Page 83 of The Harborer
“Say what?”
“Benjamin Brown, Dalton’s brother. The guy panicked when he heard my rifle shot. It was dark, he saw movement, didn’t realize it was his brother, and like an idiot, he started firing blind. Emptied the magazine. Three bullets buried themselves in his brother. One would have been fatal. Friendly fire. Lucky no one else took those projectiles.”
“Will they suspend you?”
“Administrative leave with pay. It’s automatic while they conduct their investigation.”
“You’ll come out of this just fine.”
“Probably.” He’d followed his training and pulled the trigger when there was no time for warnings. But until the investigators signed off, the shooting would hang over him like a noose. One bad angle on a report, one witness twisting the story, and his badge could be on the line. Beyond the legalities, though, the fact remained he’d killed a man tonight.
“You’re not feeling remorse about what happened, are you?”
“I’m not sure what I’m feeling right now. I’m … numb. It’s a little surreal.”
“If you’d hesitated, Amy might’ve been the DOA instead of that slimeball,” Reece said quietly.
“That’s what Gunderson said.”
“If Gunderson’s backing you up, you’re golden.”
Fatigue flooded Shane. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.”
Shane had replayed the scene over and over in his head. Shit had happened so damn fast. He’d never been in that situation before. Would he do it again, under the same circumstances?Hell yeah. That scumbag’s life for Amy’s was more than a fairexchange, and he was glad the guy was dead so he couldn’t hurt anyone else. Did that make Shane a bad person?
Reece tapped Shane’s knee with his empty water bottle. “You gonna be okay?”
Shane nodded. “Yeah. They’ll have me go through a psych evaluation before I return to duty, get me counseling if I need it.”
Silence stretched between them. Reece leaned forward, placing his elbows on his thighs.
“What happened to Micky anyway? How did he get involved with those lowlifes?”
Shane matched his friend’s posture. “If the story he’s been spewing since his arrest is true, Micky got into financial trouble. And it’s not what you think. He got hooked on gambling. Spent a lot of his time and money at the casino north of Ignacio.” Shane suspected some of the money Micky threw around went to pay prostitutes too.
“Do you believe him?”
Shane nodded. “Yeah, I think he’s telling the truth. He says he tried getting money from other sources, but when those dried up, he ran into these characters and got pulled into their narcotics ring.
“He set up Amy’s store as the central drop. Gave them keys, and they came and went. I guess it started out as an occasional thing, but then traffic ramped up. He got nervous, wanted out, but you don’t walk away from guys like that. As you’d expect, they applied more pressure.” Shane wasn’t going to divulge how Micky had robbed Amy—it was up to Amy to share that detail, and only if she wanted to.
“Jesuuuus! Gambling?”
“Right? It surprised me too.”
“He didn’t hurt Amy, though, so there’s that.”
Shane’s temper bubbled to the surface again. “Not physically, maybe, but he did a lot of mental damage. He used her. He put her in danger. Jeopardized everything she’s built. He took advantage of her generosity, her trusting nature. On top of that, he helped put the grab on her at her store when she stopped byto pick up a box of paper cups. He should have stopped that shit right then.”
“The one guy had a gun. And the other guy had a KA-BAR.”
“Yeah.”
“So they probably threatened him.”
“That’s what Micky claims, but that’s no excuse,” Shane snarled. Not only could he not fathom using Amy in the first place, but he would have done everything in his power to keep them from taking her. He’d have taken a bullet for her without batting an eye. “What if that had been Neve?”
“Good point. It’s no excuse,” Reece agreed.
