Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,99
piece of metal. I didn’t need to go far, because not only did Marie’s shot go wide, slamming into the Lexus’s front quarter panel and probably through its engine, but her loose grip had tragic consequences.
The Desert Eagle is probably one of the heaviest guns I’d ever held in my hand, and it required a firm grip and a steady aim. Shooting one usually left my shoulders in a slight twinge from the jerk of the weapon after it’s fired. I’d been shooting guns for decades, where Marie definitely hadn’t, because as soon as the phone struck and she loosened her hold, she lost her grip on the gun, and it recoiled straight up.
The casing popped back, and I lost its trajectory after it bounced off her forehead, but I caught the full crunch of steel meeting bone when the Eagle, powered by the momentum of its blast, slammed back into her face.
I was on the move before she hit the floor screaming, every joint and tendon in my body aching still from Dutch’s punch. But I needed to get to the gun. It was my only chance of survival, because if either one of them got to it before I did, there would be no second chance.
Or at least that’s what I thought, because as soon as I dropped to the ground, reaching for the Eagle with my fingers ghosting over its hard stock, I heard O’Byrne shout that she was LAPD.
“Get out of the way, Mac,” she yelled in that delightful hard-cop voice everyone who prayed to be rescued wanted to hear in a gunpowder-scented parking structure. “You two on the floor, hands behind your necks where I can see them. And if you make one move towards any weapon, I’ll be glad to add another hole into your head. So go ahead and flinch, if you want to know what it’s like to see out of the back of your skull.”
Epilogue
“WHY IS the kid walking like that?” Bobby jerked his chin toward Lisa, who was leaping about as if she was wearing a giant’s seven-league boots. Stretching out her leg in front of her, she hurtled forward, landing on the one foot, then stretching out her other leg to take another lunge. “She looks like she’s training for the Ministry of Silly Walks.”
It was finally Sunday, and the Brinkerhoff case had been put to bed, or at least my part of it had been. I’d inflated the three-foot-high above-ground pool before the sun had come up, filling it up with water and locking down the steel-girder deck that came with it. It was something I was getting pretty tired of doing, and I made some noise to Jae about maybe us just putting in a permanent pool, to which he rolled his eyes and reminded me all I had to do with this one was empty it out and give it a good scrubbing. Since I had spent a few summers cleaning pools for spare change as a teenager, my memories quickly threw up every disgusting thing I had found in the filters.
Those flashbacks were dramatic enough that I stood shivering in the early hours of the morning, holding the hose in place while the pool filled high enough for me to fix it into the ladder and go back into the house.
People began arriving at about one, despite us telling them two was really the earliest everybody should get there. As a result of that, Jae and I had to scramble out of bed, where we had fallen back after a leisurely breakfast and a very erotic shower. I could have killed my brother when I opened the door, but he grinned knowingly at me, glanced down at my bare wet chest and the old pair of jeans I’d barely gotten up over my ass in time, then handed me my niece.
I’m not saying Jae could be usurped by a hazel-eyed little girl with sun-streaked brown hair, but I would die for her. Hands down. Simply die.
And she knew it.
Which was why I was forbidden to take her shopping by myself, because the threat of a pony was a real one, and I knew from experience, Mike and Maddy had enough room in their backyard to host one.
I studied Lisa for a little bit, trying to remember where I’d seen that motion before. Then I chuckled. “That’s how Maddy runs when she’s got her running blades on. A hell of a lot faster, but I think