She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,195

didn’t acknowledge her. “I’m here to see Cammie Brotherton. David wants me to say hello. Then I’m supposed to shoot her.” He pointed his index finger and thumb at me in the shape of a gun. “Pop, pop! Double tap, right in the forehead. Good and dead.”

“You talked to David?” Stella said. “What exactly did he tell you?”

Hobson said, “He told me to go to Cammie’s house and say hello for him, then kill her. Shoot her dead. He also said he loves you, Stella, and he’s cleaning up the whole mess, just for you.”

Hobson dropped the marker then, turned, and walked quickly toward Stella. I thought for sure she’d shoot him, he came at her so fast, but she just stepped aside, and he walked right by as if she wasn’t there at all.

Stella and I exchanged a look, she as confused as I, and we both followed after him.

22

Stack zipped up.

He’d be damned if he’d be found dead with his pecker hanging out.

The board above him creaked again.

He knew the board. Top of the stairs, three deep into the hallway from the last step. He’d pulled up that damn board about a dozen times over the past decades, pulled out the existing nails, replaced them with 50mm screws, replaced those screws with longer screws. He tried gluing the board down. He even dumped talcum powder down around the seams, nails, and screws of that board as well as the ones around it, in hopes of softening the sound. None of that worked. The damn board still squeaked the second you put a little weight on it.

Stack reached for his magnum, pointed the gun at the ceiling about two inches south of the light fixture, and squeezed off three quick shots.

The fucking thing kicked back hard against his old bones, but this wasn’t his first rodeo. His aim held, and the shots landed within an inch of each other, leaving a gaping hole above.

23

We found Dewey Hobson standing in the living room, staring out the large window at the street. I came up beside him, keeping a safe distance.

He said, “Cammie’s not home, is she?”

“No, Dewey. We think she left yesterday.”

“That’s too bad. I really wanted to say hello, for David.”

“Do you know where she might have gone? Where she would go if she had to leave here?”

Hobson said nothing, his eyes fixed on some point across the street.

“Would she have gone to my father? Does she know where he is?”

Hobson said, “He’ll be here soon.”

“My father is coming here?”

“No, David is. They were right behind me.”

I looked back at Stella. She was already moving—racing around the kitchen, shoving our clothes back in our bags, grabbing the books from the table.

The large window shattered a millisecond before I heard the shot.

A bullet struck Hobson in his left shoulder. He jerked back but remained standing.

A white SUV had stopped in the middle of Windmore Road. The woman who had fired the shot stood beside the open driver-side door in a long, white trench coat, a thin trail of smoke drifting up from the barrel of her nickel-plated semiautomatic pistol, a smug look on her face.

“Down!” I shouted, crouching behind the wall under the window, hoping the brick would be enough.

Hobson didn’t move. He remained still as the shoulder of his shirt bloomed red with blood.

Three more bullets peppered the wall behind us. I reached out and yanked Dewey’s leg. He lost his balance and fell beside me.

Stella ran in from the other room, our bags in one hand and the shotgun in her other. “The neighbors will call the police. We need to get out of here!”

Another shot. The bullet struck a tall lamp in the corner of the room.

I raised my head just enough to see outside. “I think there’s three of them. We open up on them with everything we’ve got and make a run for the car.” I quickly put on my backpack, pulled Stella’s bag closed, and checked the rifle. “We go on three. Ready?”

Stella nodded.

Another bullet ricocheted off the brick just below the windowsill.

I started to count down. The second SUV skidded to a stop behind the first before I reached two.

24

Stack heard a heavy weight hit the floor directly above his head, then roll down the stairs. Plaster rained down on him from the newly created window from his bathroom to the second floor.

Never one to waste a trip, when Stack got the beer from the kitchen, he took the opportunity to fill his