No Quick Fix (Torus Intercession 1)

“Oh, that’s Mr. Dodd and his children, isn’t it?” Tavares asked me.

“Yes,” I said, smiling at him. “They’re my family now.”

“Well that’s wonderful news, even more ties to the community,” he said, turning to face Emery and the girls, extending his hand. “I’m Sergeant Tavares from the Whitefish Police Department; I met you once, Mr. Dodd, as you recall?”

Emery shook the man’s hand, glancing at me, then Huck, who had changed into cargo pants, his combat boots, and a thick Navy-issue sweater. The gun holster he was wearing was not to be missed.

Olivia said hello to Tavares, remembering him, and then scrambled up the steps to reach me. Flinging her arms around my waist, she leaned her face into my belly. “Are you okay? Did somebody shoot at you?”

“I’m fine,” I soothed her, hugging her back as April joined her sister, wrapping around me, her face higher, jammed into my abdomen.

“Why are there people cleaning the house?” Emery asked as he reached us, taking a breath, hands on the sides of my neck, checking me over before he joined his girls and pressed in against me, holding on, taking deep breaths.

“I really am fine,” I reiterated. “And think how clean the house will be.”

“And they already boarded up the window,” Huck explained, pointing inside. “All we have to do is order a new one.”

“Why do we need a new window?” Emery asked, pulling back to look at my face.

“Huck had to come through it ’cause he didn’t have a key, which reminds me, did you get the key back from Lydia?”

“She left it yesterday, and—why would Huck just crash through a window? Does this have something to do with why he left the diner so fast?”

It certainly did. “We should probably get it rekeyed,” I said to Huck. “Don’t you think?”

“It’ll be the sheriff’s house now, so yeah, I think so,” Huck agreed, then yawned before turning to Emery. “And I had to go through the window because that deputy—what was his name?”

“Reed,” I supplied, patting Olivia’s back. “You better have brought me something to eat because I’m frickin’ starving.”

“Yeah, so Reed, he was holding a Glock on Brann, and the other guy—Duvall, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed, even as I glowered at Olivia.

“I picked you out a meatloaf sandwich and curly fries and a chocolate shake,” she explained, smiling up at me.

“I see no shake. I see no bag. I see nada. Where’s my food?”

“Duvall,” Huck explained to Emery, “he had a Beretta M9. It’s what those Air Force douchebags carry.”

“Don’t say douchebags in front of the girls,” I scolded, turning to look at him.

His face scrunched up like I was insane. “What? Why?”

“It’s a bad word.”

He didn’t appear convinced.

“And that’s not fair,” I said, correcting his earlier statement. “Those guys who picked us up in Caracas that time were great.”

He grunted.

“They were.”

“I think you’re overly sentimental because you were in jail again.”

“I don’t recall that at all,” I said, making a face at April, whose eyes got huge. “And it wasn’t that kind of jail.”

“Huck,” Emery prodded him.

“Sorry. So, Mr. Cahill was here, talking to Brann, and Duvall had the Beretta, and Reed had the Glock, so because Brann wasn’t holding, I came through the window and put a bullet in Reed’s shoulder, and Brann rushed Duvall.”

Emery rounded on me and almost yelled. “You rushed Duvall and he had a gun?”

“You’re not getting it; he had the Beretta,” I corrected him, taking hold of his shoulder and drawing him close, nuzzling my face in his soft, clean hair, loving the feel of it on my face.

“I don’t… I’m not—”

“Every carry or duty handgun has a trigger-pull weight,” Huck explained to Emery. “It’s basically how hard you have to squeeze to get a shot off.”

“Yes,” Emery said woodenly, listening, even as he remained leaning into me.

“So the Glock, I wanna say with a factory stock trigger, it’s gonna be like what, five pounds give or take?”

I nodded.

“But the Beretta, with the double-action on that, that’s gonna be more like thirteen, fourteen pounds.”

“I don’t understand what—”

“There was no way unless Duvall was specifically trained with that gun that he could shoot Brann before Brann could get to him.”

Emery stared at Huck in disbelief.

“I know on TV, all the guns shoot the same—fast—and everyone holds the gun straight out and squeezes off the shots,” he explained patiently, being better, gentler, than I’d seen him be with anyone in ages. “But in real life, that’s not the case, and when you’re a Solider, they teach you to not only read the man but his weapon as well. So I can tell you with absolute certainty, that the only person in the room that could have hurt me or Brann or Ms. Stratton, was Deputy Reed. He had the gun he knew how to use. Duvall bought that gun probably because he thought it was cool, but he wasn’t trained to use it.”