“All hell’s gonna break loose when they come in here,” Ruger told me, his tone urgent. “They’re probably going to arrest you, maybe all of us. Keep your mouth shut. I don’t care what happened here and I don’t care who did the shooting. You keep your mouth shut and the only time you open it is to ask for a lawyer. Keep asking for a lawyer ’til you get one, we’ll send him to you. Do not talk, you got me?”
He pulled his hand away from my mouth and I nodded, eyes wide. A single cop came flying through the door and stopped abruptly, obviously shocked at the scene.
“Holy shit!” he yelled, reaching up to grab his radio. “We need backup now. Everyone, hands up where I can see them. Get off that girl, let her go.”
Ruger rolled off me and stood, backing away with his hands raised high. The others followed suit and then I joined them. The lone cop watched us anxiously as EMTs rushed over to Horse, bundling him onto a stretcher and hauling him out the door. More cops arrived, which was the start of a very, very long night.
I asked for a lawyer and eventually I got one, but he couldn’t answer the one question I cared about.
Was Horse still alive?
Horse
He felt detached from his body, almost floating. Pain roared through him. Voices echoed in the background, along with sirens. Then the world went black again.
More voices. Pain, but muted. Horse opened his eyes slowly, taking in a blurry room and a bright white light. A woman stood over him, asking him questions. He tried to answer, telling her his name, but he was so damned tired. He needed to sleep.
“Wake up, asshole. You’re late for church. No excuses.”
Shit. Had he slept in?
Horse opened his eyes, blinking rapidly, trying to focus. Not his room…hospital. Had to be a hospital. It came back to him in a rush—he’d been with Marie and then somebody shot him.
“Did they get Marie?” he demanded, but it came out in a whisper. Fucking pussy, he couldn’t even talk. He hated feeling weak.
“Marie is safe,” Picnic said, stepping into Horse’s line of sight. Horse studied his face to make sure the man wasn’t lying to him. “She’s in jail right now. Our guy’s arranging bail. He says that if the ballistics match her story, they probably won’t charge her with anything. She’d be out already but they’re pissed that she’s stonewalling about why her brother and Max were fighting.”
“Jail?” he asked, confused.
“Marie shot Max,” Picnic said, his face grim. Horse wrinkled his forehead. “Ruger’s in there too. Hands covered in blood so they arrested him. He had to tackle your girl to get the gun away from her. She’d gone all Pulp Fiction on us, ready to defend you by killing all of us if she had to. Crouched over your body like Wonder Woman. Gives me a boner just thinking about it.”
“You’re the asshole. Why would she shoot Max?” Horse asked, every word grating against his sore throat. Had the bullet hit his mouth, for fuck’s sake? Why couldn’t he talk right?
“Max shot you in the back,” Picnic said shortly. “And then he shot Jensen. Marie was probably next—she told our guy that Max was getting ready to finish you off when she took him out. Kid is like a fucking commando, never saw that coming. Shot him seven times.”
“Fuck,” Horse muttered, feeling himself smile. “Damn, that’s amazing. My girl’s a one-woman army.”
“No shit,” Picnic said, shaking his head. “Took care of business, no question about that. Hey, gotta ask you something important.”
“What’s that?”
Picnic leaned over and spoke softly.
“Cops found all kinds of papers,” he said. “No idea what was in them, but Marie told the lawyer they were talking about money transfers. Jensen said it was all set up. Could we be in trouble?”
Horse wrinkled his forehead, trying to think.
“I changed everything after we found out about Jensen,” he said. “New accounts, the whole thing, a lot more than just passwords and shit like that. Shouldn’t have been traceable.”
“Wonder what he was talking about?”
Horse searched his memory, which was way too hard. Must be on drugs, he realized. Something hovered just out of reach, something he knew was important. Then it came to him.
“We’re good,” he said, smiling.
“How’s that?”
“Max was in the office the last time I printed out a list of the overseas account numbers and contact information,” he said. “Told him I was making dupes for the lockbox. Probably left to take a piss or something and he copied them. Bet he thought he’d hit the jackpot.”