was Mikey Grames again. Mikey Grames was shooting at him again.
Hazard tried to control his breathing. He tried to ground himself in the moment. He focused on the bursts of sensory input. But the problem was that everything was the same: the bricks, the concrete dust, the moldering plaster, the dry rot, the light strobing the darkness, the summer heat mixed with the dank cool of a closed-up building. All his tricks to separate the flashback from the present failed because there was no separation; this was the Haverford all over again. And a small part of his brain knew that Empire Fruit had never been about tripwires or pressure plates or timed explosions; the real trap had always been this, and the iron jaws snapping shut were impossible to break or escape because they were in his mind.
The next shot was so loud that the force of the clap made Hazard stagger, and it wasn’t until he tried to regain his balance that he realized he’d been shot in the leg. He staggered, went sideways, and landed hard. Pain blazed, burning through the fog of shock, and he heard himself scream. He was still holding the Blackhawk, but as he tried to right himself, someone ran up behind him. The kick connected with his hand while he was still trying to twist around. He felt at least one finger snap. Another kick connected, and the Blackhawk spun out of his hand and skittered across the uneven cement. Hazard launched himself after it, but the pain in his leg threw him off balance. A kick followed, connected with his kidney, and he bellowed. Then a kick to the back of the head. Then he was on the ground, shaking, his face pressed to the concrete, the rough grit of its dust on his lips and cheek and in his mouth, mixing with blood. The muzzle of a gun jabbed him in the back of the neck.
“Say it,” the electronic voice demanded, and the muzzle dug into Hazard’s neck, grinding his face against the concrete.
“You won,” Hazard said. “You won, Mitchell.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
JULY 6
SATURDAY
5:44 AM
HAZARD WAITED FOR the bullet. The spotlights cut off. The only illumination came from an ancient security light, which projected a yellow, papery cone near the massive double doors that led outside. Hazard blinked, trying to adjust his vision to the darkness. The pistol jabbed him again.
“That was a guess,” Mitchell said.
“Not entirely. It was mostly a process of elimination, but you also got sloppy with the mailboxes. I should have put it together as soon as John told me someone was blowing up mailboxes. That was one of the first things you told him, all the way back when he was looking into Cynthia’s death. You told him that when you were a teenager, you blew them up when you got bored.”
“It was a fucking guess. You guessed.” Then, after a breath, “Those goddamn mailboxes. I knew I shouldn’t have done that again.”
“Let me sit up.”
“No. What did you tell me? You wanted to put a bullet in my brain or something like that. You can stay right there.”
“It was really smart,” Hazard said. “Really, really smart to make yourself one of the victims.”
Mitchell snorted. The rustle of clothing and the pop of a knee told Hazard the younger man had settled into a squat.
“We couldn’t figure out how the Keeper had escaped. We couldn’t figure out how he hadn’t left any physical evidence. It seemed impossible. Everybody leaves something. Everybody makes some kind of mistake. But not the Keeper. All we could find was evidence belonging to the victims.”
“I’m going to kill you, Emery. I’m impressed that you figured it out, but I’m going to kill you.”
“Because you won,” Hazard said. “I know. Let me sit up.”
A soft rasp came back, and Hazard visualized the sound as Mitchell’s finger worrying the composite grip of the pistol.
Without waiting for Mitchell to decide, Hazard held out his hands and very carefully rolled onto his side. Mitchell’s reaction was immediate: he brought the barrel of the pistol down hard, cracking it across Hazard’s face. The sight ripped open a line from Hazard’s temple to cheek, and blood ran down his face, touched the corner of his lip, the iron smell of it masking everything else.
But Mitchell didn’t shoot. He just stood and shuffled back, the gun still pointed at Hazard, and said, “You do what I tell you to do. Understand?”