“There was something about the way you shot them,” I said. “Something…distinctive.”

Trixie smiled. “Fletcher was already on his back, so it was easy to shoot him in the balls. Payne was on his side, so I had to push him over with my foot, and then I shot him there too. Heighton, he was crawling for the door, reaching up for the knob, and then he just kind of flipped over on his own. And I shot him in the balls too. And then I walked out, thought I could hear Merker and Leo coming up the stairs, and I snuck out the back way, down the fire escape.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“But I feel bad, you know?” Trixie said.

“Sure,” I said. “Of course you do. Even though it was self-defense, even though they deserved it, even though they had it coming, you can’t take people’s lives away from them and not, I don’t know, live with the regret, one way or another.”

Trixie smiled at me, patted my shoulder. “Oh, Zack, you’re just so sweet. That’s not why I feel bad. I feel bad because I didn’t get Gary. I play it over in my head, over and over and over again, and I see myself shooting him, then leaving a little get-well card for him, with a hundred and ten dollars tucked into the envelope.”

Those stolen Milky Way bars didn’t seem like that big a deal anymore.

CHAPTER 29

29

HEADING BACK TO THE HOUSE, I said, “A couple of years back, when I came to your house unexpectedly one night, in a bit of a pickle, you sent me to a neighbor when I needed a gun.”

“I remember,” Trixie said.

“But I’m guessing you already had one.”

“Yeah. And if you’d used it, and if they ever matched the bullets you fired to the ones that killed those three in Canborough, by now one of us would have already served a year or two in jail for that.”

“Well, thanks for that, then.”

Katie was on the porch, cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting, “Dinner!”

Trixie smiled. “Coming!”

“It’s chicken!”

“Okay!”

Katie ran back into the house.

“She’s beautiful,” I said.

“Yeah. I might be able to take some of the credit for her looks, but it’s Claire and Don who are raising her. And they’re doing a hell of a job. She’s in kindergarten now, smart as a whip.”

We were taking our time walking back, allowing ourselves more time to talk things out. But I didn’t know what to say. I was feeling a little shell-shocked.

“So, now what?” Trixie asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You still think I should go to the police, tell them everything?”