what I saw in Wade’s just moments before. And I realize that in the moment before you take someone’s life, what you really see is what’s inside yourself.
I have the chance to rid the world of something dangerous. Even if all this man did was leave a gun in a place Clay Lucas could get his hands on it. The fact is that he had the gun and planned to sell it or use it and that killing him could spare a life—maybe more than one.
Now my hands shake because I know what I have to do. And that is to finish the plan I had made. The plan to lure Wade from that hotel, once I knew he was there. To walk where he could see me and find his truck, to walk and not run because that’s what I would do if I were trying not to be seen. Of course, if I had not wanted to be seen, I would have made damn sure he never saw me. I wanted him to see me coming for him. To find his truck. To give him the chance to take me and do whatever he needed to do. The reason he’d been taunting me with threats against the people I love. It was the only way to bring this story to an end.
Now, it seems, we’re writing the first chapter of a new one.
I lower the gun. Billy Brannicks lets out a moan of relief, but it’s short lived because Wade turns his gun now, the one he took from me, and aims at the kid on the floor.
“I knew you couldn’t do it,” he says.
And now comes the question I need answered. It’s so desperate, this need, that I struggle to say the words. “Can you, Wade? Can you kill him? Is this really what you’ve become?”
Something passes through him, and I see the clarity on his face. The look of delight because, finally, he knows what he is capable of. I am the one who has given him a gift this day.
He aims my gun at the boy and pulls the trigger.
His eyes close as the gun fires because, even though he’s found whatever it takes to kill another person, he doesn’t have what it takes to watch him die. Still, it’s enough for him. It’s enough that he was able to squeeze his finger against the metal. A smile creeps over his face.
I study him carefully because I want to be sure. I have to be sure.
He opens his eyes and finds the boy sitting in the same spot—unharmed, whimpering.
His smile fades.
“Blanks,” I tell him. “They’re blanks. When I decided to make myself your victim this morning, I came prepared, just as you did with your chloroform and your plastic bag. I knew you’d take my gun. I didn’t know what you had planned for me. I just knew that this had to end.”
“You did this,” he says. “You made me want to kill, and I would have done it! I would have killed him!”
“No,” I tell him. “I didn’t make you anything. I don’t know how it happened. Whatever it is you’ve become—that’s not on me. But this is.”
I raise the rifle and point it at his chest, and I think I can do it. I think I have it in me and,Christ, how I’ve thought about this moment every second since that back road.
I hear the words inside my head.Pull the trigger!
But I can’t. I don’t. I hesitate.
Wade sees it on my face or in my eyes. Or maybe it’s the split second that passes when I don’t kill him. Like a missed beat in a song. He knows. And then he acts, raising my gun over his head, the metal handle facing down, ready to strike me.
