Will looked at him unimpressed. Then it was as if someone had inserted a key into his quads and they unlocked. His leg relaxed.
“Did the girl in Athens, Georgia, get in your way?”
“Very good, detective. She was my first. I made mistakes. But I learned. No, she didn’t get in my way. She was in one of my classes and I kept having a vision of killing her. One day I did. All the shrinks and medication my parents spent money on never changed me. Death is my art. I won’t be stopped.”
“But you’ve got to know when to stop.” Will started to wonder whose arm would tire faster. Mike looked very steady, those muscled arms doing well by him. Will was conscious of the instability of the rocking chair.
“You said it yourself, Mike,” he went on. “You’ve got to know when to stop. If you would have stopped with Gruber, we might never have caught you. Now it’s too late. How does that make you feel, Mike?”
Mike’s face tensed at the phrase he had probably been hearing from his father since he was three.
“Hand me the shotgun. Stock first.”
Mike’s face was growing redder with rage when Cheryl Beth said, “Mike!”
He swung his torso toward her, dropped the barrel of the shotgun forty-five degrees, and almost got out a reply. Then the room exploded and he lurched back, a red stain on the shirt where the polo logo once sat. Jill screamed. Mike screamed and struggled to regain control of the gun. It went off, an even louder blast, the load of shot hitting the floor. Cheryl Beth held out the .38, ready to fire again.
Two seconds had expired as Will shot him three times, nearly point blank, in the torso.
The shotgun dropped harmlessly from his hand as his body swayed backward and collapsed by the door. Will kept the gun trained.
***
His ears were still ringing even though the only sound in the room was Jill’s screaming. Cheryl Beth stood and started to the door. “I should help him.”
“No,” Will said. “Stand back. He might have other weapons.”
He was up, his legs miraculously working without the cane, walking slowly to the sprawl of a human being on the floor. Mike Buchanan lay face up, very pale. One leg was twisted beneath the other. His arms were clutching at his chest, which stuck out unnaturally because of the backpack he was still carrying.
Will bent down and got on his knees. He tried to ignore the sharp pain that immediately struck, patting down Mike’s shirt, pockets, pants legs, and shoes. He was clean. He nodded and Cheryl Beth was instantly on the other side. She checked his pulse and opened up his shirt. A blood pool was emerging from underneath him.
She said, “Stop screaming, Jill.” The young woman stopped. “Are you hurt?”
She said she wasn’t.
“We’re losing him,” she said. “If I had a surgical team here right this second…”
“Detective…”
Will looked at Mike’s face. It was turning alabaster and the premature wrinkles were fading. He struggled to breathe, the sound coming from his throat like the grinding gears of an old truck. Will had shot him close to the heart, into one lung, and probably near the aorta.
“What, Mike?”
He whispered. Will bent closer.
“Kristen…”
“What about her?”
“She…” He gasped, his speech slurred. “She was all ready…”
“All ready?”
“No…” And he repeated the word so softly that Will could barely hear it.
All ready for what?”
Will heard one last quick intake of air, and then the man’s eyes went black.