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“Ezell.”
“Fucking Deputy Ezell, watching his own house. Course, I didn’t know what he was watching then, but I knew they wanted him. So, when he ran, I went after him.”
“Why didn’t you kill him right then?” North asked. “That would have solved your problem, right? Hell, for that matter, why haven’t you cleared out of here?”
Welch laughed, but the sound wasn’t amused. “Man, I wish I had.”
The words swam up to Shaw out of that dark place: the bloody clothes, the strange smells. “You got shot.”
Only silence came from the hallway.
“How bad is it?” North asked.
The silence lasted longer this time. “It’s not great.”
“When? At the hot springs?”
“Came out of nowhere.” Welch hissed, and the sound of metal flexing came from one of the walls. Shaw could picture Welch slumping against it. “God damn, I’m tired.”
“You want Ezell dead,” North said, “you’re going to have to kill him yourself.”
“Fuck that, man. I want to be done with this. You get Ezell. Give these fuckers something else to worry about besides me.”
“What does that mean?” Shaw asked.
“Brey wants Ezell’s phone. You know what that means? It means he’s got something, and they want it. So, go find out what it is, and I’m going to find some nice Mex doctor, some nice brown girl with big brown titties to take care of me.”
“Jesus,” North said. “You’re a class act.”
A nice brown girl. And Shaw thought of Maleah, thought of those hours wrapped in a chemical haze, thought of waking up, the hurt of a body that was no longer your own. He thought of the way she had cried, how she had leaned into him. He thought of the worksheets covered in children’s scribbles poking out of her bag, the way she had said third grade and then fourth. When he spoke, it was without thinking—the words came from that frozen, bottomless well. “Like Maleah?”
North gave him a sharp look and jerked his head.
Welch didn’t say anything.
“Is that what you mean?” Shaw said. “Find a pretty girl like Maleah to take care of you?”
“Man,” Welch said.
“Is this where you brought her?”
“Shaw,” North said in a tight whisper.
“Not the last time,” Shaw said. “That was at her house. Remember that? When you drugged her?”
“Shaw, not now.”
“When you let Brey do whatever he wanted to her.”
“That fucking cunt,” Welch said with a pained noise that might have been a laugh. “Guess I got to make a stop before I go out of town, huh?”
“Go ahead,” Shaw said. He’d done polar plunges. He’d gone skinny dipping on a spring morning at the lake, when the water was like glass, and the first dive was like going through a window, a thousand shards cutting you a thousand different ways. This was like that now, the warning from his body that registered like heat, and the unmistakable cold. “Stop by Maleah’s. I’ll know right where to find you.”
Five seconds passed. Ten. Then Welch said, “Shit,” like a man who’s had yet another door slam in his face.
North grabbed Shaw and dragged him down.
The first shot came, and Shaw’s thought was that it had sounded curiously distant. A metal panel warped as something heavy hit it, and Shaw thought of Welch staggering, his body colliding with the wall. Then a voice called, “Stop! Police!” and another shot rang out. It echoed through the steel cavern of the storage building, shaking itself out like thunder, and the stink of gunfire drifted into the unit where Shaw huddled under North.
