Chapter

24

I flipped through the channels half-heartedly. I was bored and miffed. I knew why I couldn’t be there with Seth and Gordon. It probably wasn’t all that exciting anyway—just the two of them searching through a grungy tattoo parlor with its stashes of gross skin magazines and a porn collection alarming enough to generate a second investigation—but I still wanted to be there. These people had sold stolen guns to dangerous people not caring about the consequences. Mark Ingalls had killed Joe Reagan and had burned down the Horowitzes’ house. He’d come after me. He’d almost killed Seth. And I wanted to see the cuffs being put on every last one of them. Especially Ingalls. I deserved that. So if it meant I sat quietly at home with asshole Officer Harrison outside in a black-and-white at the curb and wait, then I’d do it. 

I checked my phone for the tenth time since they’d left. Seth had sworn several times he’d contact me the minute it was over. He’d wanted me to stay at the apartment, but I wanted my own bed and my own things. When he brought me home, I had showered again, finally washing off all the smoke from the fire, replacing the burnt wood and chemical smell with strawberries. I had stayed in there a long, long time, only getting out when the water ran cold. 

He’d sat on the bed, watching as I dropped my towel, not making a move toward me. I had dressed reluctantly, trying to drag out the time before he left, wanting to fall back into the rumpled covers with him, to forget about fires and knives and racists like Mark Ingalls. Seth had been right—we had crappy timing. 

When I had finally pulled on the last of my clothes, he stood up and wrapped his arms around me. We stood quietly leaning against one another for as long as we could before he had to leave. He promised me one final time that he’d let me know when he was done and on his way home. I assumed he meant home was wherever I was and marveled at how quickly that had happened after years of stalled desire. How easy it was to be a team despite both our best efforts to push the other away.

I was tired and thirsty, something the nurses had warned me would be a near constant complaint in the days after jumping out of a fire-engulfed building. My head pounded. I turned the TV off and got up from the couch to get some aspirin and water.

I rounded the door from the dining room and had half a step and a heartbeat to recognize Mark Ingalls before he hit me in the face. I felt his fist glance off my cheekbone, clipping my brow and ghosting my eye. My teeth clacked together and pain exploded along my jawline. My ribs slammed into the edge of the counter, and that was enough to distract me from my face feeling like it was splitting in two. 

“You stupid bitch. You ruined everything.”

Verbal skills notwithstanding, Mark Ingalls could throw a punch. I had gotten lucky that it was a glancing blow. If he’d hit me square, I’d have been in real trouble.

I lashed my foot out and kicked him in the side of the knee but I was off-balance and slipped down onto the counter, mouth first, lip popping open. Ingalls doubled over, grabbing his leg and yelling. I was happy to note I still held the remote, so I smacked him across the face with it. It was one of those old ones—big numbers, lots of buttons, and a half-dozen batteries. The compartment opened and they all flew out.

I took care with my footing as I pushed myself to standing and stumbled back out of arm’s reach. I had caught him on the nose and he was having a hard time seeing me, his eyes watering, blood streaming from a cut on the bridge.

I was hurting and that first shimmer of fight-or-flight coursed into me. Adrenaline was my friend for now. I needed to keep it pumped up and I had to get my head into the game. Indulging in the pain could get me killed. This was Ingalls’s third try at me and he was not screwing around. He was bigger, he was stronger, and he was angrier, but I was smarter and I had home-field advantage.

I backed into the dining room. My ear was starting to ring a bit. Ingalls was wild-eyed. 

“Reagan was a traitor. He lied to me. Never told me his piece was a kike.”

This guy couldn’t stop being racist even while he was trying to kill me. Psychos really will talk at you about where it all went wrong and why they just had to do it—and it was always someone else’s fault. I looked around hoping to find something I could use as a weapon. All I saw was the cabinet full of creepy little figurines, which were about as dangerous as a nightmare. I thought about the knives in the kitchen and discarded the idea. I needed to keep him away from the knives. He could grab one just as easily, and I wasn’t trained in knife fighting. Plus he seemed to like them. I turned away and got two steps into the room before my head snapped back, his hand tangled in my hair.

“No so fast. You’re not smarter than me, you bitch!”

Creepy figurines it was. I kicked out, breaking the glass in the cabinet. There were a few that had a decent heft to them. I’d dusted them enough times to know which ones. Sorry, big-eyed couple on the swing. I pushed through the broken glass and closed my hand around it. I swung around, pulling my hair out of his hand. Shit, that hurt. The ceramic smashed into his temple. I pulled free completely and vowed not to turn my back on him again.

Ingalls panted, a dazed look in his eyes. The powdery remains of the tchotchke dusted his face, mixing with the sweat and blood. He was more out of shape than I had figured. I eased to the right, trying to put the dining room table in between us. 

“You don’t deserve to breathe the same air as righteous white men, you worthless mongrel. When I’m done here I’m going to kill your boyfriend. Does he even know you’re a half-breed? Shame he has to die just because you’re a lying nigger.”

Jesus, he was super-no-doubts-about-it-capital-I insane. Maybe if I could keep him talking.

“This is not going to help you, Ingalls. My boyfriend is with the ATF. They’re on to your group. You need to get the hell out of here.”

He lunged at me, uninterested in self-preservation. I shoved the small table hard, hoping to knock it into him, take him down. The damn thing had been in the same spot for fifteen years and the legs had made deep divots in the carpet that held like glue. My side of the table tipped up as I powered my muscles into the shove and it flipped up on its side. It didn’t even knock into Ingalls, but it provided the distraction I needed. I kicked the chair over, trying to give myself another layer. If he couldn’t run after me I had a better chance of getting to the back of the house. To the gun safe in the master bedroom. 

The muscle-deep bruise on my arm screamed at me. It had nagged all day but the table had woken it and it was fierce and angry. I reminded myself that being dead would be worse.

Dad had a revolver in the office. The lockbox would be easier to get to than the gun safe. But that door was behind Ingalls. Dammit. I feinted to the left like I was going for the living room and he moved to the outside of the table just as I moved back to the right, pushing the table as hard as I could again, hoping that flipping it onto its top would distract Ingalls enough to slow him down.

I raced into the kitchen, fighting every instinct that screamed at me to get the butcher block full of knives. I already knew he liked knives, so I didn’t even glance at it and took the corner to the hallway, clipping my shoulder on the edge of the wall. I heard his heavy work boots pounding after me on the linoleum. But he was slowing. I deliberately swiped my hand on the painting closest to the back hall. A little misdirection could only help. I knew the master bedroom door was closed. He’d think I slipped in there to hide.

Back on the carpet my steps were muffled but my breathing was another matter. I was sucking in air too hard. I had to slow it down, be quieter, so I wasted a second taking a deep breath. My lungs clenched and I couldn’t stop the cough, only barely muffling it by keeping my mouth closed. 

I eased into the office and gave myself another second I didn’t have to acclimate myself to the dark. I slipped around the side of the desk and down into the chair well. It was a terrible place to hide but I wasn’t hiding. The desk was old and cheap with exposed drawer slides. I palmed the side of the top drawer and slid it open carefully. The lockbox was in the back of the bottom drawer. I could reach in and grab it without having to move out from under the desk. 

I clicked open the suitcase lock, flipping the code by memory. Dad’s badge number. I pulled the loaded revolver out.

Ingalls had enough time now to find out I wasn’t in the back of the house. He’d be coming for the office any second. I was out of time. And I wasn’t running or hiding anymore. This was my house. This was my life. And he’d taken enough from me already. He wasn’t taking any more.

I stood up and walked out of the office into the dining room. Ingalls was standing in the kitchen holding the butcher knife.

He took a step. Then another. He was no more than ten feet from me. Even though I was armed and had the table between us, my stomach gave way to terrified spasms.

As a cop, I should have given a warning. But I wasn’t a cop anymore, and he’d had plenty of time to stop. To leave. To not hurt me. To not try to kill me. He wanted me dead. He’d made that clear.

I’d been well trained for situations like this. My mind tunneled. Just Mark Ingalls. Just the expanse of gray cotton stretched across his pudgy torso.

Squeeze, don’t snap.

Squeeze, don’t snap.

I forced my mind clear of the pain and noise and panic. Then I planted my feet, let my knees relax, and swayed slightly forward at the hips. Perfect shooter’s stance. One deep breath then another. 

Squeeze, don’t snap.

Squeeze, don’t snap.

The bullet hit him center mass. He grunted. In pain or surprise, I didn’t know. He looked surprised. Another bullet just to the left of the first. That one stopped him. He dropped to his knee and just lay down on the kitchen floor. It was almost graceful except for the blood.

My tunnel vision was clearing. The dining room was destroyed. I couldn’t imagine how I would clean it all up, fix all the stuff that had been broken, make it okay to have my family in here. How would I ever sit at the table and eat Thanksgiving dinner again knowing I had shot a man over it? How would I have breakfast with my family in the kitchen with all that blood on the floor?

Shit. There was blood on the floor. I shook my head. Mark Ingalls was bleeding on the floor and I was worrying about family holidays. I needed to call 911. 

I couldn’t find my cell phone. It must have fallen out of my pocket somewhere in our fight. I didn’t have time to look for it. I glanced over at the landline hanging on the wall. Mom had insisted we keep it. It hadn’t seemed like a good idea before I shot someone. The problem was I had to walk past Mark Ingalls lying on the floor to get to it and I really didn’t want to get anywhere near him. 

I stared at him for what felt like hours but was probably only a minute. I kept the gun aimed at him. I was practically sitting on the counter, sidestepping to the phone. I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. I was waiting for him to lunge up at me like the horror movie monsters did.

From far away I heard hammering on the front door. I had forgotten the black-and-white. There had been a cop outside the whole time. How had Ingalls gotten in? He wasn’t supposed to have been able to get to me. That was the damn point of the security detail. Why the hell was Ingalls bleeding on my floor if I was being protected? Then I remembered Seth’s comment about some cops being neo-
Nazis too. Could Tony Harrison have helped Ingalls? 

I looked away from Ingalls only long enough to grab the phone handle and lift it from the cradle. I saw that my hand was covered in blood, oozing from a dozen little cuts. With a shaking hand I punched in the numbers and eased away as far as the phone cord would allow.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I’ve been attacked in my home. I’m hurt. I shot him.”

“What’s your address, dear?”

“I’m a … I, uh … I don’t remember.” An address I knew by heart was just gone from my mind. 

“It’s okay, dear. I’ve got the address. I’m dispatching help to you right now. I need you to stay on the line with me until they get there. Can you do that?”

I nodded, forgetting that she couldn’t see me. I coughed hard again. My heart tripped in my chest. The adrenaline was overwhelming my system.

“There’s a cop here already but Ingalls shouldn’t have been able to get past him. I don’t know if I should let him in.”

“Let him in, ma’am. He’s there to help you.”

The lady’s voice was so calm but my heart was drumming in my head. “Are you sure?” 

Knocking on the kitchen window startled me and I dropped the phone. I heard the 911 operator’s voice calling out to me. Harrison was yelling at me through the glass. “Pennington, open the door.”

I looked down at Ingalls again and then at the phone swinging on its cord against the wall. 

Blood from my hands smudged onto the emergency phone number list taped to the surface. I looked away from it. The latest perversion of my mom’s orderly house. 

I didn’t know what to do. I stared at Ingalls. At the holes in his shirt, blood spreading out from them, running into the logo on the fabric. I tried to focus on the logo. 

“PENNINGTON. Let me in.”

Of course Harrison wasn’t working with Ingalls. I rushed to the hall and twisted the deadbolt before turning the handle and pulling open the front door. It bounced off the wall but stayed open. I still had a ton of adrenaline flying through my blood. Harrison’s face stared at me.

“What the hell happened, Pennington?” he asked, easing the gun out of my hand.

I led him to the kitchen and Ingalls on the floor. He kicked the knife away from Ingalls’s body.

I reached for the phone receiver and it slid against my hand, slick with blood. “I’m back. I let him in.”

The operator talked to me in soothing tones and I heard sirens in the air. The neighborhood association was probably flooded with complaints about all the noise this week. I wondered why I cared. And then the house was full of people. I forgot to say goodbye before I hung up the phone.

The paramedics worked on Mark Ingalls, trying to stop the blood, get a regular heartbeat. I could barely tear my eyes away. I was responsible for those injuries and I knew the men working frantically to save him. I had worked car accidents with them. I wanted them to stop. I wanted to tell them what kind of man he was, what he had done, what he had tried to do. I wanted to scream that he was a monster. I said nothing. They would do their jobs no matter their feelings.

“Pennington? Can you tell me what happened?” Tony Harrison stood in front of me. The house I had grown up in was now a crime scene. There was blood on the kitchen floor. 

“Um, I shot him. He had a knife.”

He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “Are you okay?” 

I nodded. A racist who had tried to kill me was bleeding out in my kitchen. Could I tell him what had happened? I could barely figure it out myself.

“This was self-defense, Pennington.” 

I nodded again even though it hadn’t sounded like a question. The trashed house and bruises blooming on my face were a pretty good indicator that we’d been fighting. And the knife that had been lying next to Mark Ingalls. I covered my eyes with my hands, barely feeling the black eye. I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts. Harrison needed a timeline.

“I was thirsty. I wanted some water.”

He waited, a patient look on his face. It struck me that he was doing a good job pretending he didn’t hate me. Was that how he was with victims? Was I a victim? A man had broken into my house. He had hit me and threatened me. He had told me he was going to kill me. He’d tried twice before. Harrison was going to put my name down in the victim field on a form.

“My brother is staying with a friend tonight and I was waiting for him. No, not him. Seth.”

Ben could have been here. That bastard could have hurt by baby brother. My sweet, brilliant, just-becoming-a-man baby brother. “How did he get in, Harrison? How did he get past you?”

If he was embarrassed that Ingalls had gotten past him, he didn’t show it. “Wilkes said the door in the basement was open.”

Goddamn broken sliding glass door. 

I saw Harrison turn away to talk on the phone.

I was suddenly exhausted, the adrenaline wearing off. It had been a really long time since that morning. I just wanted to lie down. It was probably a bad time for that. I slumped against the wall. 

“Pennington, I need you to sit down, okay? Boyd’s on her way. She’ll want you to tell her the story yourself.” He had me by the arm and was leading me over to the wrecked dining room, away from the commotion in the kitchen. There were so many people. It seemed like dozens but I didn’t remember that many people arriving. He picked up the nearest chair and gently settled me into it.

“The ATF is doing a search right now. Or maybe it’s over by now. I don’t know. I can’t remember. Is it still today? Seth can tell you.”

Something swam in my head. It slid around like oil on the surface of water. I pushed myself up and moved toward Ingalls and the paramedics.

Harrison tried to push me back toward the chair. “You don’t need to see this, Pennington.”

“His shirt. The logo, Harrison.” 

He let me by and held me up as I leaned over the paramedic who’d cut the shirt down the middle to access the wounds.

“I need to see the logo.”

Harrison nodded at the EMT and the man flipped the shirt flap up off the floor. Just like the truck I’d seen during the stakeout. There had even been one in the parking lot at Killian’s. I hadn’t even thought twice about them. Those trucks were all over the county.

“Harrison. You need to call Boyd. Tell her Farley Brothers Construction.”

He looked at me uncertainly. “Willa, you’ve had a big shock tonight. You’re not making sense.”

“Harrison, please call her now. She’ll understand.”

He pulled his radio off the shoulder holster and began talking.

I tried to keep my thoughts straight but they were impossible to hold on to and it was hard to keep my eyes open. I was so tired. 

I looked up at Harrison talking to Boyd on the radio, but he was taller than I remembered. I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t see anything above his neck. It was just a gray blur. I wondered how his face could be gone if I could hear him talking. He was saying something but his words were like bees buzzing around my ears. I didn’t understand how his words could be bees.

And then I knew. “I’m going to pass out now.”

My body gave out from my control and all I could hear was his voice, sounding so far away, yelling, “Officer down.”