After a moment Suit called, “You left those ladies alone for my friend to find. That is a shame on you. He is not a normal fellow when it comes to that topic. Come on out and we will make it quick. I will see to it my friend does not misbehave.”
He somehow had the idea that Shaw had continued to the river. That was the direction in which he was scanning, trying to see through the tangles and shadows. He called, “Come on. Going once, going twice...”
Jacket yelled, “I got ’em.” He was pointing toward the culvert. “Get up!” He fired a shot. Parker screamed but out of alarm. She wasn’t hit. Neither was Hannah. “Come on, rise and shine. Up you go.”
The two climbed from their nest. Leaves clung.
Suit kept scanning for Shaw.
Jacket said, “Where is he?”
“Down the hill. Maybe knocked out. Wheels can be formidable.”
Jacket was looking over the landscape. “Don’t see him.” He turned to Parker but his eyes settled on Hannah. To his partner he called, “Listen. I’ve been patient. You were right when we were going to do it the first way. Now things’ve changed.”
“You think we have time here? Really?”
“ ’Course not. We’ve got the body-mobile. Let’s take her with us.”
Suit sighed, grimacing, a man finally worn down by a persistent argument. “All right, all right. Get her in there. Fast. Truss her up and then we’ll find Motorcycle Man.”
“No!” Hannah cried.
But this was not a reaction to Jacket’s plans for her. She was staring at what Suit had unslung from behind his back.
The shotgun they’d last seen in her father’s hands in the cabin.
Answering for certain the question that had been on all of their minds.
Hannah launched herself at Jacket.
“Whoa. Feisty.” He sidestepped and grabbed her around the chest. To Suit he said, “Told you she was attitudinal.”
Parker climbed to her feet, crying out against the pain in her leg and with fury at seeing the man grip her daughter. Jacket glanced at her, noted the wound and kicked her in the damaged leg. She screamed and fell back, clutching the limb, sobbing.
Jacket kissed the top of Hannah’s head and laughed when she spit at him. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
Shaw quietly moved ten feet to his right, keeping under cover to pick up what he’d been looking for — a rock the size of an orange. He drew back and flung it as far as he could over Suit’s head. When it landed, the man turned toward the sound, firing the shotgun. This deafened him, as Shaw had planned, so he couldn’t hear the sprint behind him on the crisp leaves. When Suit saw there was no target, he started to turn. But too late. Shaw powered into him.
He had aimed low, his shoulder targeting the man’s kidney. The blow, he knew, is nearly paralyzing from the pain it delivers, and Shaw followed up by simply gripping the man’s pants cuffs and standing fast — the same maneuver he’d described to Hannah. The man went down on his face. Shaw stood and dropped a knee onto his other kidney. Suit screamed, releasing his grip on the shotgun. Shaw scooped it up, along with his Glock and Suit’s pistol, which he pocketed.
Jacket aimed but didn’t shoot. Shaw was kneeling beside his partner.
But he had a similar problem. He had no sight solution with Jacket holding Hannah. She was virtually a shield.
Shaw called to him, “We’re near the highway. People’ve heard the shots. Marty Harmon has no pull in this county. Get on the ground, arms and feet spread.”
Jacket said nothing, just continued to sweep his gun in Shaw’s direction.
Suit stirred but he was no threat; enough pain was coursing through his body to keep him down for ten minutes.
Shaw said, “On the ground.”
“Okay, tell you what. Help my buddy up and we’ll just go our own way. Put this down to a bad coupla days all around. What do you say?”
The man was just buying time to find a target. And he would have a far easier shot than Shaw would, since Hannah was in front of most of his body. Shaw was an expert marksman but, in the dark, this was not a shot to attempt.
When would he point the gun toward Hannah and Parker and tell him to toss down his weapon? Surprised he hadn’t already.
But of course Ashton Shaw had an answer for that.
Never surrender your weapon. There are no exceptions...
“You understand there are records leading to you and your friend. There’s nowhere to hide. It’s over with.”
He didn’t answer.
Silence.
Which was broken by Hannah’s voice. The girl swiveled toward Jacket and said, with a calm that was unsettling, “Hey, mister. Look at me.”
This was followed by a high-pitched scream.
Coming from Jacket’s mouth. He released the girl, dropped his gun and began wiping at his eyes furiously. “Oh, Jesus, Jesus...”
Shaw looked at Hannah’s hand. What was she holding? He realized it was the jar of cayenne pepper from the cabin.
The man was wailing. He dropped to his knees and was wiping at his eyes with his sleeves and the tail of his jacket.
Hannah stepped away from him slowly, looked down at her feet and picked up his gun. She pointed it at him.
“Hannah!” Shaw called. “No.”
Any death from this point on would be murder.
The girl didn’t move. She kept the muzzle on the man as steadily as when she’d practiced with his Colt Python. “They killed him.” A whisper.
Parker struggled to her feet. “I know, Han. But don’t do it. Give me the gun.”
The weapon was a Glock. Point and shoot. A five-year-old can fire a Glock.
It also has a light pull and her finger was on the trigger. Shaw was surprised it hadn’t discharged yet.
“They killed him,” the girl said again.
Parker hobbled closer. “Han, please?” Her mother wasn’t ordering, she wasn’t threatening. This was simply a request from one adult to another.
The girl didn’t move.
Jacket cried, “We’ve got money! A lot of money.” Still wiping. To no effect.
Hand out, Parker stepped closer yet.
Shaw said, “Remember our rule. Never engage unless you have to.”
The gun remained where it was for a moment. Then she lowered it and her shoulders slumped. She handed the weapon to her mother, just as Shaw had taught her, the muzzle in neutral aim.
The woman put her left arm around her daughter’s shoulders and they stepped farther away from the sobbing man, who’d stripped off the jacket and was using it to blot his eyes.
Parker lowered her head to her daughter and spoke — words Shaw couldn’t hear. Hannah frowned. Parker spoke again, apparently repeating what she’d said. The girl nodded and stepped back. She covered her ears.
No, Shaw thought. No...
Parker turned the weapon toward Jacket and, in a two-handed combat shooting stance, shot him in the head.
He dropped. She walked up and fired a make-sure round.
Wincing, breathing hard from the takedown, Suit climbed to his feet. Parker turned the gun on him. Suit stared not at the gun but at the body of his partner. He seemed as paralyzed as when Shaw had taken him down moments ago.
Parker studied the man closely.
Shaw stepped away.
Suit’s shoulders lowered, hands drooping at his sides. This was a man programmed never to beg. He was now resigned to death.
But Parker didn’t fire. The gun lowered.
She called to him, loudly because of the deafening gunshots, “Month and a half ago you killed someone.”
He tilted his head in cautious acknowledgment.
She continued, “Marty Harmon hired you to kill a truck driver. There was an accident on the Hawkins Road Bridge. A truck missed a turn. It went into a tributary near the Kenoah.”