Page 44 of Art of the Hunt
“The cop,” the nearly bald man said, flinging himself around and pointing the gun at Skip.
“Uh, you’re going to have to be a little more specific.” With his hands in the air, Skip waved his pointer finger in a circle. “Whole lot of us here at the moment. You’re inside a police station, after all.”
“The one who ruined my life. Where is he?” The gunman’s eyes bulged out of his shiny face.
“Still need a little more detail,” Skip said. “Lots of criminal elements think we’re ruining their lives when we’re only trying to protect the innocent.”
“I didn’t need protecting,” Baldy said. His hands shook, and Artemis held her breath, willing him not to accidentally pull the trigger. How could she take him down without hurting anyone else in the process? Whether she used magic or force, he’d instinctively squeeze his finger on that trigger, and unless Skip was faster than he looked, he’d take a shotgun slug to the chest.
“Okay,” Skip said, “why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“I just wanted the insurance money. That’s all. But he freaking found my truck and returned it to me, so now I can’t collect.”
Something about the man’s story niggled at Artemis’s memory.
“He found your truck?” Skip prodded.
“What are we waiting for?” Nike whispered.
Artemis shook her head.
“Yeah,” the gunman said. “I told my nephew all he had to do was drive it away, find an empty field somewhere, and set fire to it. Make sure no one saw him. That’s it. Then I could collect the insurance and my wife and I could move to Florida and retire. That’s all I wanted.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Skip said.
“I know.” There was a whiny quality to the gunman’s voice now. “I’ve been doing this for thirty-eight years. Selling ice cream bars to kids for thirty-eight freaking years.”
Ice cream?
“Only kids don’t play outside anymore. They don’t rush up to my truck in droves anymore. I haven’t turned a profit in two summers. Been eating away at my savings. If I keep it up, I’ll die behind that wheel, listening to that god-awful music. I just want to sit on a beach with a Corona in my hand. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
“No,” Skip said, “it isn’t too much to ask. Except you have to go about it by legal means. Those are the rules, man.”
“Screw your rules,” the ice cream man shouted. “My way would’ve worked. It should’ve worked, if that stupid cop and that hot chick hadn’t caught my nephew before he even left downtown.”
“Oh gods,” Artemis said, her heartbeat ramping up again. “It isn’t the guy from the massage parlor who’s after Hunter. It’s this guy.”
“Massage parlor?” Nike asked.
“Let’s just put the gun down so we can talk, okay?” Skip said.
“We are talking,” ice cream guy said. “Now, tell me where the other cop is. He’s the one I want.”
“I don’t know which cop you’re—”
“Artemis, what the hell are—”
Hunter.Not now.
The crazy guy flung around. His wide, dilated eyes landed on Artemis and widened further, then jumped to Hunter standing in the hall, facing the entrance to the bullpen.
“I lied about the free ice cream,” the guy with the gun said, and then a deafening explosion filled the space as he pulled the trigger.
“No!” Artemis screamed, launching herself forward as the blast propelled Hunter backward until he slammed into the wall, red blooming on his chest. She was dimly aware of Nike taking down the gunman, of people leaping into action all around her, of sirens going off and emergency announcements being shouted over a loudspeaker.
She fell to her knees next to where Hunter’s body had slid down to the floor. “Hunter,” she whispered, smoothing his hair away from his forehead. “Oh no, please no.”
His eyes fluttered open. It took a moment for him to focus on her. “You were right,” he said, his voice cracking. He grimaced and gritted his teeth. “Turns out, someone was after me.”
