Page 142 of I Will Find You

I don’t need to hear this. I start toward the house. I’ll tear it apart if I have to. I don’t care anymore. I’m going to see my son again.

They both follow me. “Don’t you want to hear my proposal?” Hayden asks.

I make a fist. He’s too far away for me to hit him with it. “No.”

“He’s not your son. I’m sure you know that by now. But you were wronged. I always felt bad about that—about you taking the fall, about you ending up in prison. So let me help. Listen to me, David. The Paynes have means. We can get you out of the country, set you up with a new identity—”

“You’re a lunatic.”

“No, listen to me.”

And that’s it. We are about twenty yards from the front door now. I turn and rush him and grab him by the throat with one hand.

I hear Rachel again say, “David.”

But I don’t care. I am about to throw Hayden Payne to the ground when I hear another voice, a man’s, calmly say, “Okay, that’s enough.”

The man is heavyset with dark hair. He wears a black suit.

He also has a gun in his hand.

“Let him go, David,” the man says.

The man speaks casually, softly even, but there is something in the tone that makes you pull up and listen closely. His eyes are cold and dead in a way I’ve seen too often in prison.

And right there and then, I have an epiphany.

I don’t know if that’s the right word, but it’s close enough. It all happens in less than a second. I know men like him. I know the situation. I know that he is armed and on a private residence. I know that he is here to kill me. I know in the end I have to protect Rachel and Matthew and that for me, there are no consequences.

With all that in mind, I move very fast.

I still have my hand around Hayden’s throat. I pull him in front of me, using him for the briefest of moments as a shield.

With my free hand, I pull out my gun.

This isn’t the first time I’ve handled a gun. My father was a police officer. He was big on gun safety. He and Uncle Philip used to take Adam and me to the range with them in Everett on Saturday afternoons. I became a pretty good shot, not so much with stationary targets, but the simulation exercises where cardboard cutouts pop up at random times. Sometimes it would be a bad guy. Sometimes it would be an innocent civilian. I wasn’t the best at differentiating the two, but I remember what my father taught me.

No head shots. No aiming for the legs or trying to wound. Aim for the center mass of the torso and leave yourself the most room for error.

The man quickly sees what I am doing.

He raises his weapon. But my boldness, the suddenness of my actions, plus using Hayden Payne as a temporary shield, gives me the advantage.

I fire three times.

And the man goes down.

Hayden screams and runs toward the front door. I turn to follow him, but then I spot another man pulling out a gun.

No hesitation.

I fire three more times.

This guy goes down too.

I don’t know whether the two men are dead or injured. I don’t care. Hayden is inside the door.

I run toward the first fallen man. His eyes are closed, but I think he’s still breathing. I don’t have time to check. I bend down and pry the gun from his hand. Then I turn back toward Rachel.

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