Chapter 18 #2
The rifle jerked toward the sound of my voice. Lyle nearly pissed himself, judging by the way he flinched and dropped behind the boulder again like he’d been shot.
“You killed my brothers, you bastard.” His voice came high and wet. He’d been crying.
I felt his pain. More than I wanted to.
But I’d buried things I felt before. No reason I needed to admit it, though. I can put those bodies on Bob. Just my word against his—and everybody hates cops.
“No, I didn’t, mate,” I called. Easy. Smooth as Bundy at the bottom of a long pour. “That was Bob.”
A beat of silence.
“He’s lying to you, Lyle.” Bob’s voice from the other side of the entrance was sharp and fast. “Frank killed them, just like I told you. He’s a fucking liar, and he’s trying to twist you up.”
“Think about it, Lyle.” I kept my voice steady. “Look at the size of me. Look at the size of your brothers. Bruce was twice my weight, and Wayne wasn’t much smaller. I’m sixty-three years old. I’m dying. How could I take down your two brothers?”
Lyle didn’t answer.
But he didn’t argue either. He was thinking.
“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.”
Lyle made a sound. A small one. Not a word. Just a sound.
And Lyle, of all people, must have heard the truth in what I’d said, because he twisted.
Hard.
Whipped his rifle up and out of Bob’s grip on his elbow and tried to bring it around on Bob.
“You stupid little prick.” Bob’s voice was almost calm. “You never could pick a side.”
Bob jammed the muzzle low against Lyle’s belly and pulled the trigger.
Lyle’s body jerked like a fish on a hook.
He hit the dirt, and the screaming started.
Real screaming. The kind that goes through stone.
Fucking hell. I flinched. Couldn’t help it.
It wasn’t that I gave a shit about Lyle Henderson. Lyle had been a pain in the ass for thirty years. But Christ. A gut shot in the dirt was a long, mean way to die.
Bob knew it, too.
Even after all these years, that bastard still found new lows to crawl to.
But he was unraveling.
Bob stepped over Lyle’s legs without looking down.
He took two more fast steps into the cave and dropped behind the drum before I could swing the shotgun on him.
Now, the rusted forty-gallon drum was between us.
Kat’s drum. And Bob was tucked in behind it like the dead girl underneath was looking out for him.
I had a clean line on his elbow when he shifted his weight. Maybe a quarter of his shoulder. Not enough.
Lyle was screaming and clawing at his gut, and I couldn’t get to him, not that there was anything I could do for him anyway.
My good hand was slick on the shotgun. Cold sweat had soaked through Willy’s shirt and dripped off my chin onto the stock. The Panadol hadn’t done a damn thing for the fire in my kidneys. My legs were shaking under me, and my stitched-up hand was screaming so loudly I could barely think over it.
But I had the shotgun up.
And Bob was thirty feet away behind a rusted drum with his service pistol and a gut full of panic.
I could sense it. He was cracking down the middle. He hadn’t planned on killing Lyle, not yet anyway. He hadn’t planned on the cash being gone. He hadn’t planned on me getting the jump on him.
He’d come here, certain I’d be easy pickings. He wasn’t certain anymore.
“Just the two of us now, Bob.” I had to force my voice to carry across the cave. “The way it always should’ve been. Come and get me, you gutless bastard.”
Behind the drum, Bob didn’t answer.
Lyle kept screaming.