Page 146 of Never Flinch

The universe obliges. The app shows her KATE’S KEYS, and locates them in what looks like Dingley Park, 1.8 miles away.

Holly goes back to her room and gets Bill Hodges’s gun out of the safe in the closet. She puts it in her purse and heads for the elevator.

Kate and Corrie.

Her responsibility.

11

Trig looks around with streaming eyes and sees they still have the Holman Rink to themselves. His mouth is throbbing and he keeps swallowing blood. The music continues to blare from the speakers at the softball field. He can actuallytastethe stuff the bitch sprayed him with, and his sinuses feel like they’re swelling. He needs to flush both eyes and sinuses, but has no idea if the faucets in the restrooms are still working.

Never mind that now.

He grabs the McKay woman by the hair and drags her into the foyer caveman-style. Her feet pedal and she makes a fuzzy protesting sound. He’s tempted to kick her again for what she did to him—God, how his eyesburn! She wasn’t supposed to fight back!

Never mind, never mind.

Trig grabs the man in the woman’s pants suit—Stewart—and drags him into the foyer. Trig knows this is the guy who has been stalking Kate McKay. Any doubt he might have had on that score was put to rest by what the man screamed as he tried to shoot Trig:She’s mine!

Stewart is trying to talk. His hands are twitching, but he can’t seem to turn his head. A huge lump has arisen on the nape of his neck where some vertebrae have either been dislocated or snapped.

Trig goes back outside. He picks up the black wig the man was wearing, and the can of pepper spray he clouted McKay with, finally knocking her out before the witch could head-butt him again. His lips are swelling.

You deserved it, his dead father says. Trig can see him now through his watering eyes. A wavery ghost.You flinched.

“Did not, Daddy. Never did.”

He goes back in, shuts the doors, and kicks away the gun McKay’s would-be stalker tried to kill him with. He kneels on the floor beside the man in the pants suit. From his pocket he takes the Taurus .22. The would-be stalker rolls his visible eye to look at it.

“I couldn’t put your name on the Mingo signboard, because I didn’t know you’d be here,” Trig says, “but that’s okay. You can be a stand-in for Russell Grinsted. Do you know who that is?”

The would-be stalker makes a rusty gargling sound. It might beJesus.

“Not Jesus, my friend, Alan Duffrey’s lawyer. I wasn’t going to kill somebody in his name, but since you’re here…”

He puts the Taurus against the man’s temple. Chrissy Stewart makes a few more inarticulate sounds, perhaps the beginning of a plea for mercy, perhaps wanting a word with Jesus, but Trig shoots him before he can get much out.

Trig says, “You can talk to Jesus in person. And as for Grinsted, I’m sure he could have done a better job.”

His eyes still burn and his sinuses still throb, but his vision is clearing. Kate McKay is starting to come around. Trig hauls her to her feet. How many times has he done that? He can’t remember, only knows he’s getting tired of doing it. She’s no lightweight. And they’re not supposed to fight back, dammit.

“Do you want me to hit you again? Knock you out? Maybe fracture your jaw? Or I could shoot you in the gut. Would you like me to shoot you in the gut? You wouldn’t die, at least not for awhile, but it would hurt like hell. Want that?”

Kate shakes her head. Her lower face is covered with blood. Her front teeth, top and bottom, are broken off.

“That’s a good call.Ma’am.” He escorts her, stumble-stepping and dazed, into the rink. “Step over the boards. Wouldn’t want you to trip. Here’s your friend Corrie, and a new friend, Barbara. They can’t say hello, but I’m sure they’re happy to see you. Over here by the bleachers, you troublesome bitch. We have to wait for one more, then we can finish up.”

Chapter 23

1

5:45 PM.

Holly rides down in the elevator with competing scenarios running through her mind like overlapping images from different projectors aimed at the same screen. One basic thought comes through all of them, a unifying drumbeat:My responsibility, my responsibility.

The Charlotte Gibney who lives in her head tries to add,My fault, my fault, but Holly refuses to swallow that particular poison pill. Her boss has mistaken Trig for Stewart, but that isn’t Kate’s biggest mistake. The real error—hopefully not fatal—is her belief that she can talk Corrie’s kidnapper into seeing sense. This isn’t a cable news debate where logic and quick, cutting comebacks will carry the day. Holly thinks Kate McKay’s arrogance is the worst kind. It doesn’t recognize itself.

The hotel elevators open on a short hallway around the corner from the lobby. When Holly steps out, she hears an excited babble of voices accompanied by a spatter of applause. She walks to the end of the hall and sees Sista Bessie—broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed, big-legged—in the lobby. Betty stops to sign a quick autograph for a star-struck desk clerk in a hotel blazer, and offers a token smile for the clerk’s iPhone. Standing beside her, looking crazy-handsome in his blue shirt, is Jerome Robinson. Holly feels an almost insurmountable urge to rush to him and enlist his help in what she has to do (whateverthatis).

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