Chapter Sixty-Eight
Back inside the torture chamber, Garcia was still waiting for an answer from Hunter.
‘So,’ he asked again. ‘What took you so long? Mr. GrillChef over here was just about to turn me into a burger.’
‘You do know that if he had taken your phone with him,’ Hunter countered, ‘or destroyed it right there on that parking lot, I would’ve never found you, right?’
From the floor, Russell looked back at Hunter with pure hate in his eyes.
‘Hands behind your back,’ Hunter commanded, getting down on one knee and using his left hand to roll Russell over – face to the ground… back toward Hunter. The movement wasn’t a delicate one.
‘Arghhhhhh! Fuck you!’ Russell shouted, as Garcia helped Hunter on the ground, pressing Russell’s face hard against the concrete floor, while Hunter cuffed Russell’s wrists behind his back.
With a shattered humerus head, the behind-the-back arm twist would’ve felt like the shoulder joint was rolling on barbed wire. Russell screamed and kicked, with spit flying off his lips, bouncing against the floor, and returning to his blood-splattered face – the nose, the eyes, the mouth… everywhere.
Hunter holstered his weapon, grabbed Russell by the back of his shirt and hoisted him up into a sitting position against the back wall. He was about to go check on Jennifer, when he and Garcia heard a new voice coming from just behind them.
‘James.’
In a blink of an eye, Hunter and Garcia swung around to find Russell’s father standing by the instruments table.
While their attention had been on securing Russell and cuffing his hands, neither of them noticed Russell’s father get up from his wheelchair and approach the weapons on the table.
He chose the pistol, which he had firmly in his grip, aiming directly at the two detectives before him. The weapon looked enormous in his frail hands.
‘Sir…’ Hunter said, his hands up, palms facing forward in a ‘surrender’ gesture. ‘Please, put the gun down.’
‘His real name is James,’ the old man said. ‘James Richard Whitely. Not Russell… not Trevor… not Michael… James.’
‘Sir,’ Hunter tried again. ‘Please…’
But James’s father didn’t seem to be listening. The determination in his eyes seemed unflinching.
‘And you shot him… you shot my son.’
Your son?Hunter thought, but, despite his total surprise, neither his voice nor his expression gave anything away. ‘Sir,’ he tried again. ‘I know how bad this looks, but…’
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ James’s father continued, ignoring every word Hunter said. ‘That I’m too old… too weak to be able to use a gun, right?’ He didn’t give the detectives a chance to reply. ‘Well, I guess we’re just about to find out.’
‘Shoot them, Dad,’ James called from behind Hunter. ‘Shoot them.’
‘Sir, you don’t want to do that.’ Hunter’s voice was calm but firm. ‘Believe me. You really don’t.’
The old man’s gaze moved to his wife for a fraction of a second before returning to Hunter. ‘You think so. Watch this.’
He squeezed the trigger.
Twice.