another backup or two. He liked those odds much better than two-to-one. He adjusted the Bluetooth in his ear, hoping it might ring, hoping the sheriff was close.
Despite Stone’s broadcast, despite the wandering eyes, not many had landed upon him. Maybe no one cared; maybe those that did were now gone. What he didn’t like was the collective cool of his two suspects against the far wall. Not so much as a twitch from either.
His Bluetooth purred. He touched the device and connected the call. “Yeah?”
“I have a runner in custody,” the KPD cop announced.
“Lose him,” Brandon said softly.
“Say what? He’s cuffed and on the way to the cruiser.”
“No, no, no. Lose him. Return to post.” Brandon ended the call. Moron. The sin was not arresting the wrong guy, but leaving his post. He’d lost his backup.
He pulled the phone from his pocket and speed-dialed.
“Fleming,” came the sheriff’s voice in his ear.
“Your twenty?”
“Just passing the hospital. Five minutes.”
“I make my move and the front door goes unguarded.”
“Got it.”
“My backup vacated the back. I’m wide open here.”
“Do you see our boy?”
“Yeah. Could be one of two I’m looking at.”
“Does he see you?”
“It’s a work in progress, Sheriff.”
“Hold tight, Tommy. You hear me? For once, hold tight.”
“It’s about to go down. I’d love to be wrong about that.”
“Me, too. Two minutes away. I’ll take the front.”
“Out.”
He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Felt the bulge of his handgun in the holster. Remembered the vest behind the seat in the truck. Was that what was stopping him? he wondered. Had he allowed Gail’s warning to wedge into the cracks that held duty in place over the mortal fear that always existed? The noise of the place was getting to him. He found a mirror behind the bar that allowed him to monitor both men without facing them.
The man at the second table, the one farthest away, reached beneath the table, and Brandon’s right hand sought out his own gun up under the windbreaker. The guy held a wad of bills, not a weapon, and Brandon saw what appeared to be a neat stack of hundreds with smaller bills in the fold. The man peeled off a ten and a five and left them on the table, returning the money to his pocket.
The man stood, and Brandon saw it too late. The guy fired a single shot into the ceiling. Everyone in the room ducked at the same instant. All but Brandon, all but the one man trained not to duck. He was reaching for his own sidearm as the second bullet was fired.
Brandon was jerked to his left. It was a hot, searing pain, but not overwhelming, the way he’d imagined it might feel. He felt his breath catch, instantly light-headed. Heard a car door out there somewhere and knew it was the sheriff. Wondered if the sheriff had heard the shots.
The man who’d shot him—their mountain man—swung a chair through the window alongside his table, raked a leg of the chair along the lower edge clearing the shards of broken glass, and jumped through and out onto the sidewalk.
The sheriff came through the door, taking one step past him, and rose onto his toes, immediately seeing the broken window.
“Here,” Brandon coughed out, slouching toward the floor.
The sheriff spun around. “Damn it!” he said, holstering his weapon and reaching out to catch his deputy. “Some help here!” He reached for his radio clipped to his uniform. Brandon heard, “Officer down. Request ambulance . . .” He fought against the purple ooze at the edges of his vision, fought against the image of the muzzle flash from the handgun. That burst of light occupied his thought, had overtaken him.
“Stay with me!” he heard.
The sheriff ? He wasn’t sure where that had come from. His brother? A priest? No white light. No journey through his lifetime memories. Only that dark purple rim flooding in from the edges like a spreading pool of blood. That, and a penetrating cold. A cold like no other. The cold of fear. The cold of the unknown. Of outright terror. There was no warm wash of love. No angels. Just that cold dragging him down and unrelentingly pulling him out of sight.
Walt was heading to the Jeep to follow the ambulance to the hospital, when he glanced back at the Casino and the swarm of deputies now involved in the crime scene. He thought it ironic and unacceptable that when a deputy needed backup, one local cop showed up