Page 74 of Last Shot

‘It was the first time I’d fired my gun, except in the academy. And the judge agreed it was the right call. If he had a weapon, it was what I’d been trained to do.’

If.

‘It was self-defence.’

‘The first shot was self-defence.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘The last shot wasn’t.’

‘It was self-defence,’ he repeated.

‘I don’t even remember shooting twice. I just remember wanting him dead. All I could see when I pulled the trigger was Jackie. All I could think was,I’m saving Jackie.If it had been anyone else, any other guy, I don’t know if I would have shot twice. My lawyer asked me that. I still don’t have an answer. I still don’t know. Sometimes, I wonder ...’

The moment swelled, like a bubble you blow as a child, thinking it will last forever in all its rainbow glory. Grey realised he was holding his breath.

‘... sometimes I replay it, and he doesn’t have a knife. Sometimes I think maybe I filtered that part in, to absolve myself, to justify it. Maybe it had been on the bench the whole time. It was all a blur. But there’s a difference, right? No matter what, there’s a difference between shooting an unarmed man who might have done something bad, and shooting someone coming at you with a knife.’

‘You did nothing wrong.’ His voice was strained; he wanted her to believe him so badly it was like an ache in his chest. ‘How did Evan’s violence not factor into the trial?’

‘Because of Jackie.’

He let out the air in a rush. ‘You’re not serious.’

‘Don’t.’ Max held up a hand. ‘Wewill never understand what it’s like to be a victim of ... a survivor of ... that. Do not even try to say she was in the wrong. She loved him, she knew what he did was wrong, but she was pregnant. She couldn’t risk him doing anything to hurt the baby.’ Max rubbed her eyes. ‘She came to visit me, once, before the trial – that day I saw Libby with the boy in the hoodie. She said she didn’t expect me to lie but that she had made her decision about Evan. They were going to counselling, she said. He was going to get therapy for his anger issues. They were staying together for the baby. She needed me to be her friend. Not a cop.’

‘You weren’t acting like a friend, you were acting like a martyr,’ Grey said harshly. ‘She couldn’t ask you to sacrifice yourself for her when she clearly wasn’t willing to do the same for you.’

‘I did six months for my friend’s life, Grey. I think that’s a pretty fair trade – especially after I almost killed the father of her child. And are you really one to lecture me about sacrificing yourself for people who would never do the same for you?’

He shook his head. ‘You lost everything.’

‘Isn’t that what love is?’ She turned to face him. ‘You’d die for it?’

He swallowed. ‘Some people might.’

She held his gaze. ‘So now you know why Libby thinks I’ll kill her husband.’ She sighed, wringing her hands. ‘But I suppose while I’m spilling my guts, there’s some other things I have to tell you.’

24

Max

They couldn’t go back to before.

Grey was probably one of the only people in the world who could understand why Max did what she did on the stand for Jackie. She could feel the spot where he’d grazed her scar with his thumb. His fingers were smoother than she’d expected, but that small movement still sent a shock through her like he’d run sandpaper over her skin. She didn’t pay the scar any attention really, tried to avoid it when she looked in the mirror, because of the memory it dredged up. But now it was all she could feel.

She wanted to crack open his brain like an egg, let the yolk of everything he was feeling and thinking ooze over her, covering her completely. She desperately wanted to understand him – to see if he believed her, if he felt the same way about his loyalty to the Barbaranis as she felt about hers to Jackie.Isn’t that what we all want, when it comes down to it? To know that there’s at least one other person out there who feels and thinks in the same fucked up way we do?

She felt resentful, though she’d never admit it out loud. She’d do it all again, a million times over. But he’d hit a nail right into her sternum when he’d called her out or, rather, called Jackie out.

She clearly wasn’t willing to do the same for you.

No, she wasn’t. But Max believed what she’d said to him about love. She would go to the gallows kicking and screaming it. Probably why she’d end up alone, like she’d always known she would since that night, lying on the road, her father’s blood pooling between her fingers.

Grey hadn’t said anything since she’d told him about Jackie and then what Libby had yelled at the TV and, finally, what Alexandra had told her about Libby’s two visitors. Some stupid part of her had thought maybe they’d brainstorm together like in some British crime drama, making a murder pinboard out of hotel stationery on the wall together, drinking stale coffee out of gallon-sized cups and eating cold Thai takeaway.

But he’d said nothing. And now he wasn’t even looking at her.

Her rapid breathing was fogging the glass doors, obscuring her vision of the city, making her feel like she was stuck in a tiny, humid glass box.

In a car.

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