Dead Wood - By Dani Amore Page 0,74

Or murder/suicide depending on which story they went with.

I’d killed Memphis for some reason and then they’d bring out my past. An ex-cop ate his gun. Happens all the fucking time. Every day, in fact.

I didn’t think my sister would let it ride, but hey, these two fuckers were pros. They’d make it look very good, very real.

My lungs were on fire and I knew I couldn’t hold my breath very much longer. The first one had a little smile on her face. She looked like a mean little kid who’d pulled the wings off a fly and was now happily watching it die a pathetic little spasmodic death.

It pissed me off.

Every muscle in my body slammed into place and I bucked with everything I had.

The first one barely moved.

But move she did.

Just enough to free my left arm.

I reached up and got her neck and bucked again, this time bringing her head toward me as I rammed my head forward. I heard and felt her nose squash against my forehead. Blood sprayed and now my right arm was loose. I grabbed the gun as the woman on top of me sagged. The gun fired a round and the explosion brought the three of us into a burst of frantic energy.

I hoped that I’d knocked the first one out, but her eyes cleared just as I was bringing the gun around. She had the advantage but I had momentum on my side. I gave one more shove and the gun came around toward her chest.

I pulled the trigger.

Just as she was knocked back, the second one let go of my legs and reached for her gun. I put three rounds into her chest and she staggered back into the hallway and fell on her ass, her feet still in the room. She had a look of utter sadness, looking down at her dead sister. She toppled over then, her big body landing with a thud.

The smell of gunpowder was overwhelming and I felt stars shooting across my forehead.

Everything started to go black and I was suddenly scared I’d been shot.

But then I realized why.

I was still holding my breath.

Forty-two

The first thing I did was vomit. I made it to the toilet, wondering about destroying evidence, but hurl I did. My whole body was shaking, probably from both fear and the aftermath of having an ungodly amount of volts shot through my system. I was having a near death and out-of-body experience at the same time.

Somehow, I found my way back to the first bedroom where one of the twins had been hiding. I assumed the note was meant to be written in my hand, and sure enough, there was a slip of paper. It was the one on which I’d jotted down my name and phone number and given to someone in Shannon’s entourage, maybe Molly?

It was standard, depressed prose: God forgive me, I’m a failure. The note said I had begun an affair with Memphis, fallen in love and when I told her it was over because I was a relatively happily married man, she killed herself. Which then weighed so heavily on me that I could only deal with it by killing myself as well.

The note stopped there, probably when I entered the house and interrupted the forger at work.

I thought about what to do next. I should call the police. Yes, call the police. They would arrive, I’d make my statement, a few hours of questioning and I’d be released around midnight. No, don’t call the police. I stood there, shaking, trying to pull myself together.

Shit. I checked my watch. It was late – I would have to hurry to make my meeting with Shannon.

Leaving the scene of a crime is a felony. So is killing people and I had two dead bodies to my name, and a third hanging from a ceiling fan.

Having asked the old woman for directions to the farmhouse, the people on the ferry, I knew there was no way I could avoid facing the cops. The question was, when did I want to do that? Leaving the scene of a crime would be more than enough to have my P.I. license revoked.

Still, I was hot on this thing and I had a feeling that my meeting with Shannon would bring it to an end.

I decided to compromise. First, I did a quick run-through of Memphis’ house, looking for anything that I could use with Shannon. It felt good to be moving, to