The doctor smiles. “My psychiatrist’s handbook couldn’t’ve put it any better.”
At this particular moment, however, in this backwoods cabin, what would soon be the bullseye of a deadly shooting gallery, it was the perfect time to take a fucking drink.
Which he now did again.
No, he didn’t like the taste, but the enemy was coming.
And he needed to be filled with rage, not reason.
He squinted into the night, noting that beside the deputy’s car a lush stand of brush that had not been moving a moment ago was moving now.
Jon Merritt aimed the shotgun at it and slowly squeezed the trigger.
89
All that shooting!” Allison Parker said.
“Mom, shhh,” Hannah said, just as Shaw lifted his finger to his lips.
He motioned them along the road. He believed he’d counted four different weapons, in addition to the distinctive-sounding shotgun. So Marty Harmon had apparently called in additional guns. Shaw hadn’t thought that a likelihood, given the cell outage, but maybe Jacket or Suit had driven into a different zone and called for help.
And where was Jon Merritt now, and how was he faring against that firepower?
As if in answer, there was a lull in the shooting.
Then two more pistol shots.
And silence.
Another hundred yards and they were at the Buick. Colter Shaw quickly cleared it and the surrounding brush. He returned and covered Parker and Hannah as they walked to the vehicle. They got into the backseat. Before starting the engine, Shaw hit the accessory function and when the dash came alive, he quickly dimmed all the lights.
“Belts,” he said. It could be a rough ride, some possibly off road.
They all clicked in.
“Han,” Shaw said, subconsciously using her nickname. “Watch the ridge to the right. That’s where they’d be.”
She pressed her face against the window.
“You see anyone, tell me and move to the left side. You and your mother keep down.”
“Okay.”
“We move fast once I hit the ignition. Ready?”
The girl nodded. Parker did too. She winced. The meds were wearing off. She’d refused to take another one. It was just as well. Shaw would need her to be alert too.
Shaw pressed the start button and immediately slammed the shifter into drive, speeding onto the rough surface of the road. He drove fast but slower than he could have in full light; to the left were steep drop-offs to the stream or river that fed the lake behind the cabin.
There was, at least, no issue with directions; the cabin lay at the end of this lengthy dirt road, which would take them straight to a highway. Once there they’d be in Millton in ten minutes.
He listened again for gunfire.
Still nothing.
The shotgun had been the first weapon fired; Shaw suspected—hoped—that Merritt had surprised the party and taken one of them out. Was it one of the Twins? A creepier pair of men Shaw had never met. Who were the others? Dom Ryan’s crew, maybe.
“No one. So far,” Hannah said. Then she added softly, “There’s no more shooting.”