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J
ake stood, dragging Terry to his knees. He came behind Terry and rested the knife against his throat. Holman trained his gun at Terry.

“You’ll make him the killer?” Jake asked.

Holman nodded. “He’s been under suspicion before. This time, he was apprehended red-handed and killed during his arrest.”

Terry couldn’t believe they were planning his demise in front of him. They spoke of him as if he weren’t there—an imbecile too stupid to understand. But it was hard to be much of a force with a knife pressed to his neck and a gun pointed at his head.

“Holman, you son of a bitch. You’re an officer of the law, for God’s sake.”

Holman ignored Terry. Jake pressed the knife a little harder against Terry’s throat.

“Jake, I didn’t do enough for you last time. I can make it up to you this time.”

Jake smiled. “You’re really going to come through for me?”

Holman didn’t return the smile. He was grim faced. “Yes. This time, yes.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Jesus, Holman. Your son has killed six people. You can’t condone this. You can’t let him get away with this.”

Jake snatched a fistful of hair and yanked Terry’s head back. “Shut up.”

“We need to make this look like he killed his wife. Did his friend see you?” Holman jerked his head in the direction of the arcade and Oscar.

“He saw me.”

Holman inhaled, mulling over Oscar’s significance as a witness. “I’ll take care of him.”

“You’ll kill him?” Jake asked.

“There’s no other way.”

“No, you leave him alone,” Terry yelled. He pinwheeled an arm back to slip Jake’s grasp, but Jake brought him back into line by slamming a fist into his left kidney. The blow sent a burst of pain up through his spine and into his brain. “You bastard!”

“Behave yourself, Terry. I won’t ask again,” Jake said. “How do we do this thing?”

“You give me the knife.”

Terry felt Jake tense. He knew what Jake was thinking, because he was thinking it too. Was Holman playing his son? Was he lulling him into giving up his weapon so he could take him down? Terry hoped the sheriff was a good man after all.

“Why?” Jake asked. Caution hung thick in his question.

“Because I need it to be in his hand.” With his gun Holman pointed to Terry. “And not in yours.”

“Where’s your deputy?” Jake checked behind him.

“Off duty. At home. I don’t know. Now give me the knife.”

The knife fell away from Terry’s throat. He swallowed, clearing his airway, and sucked in untidy breaths. He fell forward, his hands resting on his knees.

“Okay,” Jake said.

He stepped back from Terry. He and Holman circled Terry in a counterclockwise arc until they swapped places. Holman eased in behind Terry and gripped his shoulder with the strength
of a pipe wrench. The shadow of the sheriff’s gun darkened the corner of Terry’s vision.

“Now the knife,” Holman instructed.

Jake hesitated. “I’ll give it to you when he’s dead.”

“Give to me now, Jake. I don’t want you here when I kill him.”

“What?”

Jake’s actions said everything. He took a step backward. His doubts were now suspicions. Holman was losing his grip on his son, and Terry didn’t like being in the crossfire.

“Jake, I don’t want you here. If there are any questions, I want you to be elsewhere with an alibi. I don’t want anything to go wrong, son.”

The razor edge of panic nicked Holman’s composure. Terry could hear it. Holman knew he didn’t have a leash on his son, and any control he thought he did have was slipping away. The sheriff was playing catch with a lighted stick of dynamite. There was no telling when Jake would go off.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“Jake, please. Look, I’m here, aren’t I? Would I be doing any of this if it weren’t to help you? I’m putting everything on the line for you.”

To Terry’s amazement, Jake wavered. He glanced down at the knife, weighing the situation. He bounced the blade on his open palm.

“C’mon, Jake. We don’t have all night. Give me the knife. You know I’m right.”

Jake smiled and nodded.

Then it went all wrong. Terry saw how it was going to happen before it did. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Oscar sprang up from behind Jake, jack-in-the-box style, with a golf club in his hands, the handcuffs flailing from one wrist. Jake
was totally unaware of Oscar’s presence. Oscar swung the club back to bring it down on Jake’s skull.

Holman had a clear view of Oscar and reacted like a machine. His actions were simultaneous and fluid. He jumped back from Terry, raised his gun, and drew a bead on Oscar. Terry lunged for the sheriff, but snatched air. “Jake!” Holman screamed.

Jake misread everything. Betrayal and anger blackened his features. He guessed his dad had sold him out and had strung him along for a spectacular arrest. Jake drew back his knife hand and threw.

The knife wasn’t meant for Terry, but he saw the flying blade coming straight for him and threw himself to the ground. He heard, then saw, the blade bury itself up to the hilt in Sheriff Holman’s stomach. Blood blossomed across his groin, the bloom doubling in size by the second.

Oscar was primal and his yell voiced his baser instincts. The golf club’s head connected with the side of Jake’s skull. The sound was hollow and overshadowed by the crack of his skull giving way.

Jake’s face was thick with pain and shock. A realization overwhelmed his features. He realized that he’d been wrong and he’d made a mistake. He’d turned on his father when his father was trying to save him. There was nothing he could do for his dad, but everything he could do to his attacker. He turned to see who had dared to harm him.

Fear swept across Oscar’s face when he saw Jake wasn’t going to be stopped with a single blow. He swung for a second shot, but Jake grabbed the end of the club—the end greasy with his own blood and hair.

Holman groaned and collapsed, his gun clattering to the ground before him. He tugged the blade out of his stomach, opening the floodgates.

Jake had Oscar’s club and was about to return the favor Oscar had dealt him. Oscar cowered, covering his head with his hands.

Terry snatched Holman’s gun, just as the sheriff’s blood threatened to soak it. His grasp was clumsy. He’d never handled or fired a weapon before, but his instincts took over. Terry aimed and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet halted Jake, freezing him in the moment. His arms were outstretched with the club over his shoulder, but he wasn’t moving. He didn’t deliver Oscar the fatal blow and he never would. For a long moment, he managed one thing and only one thing. He bled.

Terry kept Holman’s gun aimed.

Slowly, Jake turned. He tottered toward Terry, threatening him with the club.

Terry fired again. And again.

Jake absorbed each bullet, but three was his limit. He crumpled and struck the ground only inches from his slain father. He stared at his father and mumbled something. He clawed at the ground, sucking in an untidy lungful of air, but for all his tremendous efforts, he covered precious little ground. Jake came to a halt at his father’s feet, their spilled blood colliding.

Terry wasn’t satisfied and never would be while Jake Holman still had the strength to breathe. He stood over the dying man. Jake looked up and managed a smile. Terry fired the gun and kept on firing until it dry-retched with every squeeze of the trigger. He wanted to make sure all six rounds stopped Jake, one round for each of his victims. And even then, he didn’t stop firing until Oscar grabbed the revolver.

In a quiet voice he said, “It’s over.”

Terry stared at Oscar. Oscar’s complexion was ghost white. Terry nodded and let his friend take the gun.

Oscar took the revolver from Terry and dropped it, wincing. His dislocated thumb hung slack against his hand. Terry saw how his friend had escaped the handcuffs. With a sharp tug, Oscar snapped his thumb back into position.

“Sometimes a disability isn’t always a disability,” he said, shaking the cuffs dangling from his other wrist.

“She’s dead, Oscar.”

“I know. I’m sorry, buddy.”

Terry glanced over at Sarah. “I hope she isn’t disappointed in me.”

Oscar rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. “How could she be? She loves you.”

In the distance, sirens wailed, and Oscar held Terry as he cried for his dead wife.

T
he blue golf ball rolled in a shallow arc, catching the downward slope just right. The ball completed its thirty-foot journey, missing the bumpers guarding the hole, and dropped into the tin cup.

“You jammy git,” Oscar announced.

In the three weeks since Sarah’s murder, Oscar had rarely been out of Terry’s company. He had made sure Terry hadn’t been allowed to dwell on Sarah’s death too much. He’d also helped out with the police and the funeral arrangements. But in that time, he’d picked up a lot of English slang. The words sounded fine coming out of an English mouth, but when an American said the same words, they sounded comical, even juvenile. Terry wondered if he sounded as ridiculous.

“Only you can turn a crappy first shot into gold.”

Terry shrugged. He wasn’t enjoying the game. It was just something to do—something to take his mind off Sarah. Every moment he had alone, he replayed the events leading up to her death and how he could have prevented what happened. He still hadn’t accepted Sarah’s death. He knew that. And he wasn’t sure he ever would.

Oscar took his shot and missed. He took a third and sunk his putt. He noted their scores on the scorecard, and they moved on to the next hole.

Oscar lined up his ball to tee off. “Has Javier gone?”

“Yes.”

Terry had called Javier Rivera as promised to let him know he’d found Myda’s killer and that he was dead. Javier asked to pay his respects and arrived the day after the funeral. He’d said a prayer over Sarah’s grave and laid a wreath. Afterward, Terry took him to Jake’s grave and they spat on it.

At the grave Javier said, “You’re my brother. If you need anything, it’s yours.”

Then they’d drunk themselves into a stupor. They told each other stories about Sarah and Myda. They laughed, cried, and sat in silence, just remembering. They didn’t stop drinking until they’d drunk themselves sober. A tequila hangover felled Terry two days after their binge. The effects had only worn off today.

“He went this morning. He asked if he could bring Myda’s mother to see Sarah. I said it was okay.”

They played the next two holes without speaking. That suited Terry fine, but he could see Oscar still had questions.

“What is it?” Terry asked.

“Holman. I know blood’s thicker than water, but I still can’t believe Holman would kill, lie, and plant evidence for his son.”

“I don’t know that he did.”

“What do you mean?”

“For sure, Holman wasn’t playing it by the numbers that night, but I wonder if it was all for Jake’s benefit.”

“To get Jake to drop his guard, you mean?”

“Maybe. We’ll never know for sure. I don’t even know how he ended up here that night. He either followed me or he was following his son. But I know Holman didn’t plant the evidence in my house.”

“How?” Oscar asked, retrieving his ball from the hole.

“It was Sarah. She’d been coming back and forth for days. I think she was taking and hiding evidence in the crawl space as and when she needed it.”

“How do you know?”

“More than once I came home to find something in the house moved. Osbourne claimed he’d seen Sarah entering the house. And do you remember the old Honda that opened the garage?”

“Yeah.”

“When Sarah and I were outrunning Holman at the mall, the car she drove off in was the same old Honda.”

Terry holed his putt and they moved on. They skipped the next hole. It was the windmill hole. They always skipped the windmill hole. He was sure a psychologist would tell him that when his emotional scars were healed he would play the windmill hole again, but Terry didn’t think so. As long as he lived, he knew he would never play it.

“Do you regret coming to America?” Oscar asked. “It’s hardly been a fairy-tale welcome.”

No, it hasn’t
, Terry thought. The company he’d worked for had broken the law and he’d brought them down. People had been murdered and he’d avenged them, but not in time to save Sarah. He never could have conceived this nightmare. But was that America’s fault? Hardly.

“No, not at all.”

“That’s good.”

Oscar paused for a long moment before asking, “Do you regret marrying Sarah?”

That was a question that required no deliberation. Sarah had taken his breath away when they’d met and had never given it back to him. She made him more than he was without her. Even now, with her gone, he was still a better man for knowing her. He touched their wedding rings on the chain around his neck and smiled. It was the first to cross his face in weeks.

“I don’t regret marrying Sarah, regardless of how short a time we had together. One day, one minute—it’s not important how long we were married. I’m proud to have been her husband. She may have done some questionable things, but I fell in love with the Sarah I met in Costa Rica, and she fell in love with me—that can never be changed.”