I spun around. Phut! Debris from the ceiling fell onto my head, the largest piece the size of a Matchbox car.
“Don’t move!” Dylan’s voice cut through the air like a razor.
I froze.
He narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I—I was looking for Timothy.” I shivered. Dylan’s gun didn’t have an extra large barrel on the end—that extra length was a silencer.
He curled his lip. “He’s not here.”
I took a huge step back carefully stepping over an orange electrical cord. “I’ll go check the other pavilions, then.” We’re not going to mention the gun in your hand? That’s fine by me.
The Amish man turned slightly so that he could see me. It was Uriah Young. His hands were still in the air, away from his body.
“Don’t look at her!” Dylan snapped at Uri. He caught me in his sights again. “Where are you going?”
“To find Timothy.” I turned to go, and as I did, he seemed to remember the gun in his hand—and the man he held at gunpoint. “Stop! Or I’ll shoot him. You’re not going anywhere.”
Slowly, I pivoted on my heels to face Dylan.
“Dylan, let the girl go,” Uri said. “She had nothing to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with this. Everywhere she goes, she’s in my way.” Dylan’s eyes were bloodshot. Had he been drinking?
“How could she possibly be in your way?” Uri’s tone was condescending. I wasn’t sure if that was the best tactic to use against Dylan. “She’s just a girl.”
“You shut up,” Dylan ordered through clenched teeth. “You’ve said enough already.”
Ignoring the gun was no longer an option. I spoke slowly. “What’s going on Dylan?”
A smile that did not reach his eyes curled on his mouth. “I’m finally doing this right. No mess-ups this time.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Mess-ups? What do you mean?” I tried to keep my voice level. My knees knocking together sounded like a thump, thump, thump in my head. Or maybe that sound was the pounding of my heart.
“Last time,” he paused. “Last time, I made a mistake.”
“Everything you do has been a mistake.” Uri’s voice sounded patronizing.
I spoke up. “No it hasn’t.”
Uri shrugged. “I guess your wife would know that for sure.”
Dylan’s lips trembled.
Was I imagining things or was Uri trying to keep Dylan’s attention on himself? The phone felt heavy in the inner pocket of my coat. If I could get away, I could call Chief Rose on my cell phone.
As if Dylan read my mind, he pointed to the ground. “Cell phone. Throw your cell phone to me.”
My mouth went dry. “I—I don’t have it.”
He shot the ceiling above my head. More debris fell. A chunk of lumber the size of a brick crashed at my feet.
Where was Timothy? If he couldn’t hear the gun, couldn’t he hear the roof falling in? What about Ellie? Couldn’t anyone at the restaurant hear it?
“Phone. Now!” Dylan yelled.
I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out the phone. I hit the speed dial button for Timothy’s phone then threw it to Dylan’s feet. The device clattered to the cement floor. The back of the smartphone broke off and the glowing screen went black. I lifted my eyes to Dylan. “Chief Rose already knows everything. I called her after you stormed out of my house.”
He stamped his foot on the floor like a toddler. “That’s my house. My house! Can’t you get that through your skull?” His forehead was damp with perspiration. “After I am finished with him, you will show me where you put Gerald’s coins.” Maybe the college professor was on something stronger than alcohol.
I stepped back. “I don’t have them. I never had them.”
“Liar!”
I tried to keep my voice steady. “Chief Rose already knows you killed Ezekiel. I found your coat. You left it at the house.”
His gun fell a fraction of an inch. “My coat?”
“Yes. The one Grandfather Zook’s horse took a bite out of when you cut off his beard. Why did you cut off his beard, Dylan?”
Uri cut in. “To throw off the police.”
I wished I could see Uri’s face, so that I could signal him to be quiet.
Dylan’s eyes darted from Uri to me and back again. “I didn’t mean to hurt the old man. He was an easy target—one those girls could have easily gotten to.” He licked his lips. “I need to decide what to do now. Everything was fine until you got in my way.”
Uri scoffed. “Fine? You have to be joking.”
“Shut up!” Dylan’s voice echoed through the pavilion.
“What are you going to do, Tanner,” Uri said. “Shoot both of us?”
Why don’t you give him more ideas, Uri?
Dylan trained the gun on Uri’s heart. “You shut your mouth.”
“If you kill us, it will be another mistake, but this is the one that will ruin your life.”
“What mistake did you make, Dylan?” I tried to keep my voice level.
“I killed the wrong twin. After weeks of planning, I killed the wrong one.” Sweat gathered on Dylan’s upper lip. “I thought it was you!” His voice quavered. “You ruined my life!”
“You killed my bruder.” Uri loomed over him as if daring Dylan to shoot.
Does Uri have a death wish?
“Uri,” I said. “Leave him alone.”
His head snapped around. Instead of fury, I saw sorrow. “He killed my bruder when he wanted to kill me. I don’t deserve to live when my bruder died in my place.”
My mouth went dry. “Why did you want to kill Uri, Dylan?”
“Don’t you use past tense,” he snapped. “Wanting to kill Uriah Young has not died away. No, it’s gotten much worse with every passing moment.”
That didn’t sound good.
“He cost me my savings—and my wife.”
“Don’t you mean your wife’s savings?” Uri said.
I wished I could mind meld with Uri, and say, You’re not helping! Instead all I could do was shoot him a disapproving look.
Dylan wiped sweat from his eyes with his free hand. “Don’t mention my wife.”
“It’s the truth. She left you because you lost the money she inherited from her father’s will.”
“I gave the money to you. You convinced me to invest in the pavilion, and when the contractor you hired ran away with my money, you took no responsibility for it. You found another investor and hired a new contractor as if nothing happened. You went on with your life when mine was ruined.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Uri said.
Phut! The gun went off. Uri fell against the plywood side of the half-finished cheese counter and slid to the floor. A streak of blood marked his path.
My heart pounded wildly.
Dylan stared at Uri lying on the floor, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done.
I knelt by Uri’s head. “Uri! Uri!”
His face was ashen. Blood soaked the front of his shirt. I ripped off my coat and pressed if to Uri’s chest. Lord, don’t let him die. I looked up. There was a hole in the plywood. The bullet went clean through.
“Get—get away from him,” Dylan stuttered.
I picked up Uri’s hand and placed it over the coat. “Press down hard.” I barely breathed the words.
“Stand up!”
Slowly, I stood.
Without my coat the cold drafty air of the pavilion bit into my skin.
“I should have shot him in the first place, instead of that ridiculous plan.” His voice grew quiet, distant. “My wife told me that all of my plans are horrible. Nothing good comes of them.” He raised his eyes to me. “She was right.”
I felt Uri’s hand on my ankle, and he squeezed it with strength. I didn’t dare look down.
Dylan panted. “I said get away from him.”
I spoke calmly. “He needs medical attention.”
“Get away from him now, or I will shoot you too.”
I inched away from Uri. “Dylan, you don’t want to do this.”
“How do you know what I want? Why do you even pretend to care? I want to find the coins in my house. If I find them and sell them, I will have money, more money than before, and Kara will come back.” Sweat dripped off the tip of his nose. “But you won’t even let me do that. Everyone is trying to stop me from being successful.”
There was no point in arguing with him. We had moved long past arguments.
He ran a free hand through his hair and licked his lips. “Now, what am I going to do? You weren’t supposed to be in here.” He leveled the gun, so that it pointed directly at my chest. “I will have to shoot you too.”
A chill ran from the back of my head all the way to my heels.
He shook his head, slowly. “I didn’t want to do that, but you left me no choice.”
“That’s wrong, Dylan, you have a choice.” My lungs constricted. “You always have a choice.”
“No, I don’t,” he said through gritted teeth.
With a cry, Uri leapt from the cement floor and threw himself against Dylan’s knees. The gun went off as the pair crashed into the vegetable booth. Wood splintered as they hit the floor in a heap.
Uri groaned and rolled onto his side. Dylan lay there for a few seconds with the wind knocked out of him. Somehow he’d managed to keep hold of the gun. I scanned the room for some type of weapon. The hum of the air compressor grabbed my attention. I picked up the nail gun, but the air compression hose was tangled around Timothy’s work bench. I knelt on the floor to loosen it, my fingers numb and moving clumsily to remove the kinks in the hose.
Dylan sat up, gulping air. Uri was no longer any help, his breathing choppy as he held a bloody hand to his upper chest.
I almost had the last kink out of the air hose.
Still holding the gun, Dylan stood on shaky legs. “What are you doing?”
The hose pulled free. I turn the nail gun on him, closed my eyes, and squeezed as hard as I could—just like Timothy had shown me.
The nail hit him in the calf. Dylan cried out in pain. I scrambled to my feet and aimed the nail gun at his right hand, the one holding the automatic weapon, and took a shot. A nail hit him in the hand. He screamed and dropped the gun on the floor—and I kicked it as hard as I could. It skittered across the cement floor.
“Police!” Chief Rose and her officers barged into the pavilion through the plastic sheeting.
“She shot me!” Dylan squealed. Blood poured out of the wound in the back of his hand.
Chief Rose examined his wound and arched an eyebrow at me. “A nail gun?”
I blew out a harsh breath. “It was the only thing I could find.”