Chapter Sixty-four
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Luc
Snuffing out someone’s candle doesn’t make your own light shine any brighter. In fact, it steals a bit of your glow.
I learned this the hard way in the Green Berets when circumstances forced me to end a life. I’d hoped, once I was out of the service, I’d never have to make another of those terrible decisions. I’d hoped I’d never have to lose another ounce of my luster.
But George Sullivan has a look in his eye.
One I recognize well.
I saw it in the mountains of the Hindu Kush on the faces of enemy combatants. I saw it on the eyes of the men in my unit when we were pinned down behind enemy lines and taking fire. And I saw it in Cash’s expression the day he came to drop off his Dear Jane letter for Maggie. It’s fatalistic. A killing look.
Someone’s leaving here in a body bag.
Unless I can find a way to defuse the situation.
“Look, man.” I never break eye contact with Sullivan, willing him to read the sincerity in my gaze. “I know you’re hurting over the loss of your son. I know about waking up in the morning with a smile on your face ’cause for a split second you forget that the one you love is gone, and then feeling like you’ve been hit by a Mack truck when you remember. Iknow.I lost my dad. Maggie May lost both her folks. Weunderstand, and we—”
“Spare me your Kumbaya, we’re-all-in-this-together bullshit.” Sullivan’s tobacco-stained teeth gleam yellow beneath his mustache when his upper lip pulls back into a snarl. “Your parents died. My boy wasmurdered. The difference between those things is bigger than the journey from here to hell.”
“Dean wasn’t murdered.” I beg him to hear the truth in my words. “Leastways not how you’re thinking.”
“Yes, hewas!”
“No! Hewasn’t!” I realize I’m matching Sullivan’s volume when Maggie tangles the material at the back of my shirt into her fist.
Right. Never has a shouting match lessened the tension of any situation.
Taking a deep breath of damp swamp air, I hope it’ll tamp down the molten desperation bubbling inside me. One of us has to keep our cool. And it’s certainly not going to be Sullivan.
The man looks unhinged. (Although, I don’t reckon he was ever hinged to begin with.) The side of his face not shadowed by the brim of his cowboy hat looks splotchy in the starlight. And a big vein pulses in his neck.
It’s at this moment he makes his second mistake of the night. (His first was coming here looking for revenge.) He lifts his Magnum .44 and aims it straight at my chest.
The muscles in my jaw turn to stone at the same time I harden my heart. If I allow him to pull his trigger, the caliber of his big-bore weapon is enough to send a bullet clean through me and into Maggie May.
I wish she’d gone to hide in the bathroom like I told her. Then again, it takes a woman with snap in her garters to stand with me and face down a stark raving gunman. So I’m full to bursting with pride for her too.
I’ve had my finger pressed against my trigger guard. (One of the first things the army taught me was never to touch the trigger until I’m damn good and ready to fire.) But now, with infinite care, so as not to draw Sullivan’s eye, I slip my pointer finger around the cool metal mechanism. When squeezed, it promises to discharge hot lead death.
Isn’t that crazy? To think that a piece of metal barely an inch long can be the catalyst that snuffs out a life in a fraction of a second?
The night breeze plays with the wind chimes on the front porch, sounding a discordantly sweet note. The dry, decrepit odor of the pecan husks that have fallen from the tree next to the house tunnel up my nose. And the poisonous atmosphere that’s gathered around us is harsh on my tongue, like Creole bitters.
In life-and-death situations, all my senses come into sharper focus.
“Tell me once and for all what you did to my boy!” Sullivan shakes his six-shooter in emphasis, and my index finger tightens around my trigger. But I don’t squeeze. I haven’t reached the point of no return. There’s still one thing left to try.
“If I tell you,” I say, “will you finally leave us well enough alone?”
Behind me, Maggie sucks in a startled breath. “Luc, no.”
I don’t dare take my eyes off of Sullivan when I say to her, “I know we swore to take this to our grave. But this secret has been festering for years. The only way I know to stop the spread of the rot is to lance it open and expose it to the air. We’ll deal with whatever he tries to make of it afterward. After all, thetruthis on our side. And we have more power to fight him now than we did when we were kids.”
“Tell me!” Sullivan barks again, taking a step toward us.
