Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,126

sounded almost wrong with Ted’s accent.

“How’d we get honored with this many of you, then?” Duke asked.

“I invited Blake in for backup,” Newman said.

“But that doesn’t explain why we need four of you.”

Edward gave him a truly wonderful smile that warmed his face all the way to his blue eyes. I wondered if he knew that his eyes got bluer when he pretended to be Ted. “Now, Sheriff, you have three out of the Four Horsemen. There are cases all over the country that would be plum tickled to have us helping out.”

“If the three of you were as hot shit as you’re supposed to be, then he’d already be dead.” Duke threw a thumb in the direction of Bobby without actually looking at him. At least he’d used a pronoun rather than calling him the suspect, and he’d trusted him not to try to break out of the cell. Duke could say that he still saw Bobby as a monster, but he was beginning to treat him as more than that.

“I already explained the warrant system to you, Sheriff. It’s Newman’s warrant,” I said.

“I know, I know. It’s Win’s choice of how to do the execution until he’s too injured to do the job, and then one of you takes it over.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I thought you agreed that the footprint evidence meant we should look for other suspects, Duke,” Newman said.

“I didn’t exactly say that, Win. I just didn’t argue that it’s peculiar, that’s all.”

“You didn’t want to pull the trigger either, Duke,” I said.

“It’s not my job to pull the trigger, Blake.”

“No, it’s mine, and I don’t want to kill Bobby and then find out he’s innocent,” Newman said.

“Eventually the time limit will be over, Win, and then you’ll be out of options.”

“Not if we find other viable suspects first.”

“And if you can’t?”

“Then they can have my badge. I will not execute Bobby unless I’m sure.”

“Newman,” I said.

“No, Blake, no, this is wrong. It’s so fucking wrong. I’ve wondered before if the supernatural citizen I killed was the one that should have been executed, but at least I didn’t know them. I know Bobby, and I will not have his face added to my nightmares.”

I thought he’d say something else, but then I caught a shine in his eyes that might have been tears, or maybe it was just the lights in the cells. Either way he turned abruptly and pushed his way past Leduc and headed out. I heard the outer door open and close. There was a moment of silence while I debated whether to go after Newman or give him some room.

Edward surprised the hell out of me by saying, “I’ll go check on him.”

“I’m supposed to be his mentor,” I said.

He gripped my shoulder and smiled at me. “Think of it as tag-team wrestling. My turn.”

Was it cowardly to let Edward go after him? No, because I was running out of ways to comfort Newman.

“He is not meant for this work,” Olaf said.

“He’s too soft for it,” Duke said.

“No,” I said, “it’s not soft, not like you mean. Newman isn’t a coward when the bullets are flying and the monsters are hunting us, but killing under fire is different from this.” I motioned at Bobby.

“How is it different?” Olaf asked.

I thought of several replies, but finally settled for “It would bother me more to kill someone who wasn’t a danger to me.”

Olaf nodded. “Why?”

Once I would have thought he was trying to be irritating, but now I realized he honestly didn’t understand the difference.

“I’m not sure I can explain it to you.”

“Try. I want to understand why it is important to you.”

“I’ll think on it and try to explain later. Right now I don’t really know how.”

Olaf thought about what I’d said and finally accepted it with a nod. “I look forward to the discussion.”

I was glad one of us did. I was not looking forward to trying to explain what it felt like to have a conscience to someone who didn’t. I’d tried with Nicky back home. He was tied to me metaphysically and could feel my emotions, so he behaved like he had them, but he didn’t. He was a sociopath, and even feeling my emotions, he didn’t understand all of them. It was like explaining the color red to someone who had been color-blind all their life. Where do you begin?

Frankie’s phone rang. It was Rico getting back to her on the deer hunt. Great. Maybe real police work would interfere

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