Fun and Games - Duane Swierczynski [91]
The moment was so fucking familiar—the realization, the horror, the feeling that everything was happening right in this very second and there was no time to think, to react, to act—
C’mon Nate, let’s move let’s move let’s move, out the front, my car’s out there, we’ve got time…
Evelyn Hunter, meanwhile, had her two kids under her arms and was looking at her husband with wild desperation. “We can’t call anybody?”
Hardie had to tell Hunter the truth. Before it was too late. He took Hunter’s arm and leaned in close.
“Lane Madden wanted me to tell you how sorry she was about what happened to Kevin.”
Jonathan’s face—totally ashen. Just at the mention of his boy’s name. “What… what did you say?”
“She was a passenger in the car that hit your son.”
“Who was driving?”
And then Hardie said the name of the man behind the wheel—the Blond Viking God. Hunter ran through a rapid-fire series of emotions within seconds—disbelief, confusion, anger, grief.
“I saw it on the Web, Lane Madden is the one who—”
“—who died this afternoon. I was with her, and she told me everything. This is why she was killed. The same people are trying to kill you, to cover it up. To make sure no one ever finds out.”
Invisible wheels turned behind Jonathan Hunter’s eyes, and then he moaned out loud. “The show,” he said.
“Huh?”
And then his eyes lit up.
“The show. They forced me to run that show about those two. Oh, those bastards. They told me it was because of ratings, but that’s bullshit, I should have known it was bullshit. They forced me to do that show on those animals—”
and with that, he gestured at the shot and bleeding people on the living room carpet
“—to give them an excuse to come after my family.”
“They’re actors. This is all a performance. They planned this to the last detail.”
“Except for you.”
“Yeah. I guess—”
There was a loud noise. A bullet smacked into Hardie’s left arm, and then another hit the side of Hardie’s skull, which propelled his body through the plateglass sliding doors and down the stone steps leading to the backyard.
A.D.2 and Grip burst in through the door, with Grip going right, into the dining room, and A.D.2 charging full speed ahead down the hall. He saw Hardie, the stubborn old bastard, right away, so he aimed and fired. “Hardie’s down,” he muttered, then immediately moved to the left.
“Thank fuck,” Mann said through their earpieces.
There was much screaming and confusion—people running into the backyard, diving behind furniture. A.D.2 looked at Grip from across the hallway. Gesturing with their hands, they split the living room into two. Simple enough. A.D.2 would take the left, and Grip the right. Adults first, obviously. With the kids, they’d try to make it as clean as possible.
A.D.2 nodded.
Grip stepped into the living room, eager for a target.
As he fell, Hardie closed his eyes.
This was it, at long last:
Death.
He felt the burning hot/cool sensation throughout his brain, which he knew was strange, because the brain doesn’t have any nerve endings. Maybe what he was feeling was his soul departing, his life force ripping free from its physical prison.
Maybe it would all be over soon, and he’d be numb.
Maybe Lane would be there when he woke up, and she’d be patting his hand, telling him everything was over, he could rest now.
Right?
At least he told the truth.
The Hunters still had a chance…
No.
Of course he wasn’t dead yet. Sure, there was a bullet swimming around in his brain—he’d felt the impact, which was like a baseball bat to the side of his skull—and blood pouring out of his head, wet and hot, but he was still conscious, still alive. Because this was purgatory, and he still wasn’t finished atoning for his sins.
You were on the right track there, Chuck. You stopped those two fake crazies and set the record straight with the father about the hit-and-run. Really great stuff, Chuck. Much better than you sitting around drunk in your boxer briefs watching Jimmy Stewart movies.