Page 75 of More Than Anything

The ladder creaked. He knew that creak; it was about halfway up. He had to wait, but it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and he sat there, motionless, until he saw a slight movement at the top of the stairs. Taking aim just slightly below it, Avery put his finger on the trigger and, without another second’s hesitation, fired.

The sound of the shotgun in that enclosed space was deafening, but he didn’t miss the scream and the racket of something or someone bouncing down the ladder and hitting the floor below. “Jason?”

“Yeah! He’s on the floor!” He heard his friend yell out, “Hand away from that gun! Don’t touch it or I’ll shoot!”

Avery half climbed down what was left of the ladder and slid the rest of the way. At the bottom lay a man he’d never seen before, a bloody mess and wriggling toward his pistol. As soon as his feet hit the floor, Avery kicked the gun away and stared down at the man. Even though Jason was pointing his own forty-five at the man, Avery pulled his three eighty and pointed it at him too. “Who’s with you?”

“What?”

“Who’s with you?”

“Nobody! I’m alone!” the guy screamed.

“Who sent you here?”

“Fuck you,” the man said as he sputtered and coughed.

“The cops are on their way. You’re sunk. Who hired you?”

The man moaned. “I need some help. Get me some help,” he wheezed, the pool of blood growing larger.

“They’re on their way. Who hired you?” Avery asked him again.

He coughed, then coughed out, “Fucking stupid redhead. She said this would be easy.”

As soon as the words were out of the man’s mouth, Avery dropped to his knees and started checking the guy over. Yanking his tee shirt off and over his head, he wadded it up and pressed it into the wound on the man’s side. “Jason, call nine-one-one again and tell them we need an ambulance out here.”

“Gotcha.” As Avery listened, he heard Jason talking on the phone and before his friend hung up, the sounds of sirens pierced the air. “I’m going out front to bring them back here,” Jason yelled, and Avery heard the sounds of Jason’s feet pounding in the dirt as he ran back toward the house.

The man on the floor coughed again. “I’m not gonna make it. Her name is…”

“ShannonHolcomb. I know what her name is. What did she pay you?” Avery asked, fury in his veins.

“Twenty thousand. Ten up front and ten more when the job was done.” He wheezed a little. “She must be a real bitch. You seem like a stand-up guy.”

“She is a real bitch. Left me for my brother. Then married him without divorcing me, and lied to me about the divorce. She’s cost me a good portion of my life, and then tried to have me killed. And you’re a dumb sombitch for trying it.”

“Looks that way.”

There were the sounds of more than just Jason running and two deputies appeared in the doorway. “He needs some help,” Avery called back to them.

“I was an army medic. Let me down there,” one of the deputies called out, then took Avery’s place on the floor.

Exhaustion hit him in seconds and the next thing Avery knew, he was on the floor too, the whole barn spinning. “Deep breath, buddy,” Jason murmured as he took off his own shirt and wadded it up under Avery’s head. “It’s okay now. Everything’s okay. We’ll get them to check you out before they leave. Did he get off a shot?”

“No. I hit him first. I heard him cock his gun and then heard him on the ladder.” Avery closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally. “I didn’t want to kill him. I aimed low so I wouldn’t get his head.”

Hearing the conversation, the deputy called out to Avery, “Yeah, you got him right in the side. It’s not just buckshot; he’s got a bunch of splintered wood in there too. Well, there we go,” the deputy added. “He’s unconscious. But he hasn’t lost enough blood to do that. Must be the pain.”

Another siren, different in quality, came screaming from the distance and in less than two minutes, an ambulance crew knelt by the injured man, checking his vitals and loading him onto a gurney. “He okay?” one of the EMTs asked Jason and pointed at Avery.

“Just check him over, but I think he’s fine. Just freaked out,” Jason answered, nodding.

As soon as the man was in the ambulance and headed to the hospital, one of the deputies followed the truck while the other stayed and questioned Avery. He told them everything, including what the guy had told him about Shannon, and the deputy told him to try to relax, get cleaned up, and they’d talk more the next day. All he really wanted was a hot shower and a cold beer. As filthy as he was, the shower was his first course of action. When he was finished, he got a big surprise.

Lydia sat in the middle of his bed, poring through a magazine. She looked up and grinned when he wandered through the doorway. “Hey, babe!”

Avery couldn’t have been more surprised?or happy. “Hi! What’re you doing here?”

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