Second Shot

For a moment I thought he was going to come back and have a go, but he thrust Matt away from him and ran for the door instead. To be honest, if Reynolds had decided on a counterattack, I’m not sure I could have done much about it.

Matt tottered back across the living room and collapsed into one of the armchairs. He dabbed a hand at the back of his head and looked blankly at the blood he found on his fingers.

“Are you OK?” he said. “I mean, did he …?”

“No,” I said. “He didn’t-thanks to you.”

“Thank God for that,” Matt said. “I thought, when I saw-”

“You didn’t see anything, Matt,” I said, fighting to keep my eyes open, fighting to hold back the nausea and the sorrow. The pain was coming in waves on an incoming tide, each one crashing a little farther up the beach. “Reynolds broke in. He beat the pair of us up. We got rid of him. Other than that there was nothing to see. Nothing you need to tell the others about, OK?”

He frowned. “Yes, but-”

“No buts. And if you tell Sean about this I’ll kill you myself,” I said, fierce, then added, with as much dignity as I could muster, “now do me a favor and find me a bucket or something, would you? I think I’m going to throw up.”

I still hadn’t found the strength to move from the sofa by the time Sean and Neagley returned, two hours later. Matt had brought me the plastic liner from the pedal bin in the kitchen in place of a bucket and covered me with a blanket. He’d also found a dustpan and brush from somewhere and had gathered up most of the glass from the coffee table when I heard the key in the front door lock.

I’d been half-dozing, but I snapped awake and brought the Beretta up from under cover, slow and clumsy. I’d got my left hand clamped hard round my right, but if the way the front sights were circling wildly was anything to go by, I don’t think I could have hit an elephant at half a dozen paces. Hell, for that matter, I don’t think I could have hit an elephant if I’d been sitting on its back.

Sean did a fast assessment of the damage and was by my side almost instantly He took the Beretta out of my hands, very gently and carefully. My palms had left clammy marks on either side of the grip.

“What happened?” Neagley demanded, looking at Matt. When I glanced across I saw that she had the short little Smith amp; Wesson out of her bag and in her hands, pointed low, and that she was moving through the living room quiet and careful, like a cop.

“Reynolds,” I said, possessor of a fat tongue. “He came to deliver a message.”

‘And stayed to smash the place up,” Sean murmured. “Well, there goes my security deposit.”

Neagley shot him a fast disapproving glance, missing the wry twist of his lips. Sean didn’t take his eyes off my face.

“Well, that was mainly me,” I admitted, not aware until now how much it had been costing me to hold it together while we waited for them to come back. “Can’t shoot for shit at the moment.”

“You should be in bed,” Sean said. “And I think I should call your father.”

“No.”

Sean silenced me with a single hard stare. “It’s either that or we go back to the hospital in Lewiston,” he said. “Your choice.”

I shut my eyes. “Don’t bully me,” I said weakly. “I’ve had a bad day.”

“Get used to it,” Sean threw back at me. “Can you get up?”

I tried a couple of times, but both legs trembled too violently to be much use, and there was no way I could have leaned on a crutch, in any case.

With a sigh, Sean leaned down and scooped me up off the sofa. He was gentle, but it hurt nevertheless and I didn’t hide that fact well. He carried me through to the bedroom and laid me very carefully on the bed, then pulled the covers over me and sat alongside.

“So, are you going to tell me exactly what happened?”

“Reynolds played rough,” I said. “Maybe I should have broken his neck while I had the chance.”

Sean’s hand feathered in my hair. “No, you shouldn’t,” he said.

I eyed him, a man who’d killed without compunction for lesser reasons than dire necessity. “That’s rich,” I said, “coming from you.”

‘Ah, well, I see the right way and I approve it, but I do the opposite.”

“Who said that?”

“Me, just now,” he said. “Actually, I believe it was Ovid.”

“God save us from philosopher squaddies,” I said, aware that I was starting to slur again. “It’s still rich, coming from you.”

“Well, how about, don’t do as I do, do as I say?” he murmured. “I want you to be with me, Charlie. But I don’t want you to try and feme….”

Nineteen

My father arrived later that evening and stalked straight into the bedroom, ordering Sean outside when he would have stayed with me. They had a brief stare-out competition, which my father won. He examined me without a word other than curt instructions for me to move or bend or breathe deeply, most of which hurt to perform.

When he was done he rose and said crisply, “Well, Charlotte, you’ve certainly managed to knock yourself about and have almost undoubtedly delayed your recovery, but by some miracle you don’t appear to have done anything permanent. Next time you might not be so lucky.”