Chương 19
"Turn this place into kindling," Boyd whispered. "Find that lockbox. When you find it, burn the rest of the furniture. We’ll call it an electrical short from the storm."
I stood up in the dark of the bedroom doorway.
"Looking for this, Boyd?"
I held the black Pelican case at waist level in my left hand.
The man with the revolver snapped his weapon toward the sound of my voice. "Drop it, bitch!"
He made the classic mistake of amateur muscle: he closed the distance to threaten rather than keeping his spacing to fire. He took two fast, aggressive strides into the bedroom doorway, thrusting the gun barrel toward my chest.
I didn't wait for his finger to find the trigger.
I swung the heavy Pelican case with both hands, driving the reinforced steel-reinforced plastic corner straight into the bridge of his nose. The impact cracked loud as a dry pine branch. The man screamed, the gun discharging once into the floorboards with a deafening, concussive roar that blew plaster dust out of the drywall.
The revolver tumbled from his fingers. I caught his right wrist as he stumbled forward, pivoted on my back foot, and used his own momentum to drive his head into the doorframe. He went limp, collapsing face-down across the threshold.
The second man lunged through the dust with the iron pry-bar, swinging two-handed at my head.
I ducked beneath the horizontal arc, the rush of displaced air brushing my ponytail. I drove my left palm upward into his armpit, jamming the nerve bundle, and followed with a heel-palm strike to the side of his jaw. His teeth clicked shut with a vicious clatter; his eyes rolled back, and he fell backward into the coffee table, splintering the cheap particleboard into three pieces.
Boyd Lusk didn't run.
He backed against the front door, his hand fumbling inside his fleece pocket, pulling out a small, chrome-plated automatic. His fingers were trembling so violently he couldn't clear the safety lever.
"Stay back," Boyd gasped, his breath wheezing through his teeth. "You think... you think you can take everything from me? I built this town! I pay for the roads your daughter drives on!"
"You're done, Boyd," I said, stepping over the unconscious man on the carpet. My voice was low, carrying no anger, only the cold finality of an execution order. "Your nephew couldn't beat me with his fists, and you can't beat me with your money."
"I have the Sheriff!" Boyd screamed, his back pinned against the splintered jamb. "Harlan will bury you! He’ll bury your daughter in a state ward!"
"Sheriff Wallace is already off the board," a voice announced from the open doorway behind Boyd.
A tall figure stepped into the light of the breezeway.
It was Deputy Harris. He was wearing his Kevlar vest over his uniform shirt, his service weapon drawn and resting in the low-ready position. Behind him stood two federal agents in dark blue jackets with yellow block lettering across the chest: *COAST GUARD INVESTIGATIVE SERVICE.*
Boyd froze, his arm outstretched with the chrome pistol, his mouth working without sound.
"Drop the weapon, Mr. Lusk," Harris said, his voice flat, professional, and devoid of the deference he had shown two hours ago at the gym. "Right now. On the floor."
"Harris..." Boyd whimpered. "Harris, call Harlan. Call Wallace right now."
"Sheriff Wallace surrendered his badge to the State Bureau of Investigation twenty minutes ago at his residence," one of the federal agents said, stepping past Harris with handcuffs already drawn. "Your nephew’s phone had twelve voice recordings of your monthly payoff distributions. And your head trainer just walked your ledger into our field office at Fort Macon."
Boyd’s fingers gave way.
The chrome automatic dropped to the carpet with a dull thud. The federal agent stepped forward, kicked the pistol into the corner, and drove Boyd face-first against the wall, wrenching his arms behind his back with the sharp, rhythmic clicks of double-locked steel.
Harris looked across the ruined living room at me. His eyes swept over the two men groaning on the floor, then settled on the black Pelican case gripped in my left hand.
He gave a slow, respectful nod, touching the brim of his duty cap with one finger.
"Master Gunnery Sergeant," Harris said quietly. "Your sister and daughter are at the federal cutter station in Atlantic Beach. Claire said to tell you the coffee is hot, and the attending surgeon cleared Lainey’s orbital rim for a full recovery."
The tension that had held my ribcage together like an iron vise for eight hours finally released, leaving only the dull, familiar ache of tired muscles and thirty years of service.
"Thank you, Deputy," I said.
I walked out of the apartment, past the flashing lights of three unmarked federal cruisers pulling into the lot, and down the gravel path toward the marsh.
The eastern horizon was just beginning to break into a thin, pale sliver of gray, washing out the shadows over Core Sound. The fire in town was out; only a faint wisp of white smoke drifted high over the treeline, carried away by the clean salt wind blowing off the Atlantic.
The workshop was gone. The lumber was ash. The tools my husband had oiled with his own hands were twisted scrap metal on a cold concrete slab.
I climbed into the aluminum skiff, pulled the starter cord, and listened to the little engine catch on the first stroke.
May you like
A shop is just wood and nails. You can buy new timber. You can true a new jointer. You can build another bench.
I turned the bow south toward the bridge, opened the throttle, and steered into the rising sun to go collect my daughter.
