Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,83

had been sitting when I arrived. His gun clattered to the floor, and he swept it up and pointed it at me.

I scoffed absurdly, the outrage coming hard like a slap. He didn’t drop the weapon. I couldn’t believe what he was doing, gesturing toward the ground with the barrel.

“Coward,” I spat, shaking my head. “Fucking coward. You can’t pin me with your own hands? Are you that pathetic?”

“Get on your knees,” he ordered, gesturing with the gun. “We’re gonna see who’s weak. Get on your knees and take the jacket off.”

My mind rushed, a flurry of bad ideas. Throw yourself at him again. Try to knock the gun away. Scream for help. Try to dive, roll, run for the door.

And then I started laughing. A heavy, wet, bloody laugh that rippled from the back of my throat. Regan wasn’t expecting the sound. His brow creased.

“What…” he began, trailing off.

He followed my gaze over his shoulder. And took in the sight of Tox Barnes edging up behind him, a pistol gripped in both hands.

“Remember me, arsehole?” Tox smiled.

He shot Regan in the stomach.

Chapter 105

REGAN COLLAPSED ONTO his knees, the gun falling from his hands.

Tox kicked the gun away and leaned over Regan as the big man held his stomach, writhing in pain.

“Yeah, that fucking hurts, doesn’t it?” Tox tapped the barrel of his gun against Regan’s forehead. He reached into the killer’s back pocket and took the knife, threw it across the room as he came to me.

I hadn’t seen Tox in a long time. Since before I learned of my brother’s death. He looked terrible, smelled worse, and wore a mask of determined brutality as he came to my side. He was exactly the man I remembered.

“You’ll have to make it quick,” Tox said, glancing toward the open door of the barn, the dark field beyond, and the distant black mountain. “The tactics guys over in the next valley would have heard that shot. Do what you’ve gotta do and let’s get outta here, Harry, okay?”

He handed me the gun.

Regan was bent forward, steadying himself against the ground, a hand clasped against the wound in his stomach. He raised his head and looked at me, and I leveled the gun at his forehead.

It was time to take my revenge.

Chapter 106

MY HAND WAS SHAKING, the aim of the gun wavering across Regan’s bloodied face. His eyes were steady, knowing, unafraid. These were eyes that had looked upon so many as they died. The last face so many innocent souls had seen as their lives were ripped from them. I couldn’t breathe. My free hand rose to my throat, raking my fingers through my hair, trying to find the calm I needed. I ran my finger up and down the curve of the trigger.

“You won’t do this, Harry,” Regan said.

“I wouldn’t be so certain.” I flicked the safety off with my thumb. “You…You killed my brother. You can’t go on. I won’t let you go on. I came here to end you, Regan. For all those girls you took. For their families.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “You really came here to do good, to make the world safe again?”

My mind was fragmented. Reaching for traction. I felt hot all over. I tried to get a grip on the gun, but it felt slippery in my hand. I couldn’t pull the trigger. Not while my mind raced helplessly with questions. Had I really come here to kill this man?

I had abandoned and endangered the people I loved for this. Me, the good friend. I’d thrown in my job, run and crawled and hidden from police. I’d committed a host of crimes. Me, the good cop. I’d brought pain and suffering on anyone who’d tried to help me, some of it decades after I’d wandered in and out of their lives. Me, the good kid.

Maybe I hadn’t come here for vengeance at all.

Maybe I’d come for answers.

I looked at Regan. Every cell in my body was on fire. But did I hate Regan for what he had done to me? Or did I hate him because he had discovered something about me that I was only just now coming to understand?

Maybe it was a much greater desire that had brought me all the way here. I looked at Regan, and I realized what he was saying—what he had been saying all along.

He had been telling me that he was a soul that would never fit, an outcast doomed to wander on the edges