“Bruce got knifed in the side, Lyle. Right up to the handle. That takes strength. Real strength. You think I’ve got that in me?”
“Don’t listen to him, Lyle. He’s bullshitting you.” Bob fired again, wildly, two rounds in quick succession, both of them ringing off the rock above me. Dust drifted down. He was rattled.
“Is that true, Bob?” Lyle’s voice came out small and wobbly. “Did you do it? Did you kill Bruce and Wayne?”
I held still and let the question hang.
I shifted just enough to get a better line through the rock. From here, I could see a slice of Lyle’s left shoulder where he was crouched behind the right-hand boulder, the toe of one of his boots, and nothing else. But it was enough.
“He stabbed Bruce, Lyle.” I let my voice go quieter, almost gentle. “Got him real good. Right in the side. Bruce wouldn’t have lasted two minutes. Then Bob went after Wayne with a rope. Tied him up so he couldn’t fight back, then pulled it tight and watched. Choked him to death.”
“That’s bullshit,” Bob shouted.
“Same way he did that runaway girl back in the seventies.” I let it trail. Soft. Just a thread of it. “Same way he’s done a few others since. Bob’s got blood on his hands, Lyle. Always has.”
“Shut up.” Bob’s voice cracked. Actually cracked. I’d never heard that in him before. “Shut your fucking mouth, Frank.”
Lyle’s rifle barrel had drifted. I could see it from here. The end of it had come off the cave mouth and tracked sideways an inch, then two, then three. Toward Bob.
It was working.
I should’ve felt something more about that. The kid was about to do something he couldn’t take back, and I’d put him there. But the truth was, I’d put a lot of people in places they couldn’t come back from, and one more dopey Henderson wasn’t going to keep me up at night.
Especially when I had hours, not nights, to worry about.
“He’s been using you, Lyle,” I said. “Just like he used your brothers. Just like he used me for nearly fifty years. The only difference is your brothers are dead, and I’m next, and you’ll be after me. You know that, right? As soon as you’ve done what he wants, you’re a loose end.”
“Frank, I swear to God.” Bob’s voice was almost a snarl. “I swear to God, if you don’t shut up?—”
“Lyle.” My voice cut through his. “Look at him. Just look at him. Look in his eyes and tell me I’m wrong.”
There was a half-breath of silence.
Bob burst around the right-hand boulder faster than a man with a gut like that should’ve been able to move. He hit Lyle from the side, locked his arm under Lyle’s chin, and hauled him backward into the cave proper, one stumbling step and then another.
Lyle yelped.
Bob had his service weapon pressed under Lyle’s jaw.
I could see them both. Bob behind the kid, half a head shorter, using Lyle’s narrow shoulders to cover his chest. They came two more steps into the cave, into the shadow, Bob walking Lyle forward, using him as a shield to move into a spot where the angles were better.
Smart bastard. Always had been.
I lined up the shotgun on the wedge of Bob’s face I could see beside Lyle’s shoulder. My damn hand shook. The barrel drifted.
If I fired, I’d hit Lyle.
I didn’t fire.
Bob knew it. He kept walking Lyle forward into the cave.
“Drop the shotgun, Frank.”
“Get fucked.”
“Drop it. Or this dumb little prick wears my next round.”
“He’s gonna wear it anyway.”
