The split-second he hesitated would have cost him his life … if Dalton hadn’t jerked the door wide open and, in one smooth move, he shot the woman in the heart, then sent her partner to hell with her. A gush of blood coming the man’s chest showed Dalton had placed his bullet in the same spot as the woman’s.
Dalton gave him a hard pat on his shoulder to shake him out of the daze he’d fallen into. “They were shit for neighbors. I’m going to cut down that tree in the backyard before this house gets sold again. I’m fucking sick of having to skim the leaves from my pool.”
“I couldn’t kill her … You saved my life.”
“Brother, you just fucking saved my wife, my child, her sister, and her best friends, who are sisters to her and me. I wouldn’t have gone down without a fight, but I didn’t have enough firepower to take them all down. And just so you fucking know, if I had been here first, I’d be dead now. I would’ve assumed they were protecting themselves from the gunmen outside. You’re the one who figured out they were Allerton’s, providing him information on Trudy.”
When another burst of gunfire sounded from outside, Reaper strode across the room to pick up the woman’s weapon, checking it for ammo.
Dalton raked his eyes over his face. “You good?”
“Yeah, I am.” Reaper gave him a nod before striding down the hallway to make his way back through the house and out the back door.
Edging to the corner of the building, Reaper looked toward the front yard, no longer hearing any gunfire.
Viper and Knox had the men lined up on Dalton’s yard, on their knees with their hands on their heads. The rest of the brothers were guarding them as Knox patted them down one at time then zip-tied their hands.
“We’re good to go,” Reaper told Dalton.
Viper pressed two fingers to his lip to give a shrill whistle before he walked over to them as they approached. “We were starting to get worried. Where did you disappear to?”
“Dalton’s neighbors. They were the ones responsible for this shit show,” Reaper explained.
“Fuck. How many inside?”
“Four. Two in the kitchen, two in the bedroom.”
“They need an ambulance?”
“No, you can call the coroner.”
“He’s already on his way. Three dead across the street, four dead behind the Escalades.”
Knox came over as Viper talked. “None of them are admitting to being Allerton’s hired hitmen.” Running a hand over his bald head, Knox seemed as if he were angry enough to bite a bullet.
“How’s your deputy?”
“In ICU. He’s only been on the force for a year. Usually, Greer was the one working the speed trap.”
“Greer wasn’t working today?” Reaper was glad it wasn’t Greer in ICU. Then he thought better of it, realizing Greer kept enough green on him when he was on duty to take down a tank.
“I fired him the day I got back to town,” Knox answered, as if he had swallowed a bullet.
“He posted two deputies on both ends of the bridge. He was keeping track of anyone coming into town and making them isolate in the hotel for a week. I had over twenty people threatening to sue the town. But, if I left the security posts on the bridge like Greer set up, these assholes wouldn’t have made it into town.”
“The town would have been bankrupt, too.” Viper tried to make Knox feel better about his decision.
“That wasn’t the main reason I fired him. He was fired because he hooked a trailer to his truck and drove around town, knocking on doors and asking people if they’d enrolled in the study. And if they told him they weren’t, he asked if they wanted to buy the pig on the trailer.”
Reaper felt better when Dalton and Viper appeared as confused as he was.
“Where’d Greer get the pig?” Viper broke down and asked.
“From his nephew, Logan. Holly bought it for Logan’s birthday two years ago. It was supposed to be a miniature pig.”
Reaper pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. “I take it that it wasn’t.”
“The thing’s as big as a horse and fatter.”
“I’m confused,” Dalton interjected. “Why would people want to buy the pig if they didn’t get vaccinated? What does one have to do with the other?”
Reaper had to turn his head away, unable to see it was a sore point with Knox.
“He didn’t want to sell the whole pig, just the heart.”
He wasn’t the only one who was having trouble holding back his laughter.
“Go ahead and laugh. The dispatcher was threatening to quit if she got any more calls concerning Greer.”
“Sorry, brother,” Reaper managed to get out. “I can’t say anything. I owe him a favor.”
“You know the worst part?”
“It gets worse?”
Knox nodded at Viper’s question. “Look at the Escalade over there.”