“Ambulance is five minutes away,” I said to Vankle. “Just hold on.”

The operator stayed on the line and was giving me updates. “Four minutes away,” I said to Vankle.

“You must hate me for what I did.” He slurred his words. “But it wasn’t me. I promise. I just did what I was told.”

“Just try to breathe,” I said. “Nice and slow.”

“It was my brother,” he said. “The whole time. It was always my brother.”

I heard sirens in the distance, but from the noise I could tell they were MFPD cars and not ambulances.

I glanced over at Marvin and realized I had a second situation to deal with.

“Kick that gun away from you, Marvin.” I motioned at the Glock. “Kick it away and sit down over there in the corner. Patrol is gonna arrest you. At least until they sort things out.”

Vankle’s body started shaking then, and I knew from enough crime scenes that he was going into cardiac arrest. “No no no,” I said, but his body stopped moving, and I knew he was gone.

The area around me was a pool of blood, and I reached my hand under Vankle’s back, feeling a second exit wound.

He was dead.

I stared over at Marvin, who’d scooted a few feet away from my Glock.

I had run down Tarticoft, and Remy had killed him.

I had Hartley on the defensive after finding that skeleton under his property.

And now Marvin had taken out Vankle.

It had been a long two years for me since Lena and Jonas were killed. Two years alone, but the people around me had done the dirty work that they knew I couldn’t do. That I wasn’t able to. They gave me time to heal. To think.

And right now I was just thinking about one thing.

Vankle’s statement about his brother.

Because a new question haunted me.

Who the hell was Steele Vankle’s brother?

57

I sat back against the couch and waited as officers came up the steps.

Beau had snuggled beside me, and I could see his leg was cut. He barely barked when patrol busted through the front door and saw me bloodied up.

“Officer down,” Patrolman Atienza said into her shoulder mic. She moved across the room and kicked the gun farther away from Marvin.

“You okay, Marsh?” her partner, Ford, said as he moved toward Vankle’s body and saw the .45.

“Given the circumstances,” I said.

Atienza got Marvin to his feet. “My father-in-law,” I said. “He shot this man with my service weapon.”

Atienza moved Marvin out onto the porch without messing with the scene, and Ford leaned over, checking Vankle’s pulse to confirm he was dead.

“Let’s get you up,” Ford said.

“Only after you get someone on the line from Animal Control,” I said. “This dog saved my life, and he’s cut badly.”

“I promise,” she said. “Why don’t you grab him, and we’ll go out to the porch?”