Page 19 of Shatter

"Are there more of him?" I keep my voice low.

She shuts her eyes.

It's enough of an answer.

I need to move.

The shots were loud, and even out here on the dead end of Tennessee, somebody will have heard them and decided whether it's worth calling in.

Five minutes, maybe.

Ten if the cops are busy with bar close by.

I leave her sitting against the front tire of her car, wrapped in my cut, and walk back to the dead man.

He's younger than I thought, forty maybe, with a good haircut and a fresh scratch across one cheekbone, three thin lines still beaded red.

She did it.

Good girl.

I go through his pockets fast, with my shirt-hand wrapped in the tail of his jacket so I don't leave prints on anything smooth.

Keys to the sedan.

A ring of cheap keys with a brass mailbox key on it, and a phone in a cracked pink case.

Hers.

His own phone, a burner by the look of it.

A wallet with a British Columbia driver's license.

Colin Dufresne.

Vancouver.

Inside his jacket, where his hand kept going, there's a snub-nosed revolver in a shoulder holster.

I leave it where it is.

I grab him under the arms and drag him across the lot toward the dumpster, and his heels scrape two long lines in the grit.

He smells like mint gum, with cigarettes underneath.

My arms are shaking by the time I get him behind it.

It isn't the weight.

I fold him into the gap between the dumpster and the wall and stand there for a second, breathing hard, staring down at his face.

I've hurt men for the club.

Broken fingers, and once a man's jaw, over a debt he owed Magnus.

I've never ended one.

He doesn't look like much.