Page 27 of Small Town Hunter

“Insurance.”

“No! Don’t hurt him!”

“Back off, Trina, this ain’t a toy.”

She sees I mean business and gets a sudden look of panic I don’t like. She turns on her heels and bolts from the room.

“Hey! Stay! Wait!” I bellow, but not even my most ruthless army roar can stop her. She goes banging through the door hollering, “Reverend Wilson! Reverend Wilson!”

I hit a jog and follow her. A part of me still doesn’t believe this. There’s no way I’m about to fight some psychotic small town reverend over a girl I just met.

Maybe this will be fine anyhow. Maybe she’ll go running into his arms all apologies. For all I know, she’s exaggerated the whole thing. It would be just like a woman to burn the bacon over something trivial and have everybody look foolish.

I haven’t forgotten that McCall is still in this motel, and right now I’m most likely blowing my best shot to take him down.

But maybe not. Maybe we’ll resolve this amicably, like adults.

Trina bolts into the parking lot on bare feet. One look at Wilson and all my tender hope evaporates.

“Trina!” I try to call her back. “Wait!”

The front desk girl flees past us in the opposite direction, chattering into her cellphone, “Mister Gumbly? Mister Gumbly? Should I call the police?”

“Trina! WAIT! Wait, damn it —”

She’s at his side. Here it comes: they’ll kiss and make up.

He cups her face. Nothing more for me to do here. No reason to get involved. I can just walk away and let them — the Reverend grabs Trina by the back of her head and slams her face into his window.

Trina stumbles back. Blood courses down the split in her forehead that just opened.

“TRINA!” I roar.

She nearly falls to her knees, but doesn’t cry out at all. Shock. It’s just shock. For a fragile second, she looks weak, vulnerable. Scared. He pins her to the truck by the throat.

I’m running.

Trina suddenly bucks him off, and throws a right hook that only connects because the bastard just stands there and lets it land. In fairness, he seems the type no one ever hit in his life. More’s the pity.

Trina’s paramour staggers back, cupping his jaw. I guess she has an arm on her after all. And then, recovering his wits, he lunges for her.

She’s not my sister.

She’s not my Ma.

I think she’s a pest. She’s for damned certain screwing up the most important job I’ve ever had.

But there’s something about this rat I just hate. I pounce on him, clench down hard on the arm going for the weapon at his belt that Trina hasn’t even seen yet, and leverage his skull exactly where the frame of the truck meets the steel core.

Trina bawls as her man goes down like a broken puppet. In his pirouette to the tarmac, I disarm him. His gun is a 9mm Staccato. And you bet the motherfucker is hot.

You pull a loaded gun on someone, you’re prepared to use it. For good measure I slam my boot into his ass and send him down again.

“Crash, no! No!” Trina yells. “How could you?”

The gratitude of women. I tell her savagely, “You should have kept your butt inside like I told you. A second later and you’d be dead.”

“I didn’t want him to hurt you!”

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