Page 163 of Sting
“No.”
“If you don’t, you’re a dead man.”
Jordie said, “He means it, Josh.”
He yelled at her to shut up.
In his peripheral vision, Shaw noticed motion among the trees and undergrowth on the far side of the bayou. Other officers had arrived and were taking positions. He hoped to hell that if this came down to a shoot-out, they were all good marksmen. Jordie was standing too damn close to Josh.
Josh said, “You really spoiled my plan last Friday, Kinnard. But you can’t save my dear sister this time.”
“I can kill you. And I will unless you drop the gun.”
“Josh, please.”
“Better listen to her, Josh. She watched me pop Mickey Bolden without a blink. Last chance. Drop the pistol and back away from her.”
“Do as he says. Please.” She raised her hands and placed them beneath her chin in a begging motion, then dropped them back to waist level. “Put the pistol down, Josh. Surrender. I’ll help you.”
“Like you’ve helped me before?” he screamed. “I don’t need your help anymore.”
“Please, Josh.” Her wrists were straining against the flexcuffs. “Please. I implore you.”
“Shut up, Jordie! Just shut up.”
“Josh, please don’t make—”
“You ruin everything! I hate you!”
Shaw saw Josh’s trigger finger tense, then several weapons fired almost simultaneously.
Chapter 42
Joe Wiley was curious. “When did you put the vest back on?”
“When you left the car to take your call from Hickam’s mother,” Jordie said.
“One of Kinnard’s rules of engagement?”
“He insisted.” While they were alone in the car, Shaw had made her take off her shirt and put the vest on underneath it. “I thought it was an unnecessary precaution, but if I hadn’t been wearing it, I would be dead.” She brushed away a tear.
Wiley, standing at the foot of her hospital bed, cleared his throat and shuffled his feet, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. “Josh…uh…none of you had a choice.”
“I know.”
She had slipped Shaw’s palm pistol into her pants pocket when she’d gone inside the house to see for herself what was in there. During her face-off with Josh, realizing that his psychotic determination was to end her life, she’d distracted him with a begging gesture. When she lowered her hands from her chin, she’d managed to ease the pistol out of her pocket.
The shot she’d fired had been one of the barrage that had cut him down.
“The ME says any one of the shots could’ve been fatal, so unless you really want to know—”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. If it’s any comfort to you, he died instantly.”
She’d missed seeing the worst of it. She’d been flat on her back, thrust backward onto the ground by the impact of the bullet her brother had fired at her.
“I hear you have a heck of a bruise,” Wiley said.
