Patrick’s dead.

Patrick’s dead.

Dead.

Doyle.

Doyle’s dead.

Doyle’s dead.

Larkin was thirty-five, and he was still terrified. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry. All he could do was raise his left arm with the SIG, and it didn’t even feel like he was in control—it felt like his spirit wasn’t even attached to his body anymore.

Harry swung the bat against Larkin’s left forearm.

Snap.

Larkin dropped the SIG and lurched forward, instinctively cradling his arm to his chest. His vision doubled, blackened, seemed to narrow to a pinpoint. Then Harry bellowed. He raised the bat and took another swing, but Larkin dropped to one knee, narrowly avoiding having his head lopped clean off. Instead, Harry slammed the barrel of the bat into the drywall and flecks of white rained down on the old wooden floorboards. Undeterred, Harry raised the bat high overhead and brought it down. Larkin fell backward on his ass to avoid the next assault, and he watched as Harry ended up beating the floor with the bat instead, the reverb going through his hands and arms making him grunt in pain.

Larkin scrambled to his knees, pushed himself up with one hand, went for the SIG. Harry gave another feverish cry and kicked Larkin in the ribs. Larkin let out a whoosh of air and dropped, curling into a ball.

“Are you certain it was seven o’clock?” Harry leaned over Larkin, repeating back one of his statements from their conversation Monday morning. “You arrogant little fucking cocksucker! I knew then I was going to love bashing your brains in!” He grabbed a handful of Larkin’s blond hair, yanked his head up, and shoved it against the wall. He pinned Larkin in place with the bat’s endcap against his neck and spat in Larkin’s face.

The sound of a gunshot consumed the small apartment space, caused it to warp inward and then expand out again like a bubble that refused to pop. Blood spurted across Larkin’s face, and for a brief second, he thought he’d been shot and his body simply hadn’t yet acknowledged the pain, with all of the adrenaline pumping through his veins. But Harry sagged forward, then slowly back, released his grip on Larkin, and collapsed to the floor.

Larkin looked down. A clean shot to Harry’s chest. It looked like it’d shattered his collarbone. Harry was bleeding, still breathing, but clearly without considerable labor. In contrast, Larkin could feel his own chest rising and falling in a mess of sharps and flats and impromptu rests. He couldn’t hear anything except that high-pitched ringing left in the aftermath of gunfire, but he was alive. Larkin looked down the hall.

Doyle, breathing hard, his right eye nearly swollen shut and a nasty gash across his forehead bleeding all over, lowered his Glock from firing stance.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE