Huntley Sr. flinched as his son’s brains hit him as well. That was all. Just a flinch at watching his son’s execution. Other than that he remained motionless.
Mary casually stepped over the body and made her way to her brother. Her hands were shaking but her knees didn’t wobble.
“How did you know where we would be?” Dec asked her.
“I knew you wouldn’t confront him at the house,” she told him. “If only to spare me. Which meant you would set something up to lead him to where you wanted to him to go. This place has been empty for months. It seemed like the logical choice. I walked across the back of my farm to here and came through the back door. At first I didn’t think I could do it. Didn’t think I could stand there with both of them. But I did it.”
Declan put his hand on her shoulder. “You did it.”
“Was it Flynn?”
Declan looked behind him, although he knew he wouldn’t see him. Flynn had been in position across from the house, over a thousand yards away on a raised hill. No distance at all really for someone with his skills.
“Yes.”
“Tell him I said thank you,” she said coldly. Again breaking Declan’s heart. He didn’t want Mary to be this person. He didn’t want his sister to be able to walk over the corpse of her ex-husband, who was lying next to two other dead bodies, and not flinch. Except now this was the person she had become. This was what Huntley had done to her. Dec wanted to shoot him all over again.
She looked over her shoulder at the gray-haired man who still had not moved. “Are you going to kill him too?”
Declan shook his head. “No need. He’s got enough problems ahead of him.”
Dec could see the old man take in those words. That he would live at least another day. Something he obviously cared about more than his son.
“Good. Now if someone would please drive me home. I would like to get out of these clothes so I can burn them.”
Declan turned to Sinead. “You’ll take her home for me.”
She nodded.
“We’ll clean up here,” Jillian said casually, as if the bodies were no more a nuisance than picking up trash after a party.
“Good thing I’m not a cop anymore,” Sinead said even as her eyes were pinned on the three dead men.
Dec took her hand and forced her attention back on him. He knew it was one thing to tell her about his life, it was something else to see it in action. “You know these were very bad men. Tell me you know that.”
Then she did something utterly surprising and leaned in and kissed his cheek. “If Flynn hadn’t pulled the trigger, I was ready to do it myself. I guess that means maybe I have a little dark inside me too.”
Some pressure valve around his heart that felt tight suddenly loosened. She understood him, and Declan wasn’t a man who had been understood by many people in his life.
Still, he didn’t tell her the full truth. What neither his sister nor Sinead needed to know was that Garrett’s fate had also been sealed the minute he’d chosen to pursue Mary. The man had been a walking corpse the moment Flynn reported that he was moving.
“I love you.”
She smiled. “Back at you. Now let me get your sister home. I have feeling she’s going to want to take a shower… for like an hour.”
“You’ll watch over her.”
Sinead nodded. “I’ve got this.”
Declan nodded back and thought how amazing this was. To not only have someone real in his life. Someone who understood him. But someone who would also care for his sister, simply because Sinead loved him. He’d broadened not only his life but Mary’s too. Something that she obviously needed.
How sad that I was so desperate for it that I settled for you.
In time they would need to talk about what that meant. About why she felt so unloved when Declan thought she’d been content. For now he would give her the time and space she needed to recover first.
“Jill, let’s go clean up some dead bodies. And let’s discuss how we shall deal with our dear friend Mr. Huntley Sr.”
“Got you boss,” she said even as she made her way toward Huntley Sr.
* * *
Mary stared at the car and thought that if she got inside she would make a mess all over the seat. Sinead was saying something as she opened the driver side door.
Mary couldn’t hear what it was. The words weren’t penetrating. Then she looked up and saw him. Flynn, in full camouflage, walking over the hill toward them, a rifle on his back, which in Virginia wouldn’t have startled anyone who saw him.
He stopped about a hundred feet away from her, as if there was an invisible boundary around her he couldn’t penetrate.