Friar considered his question and then checked his weapon and ammo.
Chapter 86
Dani knelt beside Armstrong’s partner, examining his wounds. The corporal with the state police stood a few feet away with her gun trained on the deputy.
“Skinny bitch shot me,” Armstrong’s partner said, sucking in air as Dani wiped some blood away from the corner of his left eye with a paper towel.
“You got lucky,” Dani said.
“Lucky?” the man asked belligerently.
“You ain’t gonna lose your eyes. Most likely.”
The man blinked as a flood of tears and blood blurred his vision. “Thank God.”
“Yeah, well, while you’re thanking him, you might give him an earful over what’s come of your nose.”
“My nose,” he said with a gasp. “What about it?”
“It ain’t where it’s supposed to be unless you come into this world with it peeled over on your right cheek there.”
Panic raced through the man’s veins as he tried to cope with the idea that his nose had been blown from its normal perch.
“You ain’t gonna die from it,” Dani said, “but I’d get used to breathing in and out of your mouth from now on. Your nose most likely won’t come into that equation no more.”
The man let out a little squeak and fought to draw in air through his mutilated nose.
“That’s enough,” Armstrong said. “You’re scaring him.”
Dani looked up at her. “He should be scared.”
“I said that’s enough.”
“But he shouldn’t be scared for the reasons he’s thinking. He should be scared because he’s still alive. Ain’t that right?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Taking him to the hospital to get this fixed up is gonna complicate things. They’re gonna drug him up, and he’s liable to let slip the circumstances that rearranged his face.”
Armstrong grimaced and shouted, “Enough! Enough! Enough! Do you understand the meaning of the word? It means shut the fuck up!”
Dani stood. “Kill him.”
Armstrong stared at her, stunned.
“You know it has to be done, so do it.”
The corporal took a step back and aimed her gun at Dani’s head. “Shut up.”
“Okay, then kill me.”
Armstrong gritted her teeth, screamed at the top of her lungs, and then dropped the gun to her side.
Dani, unaware that she had not been breathing, let loose a stream of air through her nostrils. “You’re not with the state police, are you?”
The corporal nodded. “I am, but I’ve abandoned a few regulations here and there. I’m with the armed convoy division.”
Dani furrowed her brow. “I ain’t familiar.”
“We guard high-profile political candidates and state officials.”
“Longwell,” Dani said, picturing the plastic politician making promises he couldn’t keep to a roomful of voters in the high school gymnasium.
Armstrong nodded. “He was my detail. I’ve been traveling with that asshat for six months now. I can’t really blame anyone for that, though. I asked for the assignment.”
“You know about Kate Farrow?”
“I know about all of them. I’ve known for a long time. It’s why I became a cop, it’s why I asked for the Longwell detail, it’s why I’ve broken just about every law I swore to uphold.”
“I don’t understand.”
The corporal cleared her throat. “Armstrong is my married name. I took my shithead husband’s last name because my own may have set off a few alarms with the wrong people.”
“What kind of alarms?”
“You tell me. My maiden name is Hart.”
Dani considered the name for a brief moment before saying, “Your mother is…”
“You met her at Laura Farrow’s house. She was pursuing yet another avenue to find my sister. That’s all she’s done for the past fifteen years, in secret of course. My father would’ve beat her within an inch of her life if he knew.”
“And why would you ask to guard Longwell?”
Armstrong hesitated and then said, “So I could kill him.”
Dani didn’t respond.
“Trooper Manfred Longwell was the investigating officer in charge of my sister’s disappearance. Although he wasn’t so much in charge of the investigation as he was of the cover-up. This detail was my chance to make him pay for what he did to my family.”
“So why is he still alive? You’ve had six months.”
“Because on my first day of duty, I accompanied Longwell to an off-the-books meeting at a Biscuit Shack. I never made it past the parking lot, but it didn’t take a genius to know my priorities needed to change. Suddenly, killing Longwell fell way down on my to-do list. I had a hunch that if I got to know the man he was meeting with I’d find out what happened to my sister. The problem is I’ve never been able to get past Bonnie, the gatekeeper.”
A thought came to Dani. She stepped forward aggressively. “My uncle?”
Armstrong held up her hand to stop her. “He’s alive. He took a bullet just above the collarbone, but it was a through and through. Luckily, he took my advice when I told him to stay down. He wasn’t happy about it, but I promised him I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You’ve made that a hard promise to keep.”
“But in the barn…You turned down Boss’s offer to let the little girl get out of here…She could have been gone already.”
“Yeah, whisked away by two slopers who do closeouts for the Pikes.”
“But they’re helping me…”
“Are they? Do you know that for sure?”
Dani gave her question some thought and then said. “It’s about the only thing I know for sure. I’ve known the worst of the worst when it comes to men nearly my whole life, and I’ve known a few good ones. Step and Kenny are among the few.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll excuse me if I don’t have as much faith in a couple of killers as you do.”
Dani watched as Armstrong’s partner started to shiver. “He’s going into shock.”
Armstrong turned to examine the man with the misplaced nose.
“I should’ve figured you were on the right side of this thing back at the barn.”
“Why’s that?” the corporal asked as she knelt down to examine her partner’s wound.
“You never took my gun.”
Armstrong thought about Dani’s claim and then laughed. “I guess I didn’t,” she said. The corporal turned and was surprised to find the deputy gone. Stepping toward the back door, she stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of a woman screaming from the front yard of the house.
Chapter 87
Bones rifled through the glove compartment and screamed in agony when she didn’t find her heroin. She panted out a couple of angry grunts and then frantically searched under the seats. When her search came up empty, she stuffed her skinny hands between the seat cushions and mumbled a plea to the black tar gods that it would be there. It wasn’t.
Step approached the truck cautiously with Sarah Campbell in his arms. He watched Bones throw a fit over her fruitless search for her drugs. The whore caught a glimpse of them through the windshield and stared him down before saying, “It ain’t here.”
“No, it ain’t,” Step replied. “It ain’t never gonna be there for you again.”
Bones spotted a small handgun behind the passenger seat. She picked it up in a frenzy and moved around the truck with the gun trained on Step and the girl. “I want my stuff, Step! You promised!”
The girl buried her face into Step’s shoulder.
The skinny closeout king was momentarily frazzled by the gesture. The girl was terrified and Step wanted desperately to make her feel safe. “Put the gun down, Bones. You’re scaring the girl.”
Bones gritted her teeth. “I don’t care. I want my stuff. I need my stuff. You can’t just take it away from me.”
“Bones—�
�
“My name’s not Bones! Stop calling me that. My name is Amanda.” Her body started to tremble as she fought to keep her composure. “I was pretty. Remember, I told you. The boys used to love me. I was pretty Amanda.”
Sarah hugged Step tighter.
The skinny closeout king patted her gently on the back in an effort to comfort her. “You’re dying, Amanda. That stuff is killing you.”
She laughed. “You think I care about that?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think you do, but I do.”
She looked at him curiously. “Why? I’m just someone you fuck, ain’t I?”
“No.” He felt the small girl in his arms and said, “You’re someone’s daughter.”
She laughed. “My parents don’t give a shit about me. How do you think I ended up like I am, in this place, with the name Bones?”
“I think they just looked away for a minute. That’s all.”
Her anger melted away for a second and then came back with a vengeance. She fired the gun, missing Step and the girl by a mile.
The closeout king instinctively turned his back to Bones in order to shield the little girl. As the echo of the shot died down, he dropped to his knees. He heard a second shot, this one from a distance. Looking over his shoulder, he watched as Bones stared at him plaintively and then collapsed to the ground.
Chapter 88
Randle stepped out of the woods, smoke still rising out of the barrel of his shotgun. His heart was beating a mile a minute as he checked the chamber and then aimed the gun toward the now-falling Bones.
Friar followed close behind. “You got her, Terry. By God, you got her square in the chest. Holy shit!”
Terry was too shaken to answer. He had no idea who he’d shot. He could barely make out his own cousin through the darkness. He’d seen a gun pointed at Step and fired before he could think twice.
The two Baptist Flats deputy sheriffs approached with their guns at the ready. They watched as Step scrambled on his knees to the woman Randle had shot. The skinny closeout king clung to a little girl in his arms and stared at the fallen woman in silence. He mouthed her name, her real name, but couldn’t bring himself to do more.
Randle saw the woman’s face for the first time. “Jesus, Step, it’s your stripper girl!”
Step didn’t acknowledge him. He hugged the small girl tighter.
“She had a gun,” Randle said. “I thought…I wouldn’t have shot if I’d known…”
Bones coughed and gasped before growing still. The life rushed from her withered body, anxious to escape the torment.
“Step, I swear to Christ I didn’t know…”
The closeout king stood and turned to Randle. In a voice just above a whisper he said, “She used to be pretty.”
Chapter 89
Kenny grimaced in pain as he hobbled toward Boss. He was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. The old woman had done more damage than he’d initially thought. He didn’t just have a broken arm and a broken rib or two. He was beginning to think there was something wrong with one or both of his lungs.
Boss sat up slowly. “The biggest fucking idiot on my payroll, and he’s the one that’s gonna close me out. Ain’t life just a bowl of shit?”
“Them girls,” Kenny said with a wheeze. “I never would have believed such a thing, Boss.”
“Believed what, fatass?”
“Always knew you was a bastard and a half, but I didn’t figure you for a kid taker.”
Boss rolled his eyes. “You forgetting what you do for a living, Kenny?”
Kenny couldn’t hold the gun up anymore. He let his arm fall to his side. “Did. Ain’t doing it no more. Not in the same manner I used to, anyway.”
“So that makes you a saint now? Killing’s killing, Kenny. There ain’t no other way to cut it.”
“I thought I was closing out folks like you. Now I know different.”
“You closed out deadbeats and sellouts, fatass. They weren’t good people. You can rest easy about that. They got into their situations all on their own. They made bad choices.” He sniffed the gasoline on his hands. “Those bad choices come with consequences. You know what that makes you, don’t you?”
Kenny shook his head.
“That makes you the consequence.”
Kenny’s wheezing became more pronounced. “That’s a fair thing to say.” He used every bit of strength he had left to lift the gun and aim it at Boss. “I suppose that makes me your consequence.”
Boss smiled. “Don’t shoot.”
Confused by his smile, Kenny said, “We’re headed in that direction anyway. Might as well get it over with.”
“I ain’t talking to you,” Boss said.
Kenny furrowed his brow and then noticed that Boss was looking past him. He turned, groaning in pain as he did. There, standing just a few feet away, was a man he didn’t know pointing a pistol at him.
Boss stood. “Kenny, say hello to Taylor.”
“Drop your gun,” Taylor said.
“Where’d you come from?” Kenny asked.
“The plane.”
“He’s the pilot, fatass. Y’all failed to take him into account. Good Lord, boy, you and Step are about two of the dumbest motherfuckers that I’ve ever met.”
“Drop the gun,” Taylor repeated.
Kenny looked at the gun in the pilot’s trembling hand.
Taylor felt panicked when Kenny refused to comply. “Drop it!”
“You ain’t never killed anyone before, have you?” Kenny asked.
The chubby closeout king felt something hit him across the back, and he gasped wildly as he struggled to move air in and out of his lungs. Falling to the ground, he saw Boss holding a broken two-by-four in his hands.
Chapter 90
Dani skulked through the back door of the barn with her service weapon out of its holster. She stepped on the flimsy wood plank floor and pushed herself back into the shadows. Kenny was down on the ground, face-first. Boss was standing over him with a broken two-by-four, talking to someone holding a gun in the open doorway at the front of the barn.
Dani felt the heft of her gun in her hand and closed her eyes. She had only fired the weapon at targets on the gun range. All those people she wanted to shoot, the ones that made her life a living hell for being shitheads and nuisances, they fell away from her list in an instant because it became painfully apparent she much preferred those assholes to the one that stood over Kenny. This was real. She was about to step out into the open and put herself in a situation where it was highly likely she was going to have to fire her weapon. Even worse, there was a good chance that someone would fire a weapon at her. It wasn’t a position she wanted to be in. It wasn’t a situation she was sure she was ready to be in.
Her eyes were only closed for a few seconds. She opened them when she heard Boss scream, “Shoot him, goddamn it!”
She stepped out of the shadows and fumbled through the procedural address used in a situation with a firearm present, even though she’d said it dozens of times before. She should have said, “Sheriff’s department. Put down your weapon, and show your hands.” But instead she said, “Everyone freeze the fuck up!” It sounded ridiculous, and she was mad at herself for not following protocol.
Before she could correct her mistake, the man in the doorway dropped the gun and ran into the field. She mistakenly allowed herself to feel relieved and lost track of Boss, only noticing him diving for the gun when he almost had it in his hand.
“Stop!”
It was too late. He fired two shots in her direction, missing but sending her scrambling to hide behind stacks of boxes filled with canned goods.
“Pretty deputy?” Boss called out.
“That’s Deputy, shithead!”
“What the fuck ever. I’m just giving you warning that Ima fire a shot, maybe two, but it ain’t intended for any of the current occupants in the barn. There ain’t no need for you to return fire. Copy?”
“What the
hell for?”
He fired a shot, said, “Fuck!” And then fired another shot.
“What was that?” Dani said, peering through a space between the boxes. She saw Boss standing behind the tractor, looking out the barn door. Kenny was writhing in pain, trying to turn on his back.
“Fucking pilot,” Boss said. “Coward run on me. Can’t have that. ’Course he was my ride out of here, but I’ll make do.”
“You ain’t gotta worry about that,” Dani said. “Ima make accommodations for you on that end.”
Boss laughed as he slowly moved out from behind the tractor. “You got fucking sand, I’ll give you that, pretty deputy.”
Dani grit her teeth and stepped back out into the open with her weapon raised. “I told you it’s Deputy.” She unintentionally groaned when she saw that Boss was standing five feet from Kenny with his gun trained on the injured closeout king.
“Unfortunately, sand ain’t enough. You can put your weapon down now.”
She worked to steady her nerves and said, “I was gonna tell you the same thing.”
“Ima explain the chain of events if things go your way. You ain’t gonna shoot before I do. That just ain’t gonna happen. You ain’t got that much sand. Ima shoot Kenny, and then you’re gonna shoot me. I’m close enough to shoot Kenny in the head. The distance you are from me? The notion that I just spilled this dumb fucker’s brains on the ground running through your head? I wouldn’t be too sure you can hit me from there.”
“That’s your chain of events, is it?” Dani asked.
“It is.”
She smiled and pulled the trigger, hitting Boss on the left side of his torso.
He stood, momentarily shocked, dabbing at the bleeding wound with his unencumbered hand and grunted out a laugh. “Well, goddamn, you shot me.”
“I figured it was the best workaround to your chain of events, only I was hoping you’d go down.”
All attention off Kenny, he flicked Step’s lighter to life.
Savage Reckoning Page 28
