Dani knelt beside Armstrong’s partner, examining his wounds. The corporal with the state police stood a few feet away with her gun trained on the deputy.
“Skinny bitch shot me,” Armstrong’s partner said, sucking in air as Dani wiped some blood away from the corner of his left eye with a paper towel.
“You got lucky,” Dani said.
“Lucky?” the man asked belligerently.
“You ain’t gonna lose your eyes. Most likely.”
The man blinked as a flood of tears and blood blurred his vision. “Thank God.”
“Yeah, well, while you’re thanking him, you might give him an earful over what’s come of your nose.”
“My nose,” he said with a gasp. “What about it?”
“It ain’t where it’s supposed to be unless you come into this world with it peeled over on your right cheek there.”
Panic raced through the man’s veins as he tried to cope with the idea that his nose had been blown from its normal perch.
“You ain’t gonna die from it,” Dani said, “but I’d get used to breathing in and out of your mouth from now on. Your nose most likely won’t come into that equation no more.”
The man let out a little squeak and fought to draw in air through his mutilated nose.
“That’s enough,” Armstrong said. “You’re scaring him.”
Dani looked up at her. “He should be scared.”
“I said that’s enough.”
“But he shouldn’t be scared for the reasons he’s thinking. He should be scared because he’s still alive. Ain’t that right?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Taking him to the hospital to get this fixed up is gonna complicate things. They’re gonna drug him up, and he’s liable to let slip the circumstances that rearranged his face.”
Armstrong grimaced and shouted, “Enough! Enough! Enough! Do you understand the meaning of the word? It means shut the fuck up!”
Dani stood. “Kill him.”
Armstrong stared at her, stunned.
“You know it has to be done, so do it.”
The corporal took a step back and aimed her gun at Dani’s head. “Shut up.”
“Okay, then kill me.”
Armstrong gritted her teeth, screamed at the top of her lungs, and then dropped the gun to her side.
Dani, unaware that she had not been breathing, let loose a stream of air through her nostrils. “You’re not with the state police, are you?”
The corporal nodded. “I am, but I’ve abandoned a few regulations here and there. I’m with the armed convoy division.”
Dani furrowed her brow. “I ain’t familiar.”
“We guard high-profile political candidates and state officials.”
“Longwell,” Dani said, picturing the plastic politician making promises he couldn’t keep to a roomful of voters in the high school gymnasium.
Armstrong nodded. “He was my detail. I’ve been traveling with that asshat for six months now. I can’t really blame anyone for that, though. I asked for the assignment.”
“You know about Kate Farrow?”
“I know about all of them. I’ve known for a long time. It’s why I became a cop, it’s why I asked for the Longwell detail, it’s why I’ve broken just about every law I swore to uphold.”
“I don’t understand.”
The corporal cleared her throat. “Armstrong is my married name. I took my shithead husband’s last name because my own may have set off a few alarms with the wrong people.”
“What kind of alarms?”
“You tell me. My maiden name is Hart.”
Dani considered the name for a brief moment before saying, “Your mother is…”
“You met her at Laura Farrow’s house. She was pursuing yet another avenue to find my sister. That’s all she’s done for the past fifteen years, in secret of course. My father would’ve beat her within an inch of her life if he knew.”
“And why would you ask to guard Longwell?”
Armstrong hesitated and then said, “So I could kill him.”
Dani didn’t respond.
“Trooper Manfred Longwell was the investigating officer in charge of my sister’s disappearance. Although he wasn’t so much in charge of the investigation as he was of the cover-up. This detail was my chance to make him pay for what he did to my family.”
“So why is he still alive? You’ve had six months.”
“Because on my first day of duty, I accompanied Longwell to an off-the-books meeting at a Biscuit Shack. I never made it past the parking lot, but it didn’t take a genius to know my priorities needed to change. Suddenly, killing Longwell fell way down on my to-do list. I had a hunch that if I got to know the man he was meeting with I’d find out what happened to my sister. The problem is I’ve never been able to get past Bonnie, the gatekeeper.”
A thought came to Dani. She stepped forward aggressively. “My uncle?”
Armstrong held up her hand to stop her. “He’s alive. He took a bullet just above the collarbone, but it was a through and through. Luckily, he took my advice when I told him to stay down. He wasn’t happy about it, but I promised him I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You’ve made that a hard promise to keep.”
“But in the barn…You turned down Boss’s offer to let the little girl get out of here…She could have been gone already.”
“Yeah, whisked away by two slopers who do closeouts for the Pikes.”
“But they’re helping me…”
“Are they? Do you know that for sure?”
Dani gave her question some thought and then said. “It’s about the only thing I know for sure. I’ve known the worst of the worst when it comes to men nearly my whole life, and I’ve known a few good ones. Step and Kenny are among the few.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll excuse me if I don’t have as much faith in a couple of killers as you do.”
Dani watched as Armstrong’s partner started to shiver. “He’s going into shock.”
Armstrong turned to examine the man with the misplaced nose.
“I should’ve figured you were on the right side of this thing back at the barn.”
“Why’s that?” the corporal asked as she knelt down to examine her partner’s wound.
“You never took my gun.”
Armstrong thought about Dani’s claim and then laughed. “I guess I didn’t,” she said. The corporal turned and was surprised to find the deputy gone. Stepping toward the back door, she stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of a woman screaming from the front yard of the house.