Page 80 of Catch Him
“You fractured my jaw, broke my ribs and my arm. People had to see me like that. People knew what I had allowed to happen to me. It was worse than the pain. A thousand times worse,” she recounted, her voice wobbling, but she was standing as tall as her five-foot-two frame would allow. “And you want to start over? How stupid do you think I am?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t. You’re everything. I’ll go to therapy, counseling. Anything. I love you.”
“You’re pathetic,” Huntley Sr. said, closing his eyes in disgust.
“Shut the fuck up, Dad. I don’t care what you think. It’s you, Mary. I only care about you.”
At that she laughed, but it was a hallow sound and it made Declan’s heart clench. He feared he might never hear actual laughter from her again.
“You don’t love me. You don’t know what love is. How could you? Look at what you were raised by,” she said, pointing to her ex-father-in-law as if he was scum under her feet. “No, you charmed me. You fooled me. You wanted to own me. But you never loved me. How sad that I was so desperate for it that I settled for you.”
“You bitch,” Garrett snarled.
Declan watched it unfold in seconds. The man who had been on his knees surged up and lunged after his sister as if to tackle her to the ground. Garrett was in mid-lunge when Declan heard the report of the rifle. Then instead of reaching Mary, Garrett Huntley collapsed in a puddle at her feet. The back of his head gone, the blood and brains spattered on the jeans and chambray shirt Mary had chosen to wear for her confrontation with her ex-husband.
Huntley Sr. flinched as his son’s brains hit him as well. That was all. Just a flinch at watching his son’s execution. Other than that he remained motionless.
Mary casually stepped over the body and made her way to her brother. Her hands were shaking but her knees didn’t wobble.
“How did you know where we would be?” Dec asked her.
“I knew you wouldn’t confront him at the house,” she told him. “If only to spare me. Which meant you would set something up to lead him to where you wanted to him to go. This place has been empty for months. It seemed like the logical choice. I walked across the back of my farm to here and came through the back door. At first I didn’t think I could do it. Didn’t think I could stand there with both of them. But I did it.”
Declan put his hand on her shoulder. “You did it.”
“Was it Flynn?”
Declan looked behind him, although he knew he wouldn’t see him. Flynn had been in position across from the house, over a thousand yards away on a raised hill. No distance at all really for someone with his skills.
“Yes.”
“Tell him I said thank you,” she said coldly. Again breaking Declan’s heart. He didn’t want Mary to be this person. He didn’t want his sister to be able to walk over the corpse of her ex-husband, who was lying next to two other dead bodies, and not flinch. Except now this was the person she had become. This was what Huntley had done to her. Dec wanted to shoot him all over again.
She looked over her shoulder at the gray-haired man who still had not moved. “Are you going to kill him too?”
Declan shook his head. “No need. He’s got enough problems ahead of him.”
Dec could see the old man take in those words. That he would live at least another day. Something he obviously cared about more than his son.
“Good. Now if someone would please drive me home. I would like to get out of these clothes so I can burn them.”
Declan turned to Sinead. “You’ll take her home for me.”
She nodded.
“We’ll clean up here,” Jillian said casually, as if the bodies were no more a nuisance than picking up trash after a party.
“Good thing I’m not a cop anymore,” Sinead said even as her eyes were pinned on the three dead men.
Dec took her hand and forced her attention back on him. He knew it was one thing to tell her about his life, it was something else to see it in action. “You know these were very bad men. Tell me you know that.”
Then she did something utterly surprising and leaned in and kissed his cheek. “If Flynn hadn’t pulled the trigger, I was ready to do it myself. I guess that means maybe I have a little dark inside me too.”
Some pressure valve around his heart that felt tight suddenly loosened. She understood him, and Declan wasn’t a man who had been understood by many people in his life.
Still, he didn’t tell her the full truth. What neither his sister nor Sinead needed to know was that Garrett’s fate had also been sealed the minute he’d chosen to pursue Mary. The man had been a walking corpse the moment Flynn reported that he was moving.
“I love you.”
