Chapter Sixty-Eight

NORMAN DRIVER EDGED his way along the side of the darkened inn, gripping a gutter with his stubby fingers and shuffling his boots along a ledge beneath the window.

He was out. He’d had enough.

Even before Bill Robinson and the blond woman had boxed him in at the top of the stairs, he’d decided it was time to cut and run. Whatever Karli Breecher’s promise had been to him about a share in a million dollars cash hidden somewhere inside the Inn by the Sea, that seemed to be over. Driver had been searching a linen cupboard crowded with towels and sheets when he heard two pops on the first floor. He’d gone down and found his two men dead and Breecher and the others nowhere to be seen. Weird. He’d figured he would keep searching the upper rooms, at least until he heard tires on the road outside. But what he discovered in those rooms had only furthered his unease. The room with the obvious murder investigation going on in it had been followed by what looked like a psychopath’s room: a pull-up bar, bed, gun case, and nothing else except what seemed to be an enormous rat wearing a pet collar. It was all too much. All too unexplainable. Driver had decided to hightail it, and deal with the problem of Shauna Bulger and the box of evidence another time, when he spotted Bill and the blonde sneaking up to the laundry door.

Driver got to the awning over the porch, clambered down onto the railing, and dropped to the ground. More gunshots upstairs. He didn’t stick around to find out who’d shot who. He took off running through the woods, following the road but sticking off it by a few yards, just to be safe. With every step, his heartbeat eased. He was beginning to think ahead, to collect himself. The long, dark stretch of woods before him and the rhythmic beat of his boots on the earth lent itself to calm planning. He’d get out of town for a few days. Reevaluate. Sure, he’d lost guys. He’d underestimated the old woman and her loopy friends. But every boxer worth his salt took a couple of unlucky bops in the ring before they landed the big KO. It was just how fights went.

And then she was there.

It was as though his very thoughts had summoned her. Driver stopped running and stood in the dark like a rabbit in the crosshairs, gaping at her, the woman who had brought him so much trouble and pain and humiliation. She was like a ghost outlined in white moonlight, the rifle hitched against her shoulder confidently, her features set as she watched him approach like she’d known all along he was coming. Driver felt his entire body shrink into itself with terror as she dropped the forestock of the rifle into her palm, slid back the bolt with her other hand.

The clunk sound of the bullet locking into the chamber and the crunch of the slide bolt settling back into its housing seemed deafening to Driver. They were the brutal sounds heralding his final moments.

She didn’t say anything.

She just eased her finger onto the trigger and pulled.