Page 57 of One Last Goodbye

I run into something hard. My head rings, and I fall to the ground, stunned. My vision swims, but I can dimly see a dark brown cylinder rising in front of me.

It’s one of the spruce trees. I’m in the garden. I’ve run headlong into a tree and nearly knocked myself out.

I struggle to my knees, battling a wave of nausea. I might be concussed. I remember my phone, but before I can retrieve it, I hear a click, and my heart sinks. Sophie is standing in front of me, gun raised.

“Sophie, please!” I cry. I can barely hear myself over the blizzard. “You don’t need to do this! I…” I cast around for something to say, and my eyes widen when I land on it. “I’ve been fired!”

She frowns. “What? You’ve been fired?”

“Yes! For investigating the murder. I told Catherine that Hugo was the killer. And the police! I told the police that he was the killer too! No one’s looking for you!”

That’s a lie, of course. Sean knows, and surely the police do by now, but Sophie doesn’t know that I’ve called them.

“Catherine was angry with me for interfering, so she fired me,” I insist. “I’m to leave as soon as the storm breaks.”

Sophie’s eyes narrow. She holds the gun on me and doesn’t move.

“Please!” I beg. “Just let me leave!”

“And your crusade for justice will allow me to just leave?” she calls incredulously.

“Yes!” I insist. “Yes, I promise! Listen, what Frederick did was horrible. He deserved to die!” I don’t believe that, but I need her to think I do. “What you didwasjustice! But killing me wouldn’t be justice. It would be murder. The murder of an old woman who is your friend.”

Sophie’s face softens. I press my advantage. “I’ll leave as soon as the storm breaks. You’ll never see me again.”

Her face hardens again. “I know.”

A shrill scream fills my ears. In my despair, I think it’s my own voice, or possibly a final memory of Annie.

Annie.

I’m so sorry, Annie. I’ve failed you.

Then a figure collides with Sophie and drives her into the dirt. I’m so shocked at first that I keep staring straight ahead where Sophie was a moment ago. It’s not until I hear Hugo snarl, “Drop the gun!” that I snap out of it.

I look on the ground and see Hugo on top of Sophie, struggling for the weapon. He is covered head to toe in frost and looks like some nightmarish version of Saint Nicholas. His eyes are wild, and his expression is as fierce as Sophie’s.

For her part, Sophie is fighting with all of her strength to tear the gun from his hand. “Piss off!” she says, her accent coarse. “Get your bloody hands off me, you wanker!”

Hugo is a man, and whatever the movies would have you believe, there are few women on Earth strong enough to defeat a man in a physical contest. Sophie is one of those women. So even though Hugo strains to take the gun, he is unable to pull it from her grasp.

Sophie struggles too, and if I had enough presence of mind to act, our combined strength might have been enough to take the weapon. As it is, I move to his aid a moment too late. She throws him off of her with a cry just in time to check my advance by burying her foot in my midsection.

I drop to the ground, gasping silently, the wind completely knocked out of me. Sophie gets to her fist and spits blood out of her mouth. She snarls at me and raises the weapon. A gunshot rings out.

And Sophie stares in disbelief at her bloodied hand.

Once more, I am too shocked to realize what happened. Once more, it is a man’s voice that shocks me out of this, but not Hugo’s this time.

“The next one ventilates your bloody skull,” Sean’s Irish brogue announces to the blizzard.

I turn to see him standing seven yards to the left, his own handgun aimed steadily at Sophie’s face. Behind him, Detective Dubois helps Hugo to his feet and wraps a blanket around the poor man.

Sophie stares at Sean in disbelief. I expect her to scream. I expect her to shout in rage. I expect her to fight.

She does none of those things. Instead, she begins to weep. Her mouth moves. The sound is too low for me to hear her voice, but I can read her lips.It’s not fair.

Her shoulders slump. She collapses to the ground. Her expression sags, and when two police officers come to arrest her, she doesn’t resist.

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