Page 201 of The Woman Left Behind

Harry holstered his weapon and raced to Abernathy.

Wade was kicking away Abernathy’s gun.

Rus had already gotten to him, and he was on his knees putting pressure on the wound while yelling, “Get an ambulance here!”

Harry dropped to his knees on Abernathy’s other side, and he put his hands over Rus’s.

He looked to Abernathy’s face.

He was staring, glassy-eyed, at the sky. A weak buck of his body, and blood bubbled out of his mouth. He expelled a breath, and it sprayed his skin and once-obsessively trimmed, now scraggly beard with crimson dots.

“Do not fucking die on me,” Harry demanded.

How did you get Sonny and Avery out of their motel?

How did you subdue Sonny enough to put bullets in Avery, and him?

Where is his wallet, her purse?

Did Leland tell you to target them?

Why did you take it that far?

Why did you hurt women the way you did?

Where is Cheryl Ballard?

Why did you waste your life?

Why?

Another bubble of blood erupted from Abernathy’s mouth.

“Do not fucking die on me,” Harry whispered.

The tension leaked out of Abernathy’s body, and the light winked out in his eyes.

“Goddamn it,” Harry kept whispering.

Rus took his blood-covered hands from under Harry’s and checked for a pulse in Abernathy’s neck.

Harry looked to Rus.

Rus caught his gaze and shook his head.

Harry surged to his feet and shouted, “Goddamn it!”

“Stay back. Back. Stay back,” he heard Wade order and felt his deputies milling around them, keeping the perimeter clear.

Another siren was heard and then Harry and Rus were shifting away as the paramedics moved in.

They did what they’d been trained to do, but for naught.

He was gone.

“Goddamn it,” Harry whispered once more, fifteen minutes later, as he stood on the sidewalk outside Kimmy’s store and watched the paramedics load the sheet-draped body of a monster in the back of their ambulance.

He had a fresh shirt on and was conferring with Patterson and Bakshi in the open hall beside the bullpen when it happened.

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