Shit, he could really have used a nice bloody fight to take his edge off.
As the gate started to open, Rio slipped in as soon as there was a space big enough to fit through. On the far side, she looked into the wide eyes of the guard and knew this was madness. But she wasn’t turning back.
“Let’s go,” she said.
As Luke brought the guard along, he handled the other man like he didn’t weigh a goddamn thing, and when they passed by the pool house, she glanced around, wondering where the dogs were. God, she remembered the attack on that hit man back at Mickie’s apartment building, the ferocity of it all had been so shocking, from the flashing teeth to the grinding jaws, the muzzle running red with blood, the victim’s midsection ripped open, his throat a raw wound.
Abruptly, she recalled coming to, just as it was all over. The wolf had wheeled around on her.
Tears had run from her eyes, both for what she had seen . . . and for what was going to be done to her.
The wolf had approached her, its massive body moving in a coordinated prowl. But instead of attacking her, it had whimpered. Nuzzled at her legs as if it wanted to get her loose if it could. And then it had lain down beside her, like it was protecting her, its regal head up, its eyes shifting to the door, its nose sniffing like it was testing the air for the scents of enemies.
She clearly had passed out again at that point. Because the next thing she remembered was Luke releasing her from all the ties.
“You took the clothes of the attacker,” she said. “Back when you saved me . . . you needed something to wear, and that’s why everything was too small on you.”
Luke looked over. And so did the guard—who, she realized abruptly, was in flannel pajama bottoms and a SUNY Caldwell t-shirt.
“Yeah,” Luke said with a nod. “And I didn’t want you to know what I was.”
On that note, they arrived at the mansion’s rear flank. There was a terrace that ran all the way down the back of the house, but there was no outdoor furniture on it. Obviously, things had been put away for the winter.
And inside, everything had been shut down for the night: All the rooms were dark, no lights on in the lower level. Up on the second floor, however, there was a bank of fixtures still glowing.
“Where are we going?” Luke said to the guard. “How are we getting in.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Yeah, you can.”
The guard threw out his proverbial anchor. “You’re going to have to kill me now. Because if I let you into his house? He’s going to do so much worse to me. Just . . . fucking shoot me.”
Well, Rio thought, at least they knew they were in the right place.
In a split second that lasted an eternity, José saw the gun of his old friend coming up in his peripheral vision, but it was too late to catch the weapon. And yes, it turned out that the old wives’ stories were true: Your life did flash before your eyes right before you died. In a quick series of heart-wrenching images, he saw himself and his wife on their wedding day, and at the births of their children. He visualized holidays and weekends, and Christmases and Fourths of July.
It was everything that Stan didn’t have and had decided he’d been cheated of, as if some robber had come into his life and taken at gunpoint all of the stuff he’d been due solely by reason of him being alive, character and responsibility and commitment having nothing to do with any of that end result.
God, José didn’t want it all to be over. And not like this.
Knowing he was fucked, José winced and got ready for pain. Or maybe it would happen so quick, he would feel nothing.
He’d been so close to getting out of the CPD alive—
The discharge was so loud because it was right by his ear, and he felt heat, a flash of heat, right by his cheek—
Ping!
The metallic ring was a surprise until he realized it was the lead slug passing through his brain and going into the car’s steel panel. And now came the collapse. He’d seen enough gunshot victims in the immediate aftermath of impact to know that he was going to do what Stan had just done: Slump to the side. Probably knock into the car, too. Then maybe he’d land on Stan’s legs.
After that, lack of consciousness. Followed by death.
And finally, the pearly gates, hopefully—thanks to all those novenas and Hail Marys—
José’s eyes flipped wide—and he fell backward onto his ass, but not because he was dead: A tremendous man dressed in black leather, with black hair, icy white eyes, and a goatee, was standing next to Stan . . . and holding Stan’s gun.