“Payback,” Bass said as he stepped into the barn. His shadow sprawled long and dark over the floor as the sun settled behind him. “After all, you did frame me for what happened to that old woman. You and Ville. Did you really think that my dad would take that to the grave?”
Silence settled over the barn, and nobody looked at Shepherd.
Not even Bass, who dropped his gaze to Tag. His pale eyes were full of a complicated mix of determination, regret, and worry. There was a bloody, roughly cleaned cut on his forehead, a gouge of scabbed red that cut through his brow and nicked the corner of his eye.
“You okay?” he asked.
Tag glanced down at his hand, already swollen and with hints of pale blue under the skin as the damage settled. His chest crackled when he breathed, and his ear throbbed with a distinct, hot pain that made him assume it was the size of a fist.
“No,” he said. “Not really. You?”
“Don’t worry,” Bass said. His smile creased his face and cracked the cut in his eyebrow. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek. “This will be over soon.”
Shepherd kneed Tag out of the way and stepped forward. “Yes,” he said. “It will. Kill him.”
The bikers went for their guns. Bass already had his in hand. It barked twice as he threw himself to the side and scrambled behind the rusted hulk of old farm machinery. One biker staggered as blood sprayed from his thigh and his legs folded under him. The second bullet missed and punched into a support. The two men nearest it yelped as splinters caught their hair and stippled their faces with blood.
That still left six other bikers. Bullets flew across the room, chipped gouges in the worn floor, bounced off the thresher, and ripped through the walls.
Pencil-thin beams of light painted dots on the floor as though it were a game of laser tag. The noise echoed up to the peaked ceiling, loud enough to roust a few pigeons that creaked their way into flight, and bounced back down again.
Tag scrambled out of the way on his one good hand and knees. He got splinters under his nails, sharp little jabs that pinched down to the bed, and in his knees. Adrenaline made his heart thunder painfully against his bruised chest wall. He crawled behind the few boards that were left of a makeshift stall. It felt safe even though it wasn’t.
“Tell me something?” Bass yelled. He took another shot, and one of the bikers squealed in pain, surprised, as though they hadn’t known they were in a firefight. “How do you plan to clean this up, Shepherd? This isn’t a poor old woman and a kid everyone knew was on a fast track to fuck up. You were selling babies to the highest bidder.”
Tag squirmed around and peeked through a crack between the boards.
He could see Shepherd. He had taken shelter behind a metal tub. He crouched, heavy shoulders hunched under a grubby T-shirt, with the briefcase at his feet.
“Supply and demand. Women got kids, their husbands can’t seal the deal, and I get them,” he yelled. “What’s so bad about that?”
“You think that’s what they’ll believe?” Bass mocked. “We all know what sort of pervert buys little kids, Shepherd. What sort of pervert sells them. How long do you think it’ll last when that gets out?”
One of the bikers cursed and fired a stuttered line of bullets across the length of the thresher. It sparked and rattled as they struck it and either lodged or bounced.
“Shut the fuck up,” Shepherd yelled over the noise. “Nobody’s going to believe that.”
“They will when Merlo spreads the word,” Bass said. “After you murdered two doctors to keep them from testifying?”
One of the bikers looked around. He shook his head and tossed down the gun. “This ain’t worth it,” he said. “It isn’t what I signed up for.”
He ran for the door, but Shepherd shot him in the back before he reached it. The man lurched, arms thrown out in surprise, and fell face-first into the dirt.
“Son of a bitch,” someone gasped—a soft sound that would have been lost if not for the sudden, startled silence.
“You want out of the Corpse Brothers,” Boone yelled despite a slight shake in his voice. “You go out feet first. Brothers for life.”
“Yeah, like Cain and Abel,” Bass yelled. “Guess who’s Cain here, boys. Or was I the only one he didn’t tell about this baby-selling racket?”
“You’re a fucking snitch,” Boone yelled, face red over his salt-and-pepper beard. “So shut your snitching mouth. You’re outnumbered, outgunned, and you’re going to regret ever coming back here. Believe me.”
“You’re a lackey,” Bass jeered back. “And—”
The low, heavy chop of helicopter blades interrupted him. Everyone glanced up at the ceiling. Boone jabbed a thick finger across the barn at one of the bikers, a skinny boy with more Adam’s apple than muscle.
“Check it out.”
The boy gulped and edged toward the door. He gave a wide, spooked berth to the corpse on the floor and peered around the door. Then he dropped his gun and raised his arms.
