“You like a joke, right, Pat?” He patted my cheek again. “You’ll love this. You’re going to die here, and even as you do, I want you to understand something—you never, even now, saw the whole board. That, I find hilarious.” He chuckled. “The money’s in your car, which I’m sure is parked close by. I’ll find it.”

“No,” I managed, though I’m not sure any sound came out.

“Yes,” he said. “You were fun for a while there, Pat, but now I’m bored. Okay. Gotta go kill your bitch and that big freak. Be right back.”

He stood and turned toward the door, and I stretched out a numb hand along the floor as the pain blew up in my chest.

Scott Pearse laughed. “The guns are a good five feet past your legs, Pat. But you keep trying.”

I gnashed my teeth together and screamed as I raised my head and back off the floor and managed to sit up, and the blood poured out of the hole in my chest and saturated my waist.

Pearse cocked his head at me, turned his gun in my direction. “Way to take it for the team, Pat. Bravo.”

I stared at him, willed him to pull the trigger.

“Okay,” he said softly, and pulled back on the hammer. “We’ll end you now.”

The door behind him flung open, and Pearse turned, got off one round that blew a chunk out of Bubba’s thigh.

But Bubba never stopped. He covered Pearse’s gun hand with his own and clamped his other arm around Pearse’s chest from behind.

Pearse let loose a guttural scream and tried to twist his body out of Bubba’s grasp, but Bubba squeezed tighter, and Pearse began to gasp, began to make high-pitched keening yelps, as he saw his gun hand move against his will up toward the side of his head.

He tried to twist his head away, but Bubba reared back and butted his massive forehead into the back of Pearse’s head so hard it sounded like a pool ball exploding.

Pearse’s eyes spun from the shock of impact.

“No,” he yelped. “No, no, no, no.”

Bubba grunted with the effort, blood pouring down his leg as Angie scrambled out into the hallway on all fours and grabbed her .38.

She rose to one knee, pulled back on the hammer, and pointed it at Pearse’s chest.

“Don’t you fucking do it, Ange!” Bubba screamed.

Angie froze, finger curled around the trigger.

“You’re mine, Scott,” Bubba whispered hoarsely in Pearse’s ear. “You are all mine, sweetie.”

“Please,” Pearse begged. “Wait! No! Don’t! Wait! Please!”

Bubba grunted again and slammed the muzzle of Pearse’s gun into Pearse’s temple, shoved his finger over Pearse’s and around the trigger.

“No!”

Bubba said, “Feeling depressed, isolated, possibly suicidal?”

“Don’t!” Pearse batted at Bubba’s head with his free hand.