by Brewer, Gil
She fell over on me, bleeding and dead.
Somehow I finally got her off me.
Sixteen
I lay there and watched the fire die down, waiting to die myself. I knew that by the time all the flames were gone, I would be gone.
There was no pain now.
I had to look across Shirley’s body to see the fire. It leaped across her bare back, and up out of her hair, seething, and it looked as if she were breathing.
She wasn’t breathing. She was dead.
It was quiet. As the fire died and died, I gradually came to hear the river again, pulsing endlessly against the banks, and there was the sound of the wind high in the pines. The day became brighter and brighter outside. The sun yellowed the room. And with the sun, the fire died still more, and finally it was nothing but embers.
But I was still all right. Not even bleeding. I was full of lead. My side was ripped open. My left leg was broken. But I was still alive.
I didn’t want to be alive.
Then I heard them.
They called the cabin.
“Ruxton! Come out with your hands above, your head.”
I couldn’t answer them. I could see the gun, still in her hand. It was about two yards away. I tried to reach it, but I couldn’t. I tried to crawl to the gun, because then I could kill myself. It was ironic. They would fix me up, if they got to me—fix me up for their kill.
I kept trying to reach the gun. But I couldn’t make it.
“Ruxton. We’re coming, in!”
I shouted at them. “No! No!”
But it was just a sound in my head, it never came from my throat, nothing came past my lips but a whisper.
And then I knew that this was why I had never been able to make it, in all the years of trying, and this was what it had been coming to. Even when I went and took this beautiful gamble. It was simple. Some can make it, others can’t. It was that simple.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk.
I waited.
They finally came across the porch. The door was open. They looked in and saw us lying there. They thought I was dead, too, at first.
An officer of the State Highway Patrol came in. I saw Doctor Miraglia out on the porch. Then a woman screamed, and ran into the room.
“Get her out!” somebody said.
It was Grace. She screamed again, and stood there looking down at me.
They led her back out again, fighting with her every inch of the way.
“Well, Ruxton,” Miraglia said. “It’s all over, isn’t it?”
I just looked at him.
I couldn’t figure what they were trying to prove. They all knew what had happened. I even told them the whole story, from the beginning. There was no use holding out. But they kept insisting there must be a trial. It seemed so damned stupid.
They kept me in the hospital, under guard.
Grace came to see me. Don’t misunderstand. She didn’t come to visit me. She came to see me—to stare at me.
She would get a chair and just sit there, staring at me, until they asked her to leave. Every day she did that.
“I’ll be there at the end, too, Jack.”
She said that every day. She was very nice, because they wouldn’t let her stay otherwise. There was nothing I could do.
Yes, that’s how it was. Grace, she was always burning. Then Shirley and I began burning. And then the money burned. And now there was time to burn.
Then, after there was no more time, they would burn me.
Don’t Let the Mystery End Here.
Try These Other Great Books From
HARD CASE CRIME!
Hard Case Crime brings you gripping, award-winning crime fiction by best-selling authors and the hottest new writers in the field. Find out what you’ve been missing:
The CONFESSION
by DOMENIC STANSBERRY
WINNER OF THE EDGAR® AWARD!
She was young, beautiful...and dead!
Jake Danser has it all: a beautiful wife, a house in the California hills, and a high-profile job as a forensic psychologist. But he’s also got a mistress. And when she’s found strangled to death with his necktie, the police show up at his door. Now it’s up to Jake to prove he didn’t do it. But how can he, when all the evidence says he did?
As Jake’s life crumbles around him, he races to find proof of his innocence. And with every step, the noose is tightening...
PRAISE FOR THE BOOKS OF DOMENIC STANSBERRY:
“Fascinating, beautifully written...an enviable achievement.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
“A murky, moody slice of noir.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“A compelling and incredibly dark modern noir shocker.”
— Publishers Weekly on The Confession
Available now at your favorite bookstore.
For more information, visit
www.HardCaseCrime.com
Nominated for the Edgar® Award and the Shamus Award!
Little Girl Lost
by RICHARD ALEAS
Miranda Sugarman was supposed to be in the Midwest, working as an eye doctor. So how did she wind up dead on the roof of New York’s seediest strip club?
Ten years earlier, Miranda had been P.I. John Blake’s girlfriend. Now he must uncover her secret life as a strip tease queen. But the deeper he digs, the deadlier the danger...until a shattering face-off in an East Village tenement changes his life forever.
LITTLE GIRL LOST is the stunning debut novel from RICHARD ALEAS, a writer whose stories have been selected for Best Mystery Stories of the Year. It features a brand new cover painting by legendary pulp artist Robert McGinnis, creator of the posters for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the original Sean Connery James Bond movies.
THE CRITICS LOVE LITTLE GIRL LOST:
“Excellent...[a] machine gun-paced debut [with] the style and spirit of the classic detective novel.”
— Chicago Sun-Times
“Combine[s] the noir sensibility with emotional depth and superior writing.”
— Baltimore Sun
“Little Girl Lost is classic pulp.”
— January Magazine
Available now at your favorite bookstore.
For more information, visit
www.HardCaseCrime.com
Gripping Suspense From
Donald E. Westlake’s Legendary Alter Ego
Lemons NEVER LIE
by RICHARD STARK
When he’s not pulling heists with his friend Parker, Alan Grofield runs a small theater in Indiana. But putting on shows is expensive and jobs have been thin, which is why Grofield agrees to listen to Andrew Myers’ plan to knock over a brewery in upstate New York.
Unfortunately, Myers’ plan is insane—so Grofield walks out on him. But Myers isn’t a man you walk out on...
RAVES FOR ‘LEMONS NEVER LIE’:
“This first-rate hard-boiled mystery...reads like Raymond Chandler with a dark literary whisper...of Cormac McCarthy.”
— Time
“The prose is clean, the dialogue laced with dry humor, the action comes hard and fast.”
— George Pelecanos
“Lemons Never Lie is a delight—a crime story that leaves you smiling.”
— Washington Post
“The best Richard Stark ever.”
— Paul Kavanagh
Available now at your favorite bookstore.
For more information, visit
www.HardCaseCrime.com
re