Chapter 50

CHAPTER 50

" I killed him? " Rose sounded horrified.

"No," I said automatically. "Not with birdshot to the legs, given the way he took off running." I looked at Pike. "What happened?"

Pike crooked a finger at me. "You, come with me. Rose, you stay here. And no, you didn't kill him. Okay?"

Rose sort of nodded, so Pike repeated it. "You didn't kill him, Rose. Stay in here."

I signaled for Maggs to remain and followed Pike outside, my pistol in hand, ready for anything. I hadn't even fired my weapon. I'll give Rose that. She'd grabbed that shotgun from the pantry and fired right away. No hesitation. That's good instinct, and you either have it or you don't. She had it and she'd probably saved my life.

I'd hesitated. Which wasn't good. Because Rose had been next to me. Because I was getting soft.

Pike didn't look back at me as he led the way down the alley to just before it reached the cross street. A body was sprawled at the entrance of the alley. Pike knelt next to it and I went to the other side. There was some blood on the lower legs: Rose's birdshot. But not much.

The man was dressed in black and had a combat vest on, as Pike had said. A black balaclava covered his face. Pike peeled it back and I half expected to see Junior.

"Anyone you recognize?" Pike asked me.

"Nope. You?"

"Nope."

"So, he's not from town."

"No." Pike rolled the body slightly and pointed. A small black hole on the left side of the chest with no blood. He rocked the body the other way, but there was no exit wound, which meant a low-velocity round. It had gone in where there was no armor and shredded the heart, killing instantly, which is why there was no blood. And we hadn't heard a shot. A suppressor and subsonic round. Just like what was on the end of this guy's assault rifle.

A professional hit.

"Fucking Norman," Pike said, surprising me.

"What does Norman have to do with this?" I asked.

"One shot to the heart," Pike said. "That's Norman's MO.Old school, but it's effective."

I digested that. I looked left and right. If the guy had been running out of the alley, it had come from the left. Angled across the street.

I pointed. "Norman's van has been parked there since he came to town."

Pike nodded. "Yeah. I saw it. But he isn't there now."

I holstered my pistol. "How do you know it was Norman?"

Pike explained. "Most people do head shots these days because of body armor. But Norman knows ways around that if he has a target wearing protection. Usually hitting the left side high that's uncovered. One time he—" Pike stopped, realizing who he was speaking to.

Most people don't do any shots. Except here in Rocky Start where it seemed the norm. The clueless dumb fuck that I was said, "Norman was a player?"

Pike gave me a hard look. "No, Norman was a dog."

That fit with the vibe he'd given off in Rose's kitchen and at the will.

Pike didn't seem concerned about Norman. "He's long gone if he took the shot." He sighed. "Plus, he's old and his eyes aren't what they used to be. Hell, none of us are what we used to be."

"If his eyes aren't what they used to be, how did he manage this shot?"

"He's got a scope on his rifle. And muscle memory. And it wasn't a shot for the record books distance-wise." Pike looked over at where the van had been parked. "What? Thirty meters? Even Norman with his bad eyes could do that."

"Did you check the body for ID?" I asked for lack of anything smarter to say.

"Nothing," Pike said as he holstered his gun. "But." He reached down and pulled up the sleeve on the right arm of the body. He pulled a penlight out of somewhere and flashed it. "Look."

Tattoos stretched from the wrist to where cloth covered the rest of the arm. I recognized the style.

"Russian," I said.

Pike indicated one on the elbow. "This one indicates he was former Spetsnaz. And one for Wagner."

Spetsnaz was Russian Special Forces. And Wagner was the former Russian mercenary force which had sort of worked for the Kremlin but was, of course, for profit. It had gone defunct when its owner was killed. Which meant this guy had started out military, then became a dog, like Norman, caring only for his wallet. Who knows who he worked for now? "What did he want?" I asked, although I already knew.

Pike shot me a look. "If he was just breaking in to steal something, he wouldn't need the firepower. This was likely a hit."

"Rose?"

"I'd say Rose and Poppy," Pike said. "Why leave the kid alive to inherit? You too, I'd say."

It was cold, but that was reality in the big leagues. "One of Serena Stafford's goons?"

"Maybe. You saw Serena today?" Pike asked.

"Yeah."

"How did you leave it with her?" he asked .

"Confused. I had her talk to Herc."

Pike lifted a gray eyebrow. "What did he tell her?"

"No clue. It was a short, one-way conversation, him to her, and at the end she said ‘Yes,' and that was it. She said she was good with things, but I didn't believe her."

"I wouldn't believe anything she says. But Herc is the one person who could rein her in."

"Okay. Let's worst-case this. If not her, who sent this guy?" I asked.

He frowned. "The Russians. The real ones."

"Why would the Russians be here?"

"We took their damn SCIF."

"Over three decades ago. It's not even the same country any more. Someone holding a grudge?"

"Serena had a KGB contact back then," Pike said. "Dmitri." Then he shook his head. "Nah. You're right. Who gives a shit over there now? A lot of the best talent from Wagner and their military who aren't dead in Ukraine split and are gunslinging for people like Serena. Or for themselves."

"Unless—" I began but stopped my paranoid train of thought.

But Pike wanted to know where it went. "Unless what?"

"Unless there was more to Serena working for the Russians than we think we know."

Pike considered that. "Could have been a two-way street with the KGB, and someone on the other side is concerned about the microfilm surfacing," he acknowledged. "But again, it was over thirty years ago."

"Serena is pretty worried about word getting out. People in our world don't take kindly to traitors. Nor on the other side."

"No, they don't," Pike agreed.

"Serena also hinted that you and Oz stole something else from the Russians. Besides the microfilm?"

"She did?" Pike said, surprised. He shook his head. "She's full of shit." He looked around. "Fuck," he muttered. "Norman sleeps in his damn van. He probably woke up with the shotgun blast. Looked out, saw a dark figure limping out of the back door of the shop and wasted him."

I didn't get it. "Why?"

Pike raised a white eyebrow. "Why do you think? Geez, you guys have gotten dumber. He saw a guy dressed in black coming out of Rose's place and thought it was you. You know, in the dark. Rose got him in the leg. If this guy came out of the back door limping on the same leg you limped on earlier because of your boot, same height, dressed in black . . ."

"Norman thought this guy was me ?"

"It makes more sense that he'd want you gone. Rose would be an easier play without you around."

He was wrong about that. Rose would never be easy. It didn't bother me much that somebody was gunning for me. That I was used to. It was that it was Norman. Norman the dog. Norman, father of Junior. At least once upon a time a lover of Serena. "A clusterfuck."

I eyed Pike, wondering what he was keeping from me. I didn't believe Serena, but I didn't disbelieve her either. The truth was somewhere out there.

"Most likely," Pike said, "this guy was a freelancer who heard about the money Oz was supposed to have hidden."

"How would someone from outside of Rocky Start hear about that?"

Pike shrugged. "Someone told Serena that Oz died. We've got a leak."

"We need to plug that. Got any ideas who it was?"

"One or two." Pike turned the light off and nodded toward his pickup, which was blocking the end of the alley. "Give me a hand."

We carried the body over and put it down. The cargo bed had the cover over it. Pike dropped the tailgate and I saw the bottom of a body bag. Which was occupied.

"Who is that?" I asked, wondering if it might be Norman and that was why Pike wasn't worried about him.

"Oz," Pike said, as if hauling around the body of his recently deceased friend was the most natural thing in the world. "I picked him up from Melissa Merriweather's for the death celebration tomorrow."

Death celebration?

He leaned over to lift the Russian and I helped. We slid the body in, next to Ozzie. Pike closed the tailgate, which confirmed to me that there wasn't going to be any sort of investigation of the crime scene and that whatever law Pike practiced, it was that of the wild. I was good with that because it meshed with my own legal system.

"Hold on." I opened the tailgate and grabbed the assault rifle the Russian had been carrying and pulled the extra mags out of his vest. Pike didn't object. There were a few other goodies in his vest and so I decided fuck it. I leaned in and unbuckled it, then unzipped it and pulled it off him. I could wear a dead man's combat vest if need be.

"Tell Rose the ceremony is tomorrow at five on the dot," Pike said. He pointed at me. "We'll talk in the morning in Coral's. Figure out how to deal with Serena if this was her doing."

Then he got in the truck and drove off with the bodies.