Last shot

Chapter 61

The house, when quiet, worried Tim. Tyler's squalling arrival on the premises had ratcheted up the average noise level several decibels, and Tim had grown accustomed to laughter and crying and shouting. Signs of life. The day had started with Tim at gunpoint by his own curb, so his normal unease at the uncharacteristic silence was exacerbated.

Tim had spent a punishing three hours at the command post planning security operations for tomorrow's Vector investment presentation with one of Dean Kagan's innumerable mouthpieces. His headache had largely subsided, but the bruise at the base of his skull remained swollen. It had been painful when he leaned his head back against his chair, which he did, forgot, and did again in a five-minute loop, a Homer Simpson reprise. Finally he'd come home to catch a few hours' sleep before festivities kicked off.

He gently closed the door from the garage, the alarm's quiet chime announcing the breach. He took off his shoes so he could creep soundlessly down the hall. Miraculously, the Typhoon was asleep, spun in his sheets, the Tasmanian devil gone Tutankhamen. Relief unknotted Tim's stomach, and he bent to kiss his son's sweat-moist head. Tyler stirred, his mouth suckling air. Tim patted his back, his arms, his legs, taking comfort in the undeniable physicality of him.

Dray lay flipped with her back to the door, a fall of soft yellow light illuminating her side of the bed. A paperback lay face open on the comforter beside her. Tim thought she was asleep until he heard her uncock the hammer of her Beretta. Her shoulder shifted, and the gun slid out from under her pillow. After Walker's cameo at the house that morning, Tim had renewed his appreciation for housewives who pack heat.

"Hi, babe." Dray handed him her gun, and he secured it in the safe. "How'd it go?"

"Bear has a new girlfriend."

Dray's lips pursed. "She a cop?"

"Dentist."

"Good. Never trust a woman in law enforcement."

Tim slipped into bed, and she rolled over with a faint groan, a sound effect she'd acquired during pregnancy and held on to. She petted his chest lazily while he filled her in.

"She's under your skin," Dray said. "Tess. I get it. But why so much?"

It took Tim a few moments to hit an answer-he was unsure if it was the right one or the complete one, but it felt as if it gave a pretty good shape to his sentiments. "She really turned it around. She came from not much and found herself in a tough place with a sick kid. And she handled it. Got a degree, a new job, therapy, was working hard to cover medical bills. How many times do you see that? I mean, forget the triumph of the human spirit, forget people empowering themselves, forget all the liberal bullshit. How many times does someone, for whatever reason, actually turn their life around? They usually wear down under the weight of it. Give up. But Tess didn't. She struggled and fought and was making it work, and then someone canceled her. And framed her as a failure."

Dray kept petting him, and he let his eyelids droop, though he wasn't tired, not yet. Dray clicked off the light, and they lay there in the still house with the rasp of the baby monitor and the wind rattling the metal catch of the side fence.

He thought Dray had long fallen asleep when she said, "I don't care how much you like him, or how much you think he's right, you gotta take him down when the time comes." Her tone was not combative or stern; if anything, it was sympathetic. "You know that."

Tyler's restless shifting came through the monitor, and then he settled back into silence. Tim stared at the shadows of branches scraping across the dark ceiling. "Yeah," he said.

Clad in boxers, Walker sat on one of two twin beds with sheets so thin they showed off the ticking beneath. A duffel bag, misshapen with the ordnance packed inside, rested next to the jagged hole where years ago a wet-bar minifridge had been ripped from a cabinet during the building's conversion from crappy motel to crappy housing complex. To his right, a fire escape wound down from the second-story window into an alley in which he'd already seen two blow jobs negotiated and executed. Sloppy, stumbling exchanges. He'd closed the blinds on the front window that overlooked the floating walkway and the parking lot. The carpet stank of tequila and lemon freshener, and the toilet in the tiny nook of the bathroom looked to be made of durable plastic. When he'd set foot in the shower, the molded floor had dented down with a thunderclap like sheet metal bending, the noise repeating each time he'd shifted his weight.

His latest cell phone at his ear, the cool stainless steel of the Redhawk pressed to his bare thigh, he let the other end ring and ring. Finally Kaitlin picked up the cell he'd left her, a dreary, half-asleep mutter.

He gave her his location right away, rattling it off before she could hang up.

"And?" she said, deadpan.

So much like Tess. He heard her push herself up in bed, and he could picture her body position exactly, the slouch against the headboard, her hand holding her bangs at bay. "There's a dirt lot four blocks north, behind a Denny's."

"Sounds appealing."

"Bring the kid by. Around eight."

"He's not doing so hot right now, Walk, in case you haven't noticed. He doesn't need to stand around in a dirt lot at night."

"Please." He couldn't remember the last time he'd used the word, and he imagined that's what her stunned silence was about. "I won't ever try to see you again. Or him. Just gimme a shot to explain it to him better. About his mother."

A long silence, just the two of them breathing in the darkness. Again he could see her face, the sleep-softened cheeks, the way her hair got mussed by the pillows so it framed her eyes.

"You owe it to him," he said.

"You're not the best judge of who's owed what." Her anger lingered on the quiet line, and then she said, "Why's it gotta be so late?"

Walker snapped open the gun to eye the six bullets staring out from the chambers, each one containing a piece of Tess's titanium cross. "I got a very full day."