Page 11
W ith the rest of their meals packed up and a quick sweep of the outside area confirmed as safe by two local uniforms, Porter paid, and she got into his vehicle without saying a word. She was still in shock. A part of her was incredibly relieved that she wouldn’t have to go home to that empty house all alone tonight. And yet another part of her was terrified. She’d had relationships, but it had always been her at the other person’s house overnight. She’d never gotten so close or wanted the type of relationship where they’d lived together. She felt odd having Porter in her own home.
She was only starting to realize just what an influence her aunt had had on her after all. As if fear was something that ruled her life from the shadowy depths of her soul, without Kylie even realizing it, and that terrified her almost as much as this asshole stalker out there. This in-depth look at her world was not comfortable. It was certainly not something she would choose to do, and honestly wasn’t something she had wanted to start in the first place, but Porter had other ideas. Whether it was out of the goodness of his heart or not, a process of unraveling had begun, and it was all Kylie could do to contain the ends of her world as the stitches came apart.
She didn’t want everything in her world to be destroyed, but it felt as if she was on a self-destructive path that she couldn’t get off of. It was uncomfortable, soul destroying, and to even believe that so much in her life wasn’t as she had thought it was, and made it all a lie, was incredibly distressing. To find out she’d even had brothers she had missed out on, brothers she didn’t remember, broke her heart. They had only just been born, so they hadn’t had a chance at life at all. They hadn’t even made it home from the hospital, according to Porter and the online articles. It was just incredible to think that the killer hired to kill her family had escaped prison and was killing more people, making his recapture an ongoing issue. Kylie shook her head, thinking how her aunt had been involved in capturing this guy.
No wonder Aunt Agatha had always kept them hidden and had moved a lot, but why had Kylie ended up safe? Had Agatha been that good, or had this killer not cared that much until now? And why out of all of this had Kylie ended up right here in this location, nowhere near her aunt as far as she knew, and yet the killer was here too. Kylie struggled with the concept of coincidence, particularly in something like this. It felt more like divine intervention, almost as if some cosmic joke. Yet she’d been capable of turning her back on everything up until now, and now that she couldn’t anymore, it slapped her in face. See? I told you so. You need to deal with this shit.
But how did one deal with shit that Kylie hadn’t even been aware of that her aunt had been hiding? And who knew how Agatha was so good at it?
When they pulled up in front of her house, Kylie got out without a word and walked up to her front door, or maybe stomped was a better word. As she got to the house, she unlocked the front door, pushed it open, and stepped in. Porter followed, then snatched her back, and pulled her right out of the house.
She didn’t say a word, still dealing with the shock of the smiling gunman in front of them.
“That answers one thing,” the gunman said in a genial tone. “You really don’t have any abilities. Otherwise you would have seen me coming a mile away.”
He was right. She should have seen him coming a mile away. Dear God, she should have. What the hell was wrong with her? She’d been so consumed by everything else in her world that she hadn’t even seen him coming.
She stared at him, her throat working as she tried to get words out, but she froze, seeing that snub-nosed revolver pointed her way, knowing that this man killed with impunity and would cheerfully do it all over again. “Why do you care?” she managed to whisper.
He gave half a shrug. “I’m just checking. If you don’t know anything, it’s all the better for you.”
She wanted to rail and scream at him, Did you kill my family? And, if you did,… why? Who paid you? But she couldn’t do anything but stare at him. Porter stood behind her, holding her tight. She wasn’t sure what he thought she would do, but any movement on Kylie’s part was beyond her. “What do you want from me?” she asked in a slightly stronger tone of voice.
“You? I don’t want anything from you,” he stated, with a negligent shrug. “I’m not even sure who the hell you are or what you’re doing in this mix,” he muttered, as he stared at her curiously. “But I learned long ago that anomalies must be checked. They can’t be allowed to run free, not without some logical reason for their existence.”
She blinked at the conversation, almost a theoretical Newton’s law, a conversation she had not expected from him.
He studied her closely. “Where is your aunt?” When she stiffened, he nodded. “Now we’re onto something.”
“I don’t know where she is,” she replied.
He frowned at her. “I hardly believe that.”
“I don’t know where she is. I haven’t had anything to do with her since I left years ago.”
He studied her, as if wondering at the veracity of her words, then sighed. “Of course she would have run, as if that’ll make a damn bit of difference,” he muttered. “All I ever wanted was answers.”
“Answers for what?” she asked faintly.
He waved her off. “None of your business, and, if you don’t know where she is, you can’t help me.”
He raised the gun as if to fire, and she spluttered, “Wait, don’t do that.”
“Why not?” he asked, looking at her. “You’re nothing to me, so why would I care?”
She didn’t even know what her next words would be, but she opened her mouth, prepared to speak. Yet Porter beat her to it.
“She’s your family,” he said. “Are you sure you want to kill her?”
The man stared at him in shock, real shock. He took Porter’s words as if a visceral blow to his body, almost a swing forward to hit him. Time came to a complete standstill for all of them. Then the gunman suddenly disappeared into the shadows at the back of her house.
Immediately Porter told her to stay hidden in the bushes at the front, and he would be back in a few minutes. He half shoved her behind the big cedars around the front steps. She sank to the ground, feeling the hardness of the concrete wall behind her and the chill of the cold ground beneath her and the harshness of the cedar branches as they scratched her face, shoulders, and arms. However, none of it mattered. None of it had anything to do with the reality of what Porter had just shared.
What the hell did he mean? That she was family? The killer’s family? How? Surely not. It couldn’t be. That was not something she wanted to contemplate at all.
Dear God. She closed her eyes, her heart slamming against her chest, as everything in her world shifted once again. Surely Porter meant it as a joke. Surely he just tried to shock the gunman. It had to be that, nothing else. There couldn’t be any other explanation. At least that’s what Kylie hoped. Hearing a noise coming from the front, she turned her head sideways. She felt almost numb, seeing Porter racing to her.
He bent down over the landing to stare at her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I’m okay,” she whispered, “as much as I can be.” He winced at that and helped her to her feet. “Where is he?” she asked.
“He’s gone. He left a vehicle running in the back alleyway. He had just enough of a head start that he’s gone. And it was a truck this time, most probably stolen.”
“Of course.” She stared at Porter. He led her into the house, and, as soon as the door was closed, she turned and looked around. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, but we’ll go through every inch of the house to confirm you understand that and can see it for yourself.”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to do that,” she whispered. “I can sense the emptiness.”
He nodded. “Good, your instincts will keep you safe more than anything.”
“Will it? He was right about one thing. If I had any abilities, I would have seen him coming a mile away.”
Porter half chuckled, half groaned. “If you weren’t still dealing with major trauma and things in your world unraveling without your permission or control, maybe you would have, but right now? I don’t think so.” She sat down on a nearby chair, and he said, “I’ll go get you a hot cup of tea.”
She barely heard him, her mouth frozen by so many questions, all ready to bubble up and to demand answers. When he came back, he crouched in front of her. “The teakettle is on. I’ll get you a hot cup in a few minutes.” She stared at him. He stared right back and then relented. “I know. You want answers.”
“Damn right I want answers. I need answers. Was that just a shot in the dark? What the hell was that about family?”
“Kind of, yes,” he admitted. She stared at him, and he shrugged. “I don’t have all the answers. Do I think you’re blood related? No. But I do think a connection is there that he’s not aware of. Yes, it was a shot in the dark, but I don’t think he’s family.”
She sagged back into her chair, her hands covering her face, as the relief washed over her.
“But I do think he’ll consider my words and be back.”
Her eyes flew open. “Good God. He will be back, won’t he?”
“Yes, I suspect so. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to tell him, but I didn’t have any control over myself at that moment, and the family angle just seemed to be the best answer to give him.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that. “Best answer? You just made me a target.”
He winced and nodded. “You’re right. I did, and, for that, I am sorry. However, it worked to save your life tonight.”
She announced, “We could use it.” He stared at her, and she shrugged. “We know he’s coming back sometime, somehow, somewhere. He’ll walk into our lives, and we need to be ready for him.” A note of admiration slipped into his gaze, but she didn’t want to see it. She was trying to think like a cop, to think like somebody who wanted to be out of this nightmare. “You have no idea how grateful I am that it was just a shot in the dark,” she shared, shaking as if to expel some nasty thing. “Of all the things that I could possibly survive, knowing I was related to that monster is not one of them.”
“You would survive,” he stated firmly. “You are strong. You’ve had a pretty crappy upbringing, and I’m not sure how much you even remember about it, but you survived. We’re all survivors, but you really have done well.”
“No,” she argued. “The only reason I’m still surviving right now is because I don’t necessarily understand what the bottom line is here. I’m trying hard to adapt, but it’s not the easiest thing.”
“No, of course it isn’t,” he agreed, “and that shouldn’t be easy. All kinds of things in life are a little harder, and that’s okay too. These aren’t necessarily answers that anybody can grasp quickly.”
When he got up and returned to the kitchen, she realized the teakettle was whistling in the background. When he brought a cup of tea and set it down, he again asked her, “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” she murmured. “Yet… I can’t say this has been an easy evening.”
“No, of course not,” he agreed, then smiled. “Yet you’ve handled yourself very well.”
She waved her hand. “Stop with the compliments. I need to know what the hell is going on.”
“I think there’s a connection that we don’t really understand between him and your aunt.”
“No, no, no, no.”
He continued. “We already know of one connection because she’s the one who put him away.”
“Right,” she said in relief, “so maybe it’s hatred.” Then she winced. “Dear God, do you think he raped her?”
“I don’t know anything,” he replied, “so let’s not even go in that direction. We need to understand why she had so much of the world shut off, as if it was not to be trusted. I don’t imagine anything was to be trusted in her version of the world where she lived,” He sighed. “We still don’t know anything about it.”
“Right, and I think maybe it’s time we tried.”
“Meaning?”
“We should contact my aunt.”
He smiled at her and nodded. “Good. I’m glad you’re suggesting it because I was about to.”
“Of course you were.” She glared at him. “Like everything else, you’ve been waiting for me to come up with the answers, and then you get to pat me on the back. Meanwhile you were waiting to tell me all about it in the first place.”
He shook his head. “Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m really just feeling my way through all this mess too.”
“Are you though?” she asked, staring at him. “Because it seems to me as if I’m a puppet on a string, and you’ve been the puppet master this whole time.”
His gaze darkened, and he crouched in front of her and snapped, “Don’t ever think that. I’m not here to pull your strings. I’m not here to hurt you or to upset you. I’ve had the difficult job of telling you about some horrific information about your past that was kept from you. I don’t enjoy being the bearer of bad news, and I certainly don’t enjoy being the one who gets blamed for it,” he muttered.
She got all that but still wasn’t reassured by hearing him say it.
He remained crouched by her side. “I understand that you’ll hold something against me because of all this, and that’s fine. You do what you have to do,” he said. “However, don’t hide and don’t fool yourself into thinking this is deliberate on my part or that I have any ulterior motive or any harmful intent for you because I don’t.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” she muttered, still not sure she should believe him. She took a sip of tea, her gaze wandering around her living room. “Do you think he’ll be back?”
“I thought you wanted to set up a trap because he would be back,” he stated, frowning at her.
“I know. I know. I guess the question I’m really asking is, will he be back tonight?”
“I don’t think so, but we can’t be sure. So, I will be staying here.”
“Of course you will,” she said, without any rancor. “I guess I would have been surprised if you weren’t.”
“That’s progress,” he muttered. “I’ll take that at least.”
“I’m not that hard to get along with,” she stated, eyeing him over her teacup.
“No, but it hasn’t been easy for me either.”
“No.” She winced. “I realized you were the bearer of bad news but that you weren’t the creator of it.”
“I was not,” he confirmed, “and I’m still worried that you haven’t quite processed all of it.”
“Of course I haven’t,” she declared, staring at him. “How could I? Just think about everything you’ve told me. How my entire history has been rewritten. The fact that my parents were murdered, and it was a hit, a killing for hire. And the fact that I had twin brothers I didn’t even know about.” She shook her head, her jaw working. “Do you know how guilty that makes me feel?”
“You were a child. Remember that too.”
“I don’t care. It just makes me feel horrible.”
“I know, and emotions do take over.”
“Of course they take over.… Do you think my stalker left anything behind?”
The words came right out of the blue, and he stared at her for a long moment, then stood up, looked around, and asked, “As in what?”
“I don’t know. I just… it’s probably nothing.”
“No such thing in our world as probably nothing ,” he stated, glancing behind him, then at her again. “So, tell me. What is it that you’re thinking.”
“I’m just wondering if he left something behind.”
“What exactly do you mean by something? Would you recognize if he had?”
“I don’t know.” She slowly stood up. “I wish to God I hadn’t even thought of it.”
“Now I wish to God you hadn’t either,” he replied, with a smile, “but you did, and now that’s on the table.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, and then it hit her. “The kitchen.”
“I was just in there,” Porter said. “I didn’t see anything specifically that looked as if somebody had left something behind.”
She followed him into the kitchen and stood in the doorway. She got no sense of somebody having been in here. The energy wasn’t that easy; it wasn’t that clear. But she still felt a sense of wrongness, and that’s all she could explain to him.
“Okay, we’ll start from there,” he began. “When you say a sense of wrongness , what do you mean?”
“It just feels wrong,” she stated.
“Because somebody was in your house?”
She frowned, contemplating his words, and then nodded. “That’s part of it, that sense of violation.”
“Okay, but that’s completely different in another way.”
“It may be the same thing. I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m not used to doing all this.”
He smiled. “Hang on.” He walked back into the living room, picked up her sketchbook, and handed it to her. “So, sketch it.”
“Sketch what?” she asked, staring down at her book in confusion.
“The crime scene,” he replied. “A crime happened here, so sketch it.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“How do you know?” he asked, giving her an encouraging smile. “You haven’t done it.”
“Of course I haven’t done it,” she snapped waspishly. “And it won’t do any good.”
“You don’t know that. Sit down and try.”
Glaring at him, she returned to the living room. Sitting down, she stared at her sketchbook, opened up to a page, and shook her head. Looking back at him, she declared, “Nothing will come.”
“And that’s fine. If nothing comes,… nothing comes. Then we’ll tackle it from a different angle.”
“I don’t understand,” she muttered. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Breaking and entering is a crime, and it happened right here. That makes it a crime scene.”
She rolled her eyes at that and pulled her pencil from her pocket and set it to her paper. Almost instantly she fell into a weird fugue of images, and her pencil started moving, and she was barely aware, as the pencil shifted back and forth on the page. She couldn’t stop it and could only surrender to whatever was happening.
She sensed Porter coming behind her, to stand and to watch, wondering what it would look like if she could even see herself doing this. This had been one of the things that her aunt had been absolutely distraught about when Kylie had shown signs of abilities. Then her aunt had gotten angry and cold, as if Kylie were the devil’s spawn or something. It made life even more difficult for them, and Kylie had done her best to stifle everything to keep her aunt happy, to make herself seem more normal, whatever the hell that meant.
Suddenly she blew out a very long sigh. She opened her eyes and stared down at the page that she had been completely covered. She glanced up to see Porter staring at her images, his gaze narrowed as he studied it. “Does it mean anything?” she asked lightly.
He frowned at her. “Do you recognize it?”
“No, I sure don’t. See? I’m not very good at this. It’s supposed to be my house because this is where the crime scene was.”
“Maybe, or it’s another crime scene you haven’t visited yet.”
She stared at him. “That’s not what I want to hear. That would mean I’m picking up crime scenes before I’ve even seen them.”
“Yeah, and I wonder.” Porter squatted before her and took the book from her hand to study it. “What would it take for you to see a crime scene before the crime happened?”
*
Porter knew he’d shocked Kylie. Hell, he’d shocked himself, but this sketch, drawing, or whatever she wanted to call it, was not of her house. And that surprised him too. He had expected to see the crime scene here, expected to see something that would pinpoint the same man they had been chasing and who had shown up in their space instead of them into his. Porter looked over at her and held up her sketch. “Do you recognize this location?”
She looked at it and shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
“It’s somebody’s living room. Have you ever lived in a house like this?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think so. And this scene is not violent at all. It’s just a room.”
“Doesn’t have to be violent in order to be a crime scene. Remember that,” he pointed out. “Even here you had a break-in, but he didn’t do anything other than terrify you.”
“It was a violation of my privacy.”
“Right, and that’s important too, but it wasn’t like the crime scenes you have been drawing for us.”
“No,” she said, studying her sketch. Then she frowned. “I don’t know but maybe…”
He looked at her and nudged. “Maybe what?”
“It might be the house I grew up in—or at least one of them.”
“One of them?”
She nodded. “Honest to God, there were a bunch of them.”
“Of course there were. Your aunt moved you a lot, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“And did she ever explain why?”
“No, she just told me that I was bad.” He stared at her in shock. She shook her head. “I don’t know if it was true or not, but she took it quite seriously. I heard her time and time again saying that I was the reason we had to move.”
“But she also took looking after you quite seriously too, didn’t she?”
“If you say so.” Kylie shrugged. “I’m just not sure what she thought at the end of the day. She never talked or told me about anything. We always had a nebulous relationship, where I didn’t have a whole lot to go on. I was good because it kept me alive and gave me a place to live, but, beyond that, I didn’t have anything.”
“Fascinating,” he muttered.
“I’m glad you think so because it wasn’t exactly an easy childhood.”
“And yet you probably didn’t know that you were suffering, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. That was the one thing she used to say to me. Things like, You’re doing just fine. It’s not as if I’ve beaten you or tortured you or anything . She said something else. What was it?” Kylie tilted her head to the side and added, “Something about I have done everything to the letter .”
“Everything to the letter,” he repeated, staring at her. He looked down at the image and then back at her. “I don’t suppose you care to clarify that, huh ?”
“I wish I could, but I don’t know what she meant.”
“Everything to the letter. What does that mean?”
“She never explained. And then, as soon as I turned eighteen, I was kicked out.”
“Also fascinating when you think about it.”
“I don’t want to think about it,” she stated, with indignation in her tone. “This is BS, and I really don’t want to hear about it.”
He smiled. “And I get that, but it is fascinating.”
“No,… it’s not fascinating,” she snapped, as she pushed herself to her feet and started to pace the small living room. “This doesn’t feel like my home anymore.”
“I’m sorry. That is the sense of violation coming through. Somebody unwanted and unwelcomed came into your home, threatened you, was here before you got home, and was here waiting for you when you walked in, making it even worse.”
“I know we were distracted and all, but how come we didn’t sense him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure, but maybe he has abilities of his own.”
“That would suck,” she muttered. “It’s tough enough to nab criminals without their having the same abilities.”
“Sometimes it happens that way.”
“Nobody should be having this conversation.”
“We’re having it,” he pointed out. “Lots of people like us are out there.”
“And now you’re back to talking about Stefan again.”
“Stefan is one of them. And there is also Maddy and a few others I know.”
“Yes, I’ve met Dr. Maddy, and she is lovely.”
He turned and looked at her.
She noted he was standing to the side of the front windows, looking out into the yard from the window’s edge, so that nobody could see that he was there. “You’re expecting him to come back inside, aren’t you?”
“No, not necessarily.” He turned to her and asked, “You were saying you knew Dr. Maddy?”
“Yes, Dr. Maddy is a wonderful human being. What about her?” Kylie asked.
“I mentioned the name, but I didn’t say she was a doctor. How did you know her?”
She sighed. “She came to the institute.”
He smiled. “And that’s exactly how my sister was helped too. What did Dr. Maddy tell you?”
“She gave me hints on how to pass the testing so I didn’t appear crazy,” she shared. “Yet I didn’t put much faith in her process, and I didn’t pass.… I got more of the same. We talked about healing or whatever else she did, but I definitely needed help to get out of that institute, so I finally took her advice. Even though it all seemed so crazy, some of it made sense.”
“She’s good at that,” Porter declared, a warm smile lighting up his face.
“Your sister, how is she handling life now?”
“Much better. As the captain told you, they’re married, and he looks after her. She’s the most precious thing in his life, and I absolutely love seeing it.”
“It’s hard to imagine. He doesn’t look the type.”
“But he is the eternal protector. When he fell in love, he fell pretty hard, and my sister has benefited greatly from his love and affection.”
“I’m happy for her. I doubt very many people would have taken kindly to a psychic.”
“Maybe not, but the captain already had me in his world at that time. My sister was just an add-on he’d known forever, but, somewhere along the line, they fell in love.” Porter smiled. “I couldn’t have been happier for her. They needed each other.”
“So, she has her own protector.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, smiling at her. “That’s a good word for it. The captain doesn’t tolerate any rumors or judgments or any negative comments, and she needs that too. She works with rescue organizations, helping animals and children in need, plus immigrants who have traveled through very difficult times to what’s considered a whole new world, but are finding the adjustment pretty rough. As a matter of fact, she looks after any stray—human or animal—that she comes across. It’s as if she attracts them, but she is somebody that’s there for all of them.”
“I can think of a lot worse things in life,” she murmured.
“So can I. Now, how about getting some sleep?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep another wink.”
“I think you might surprise yourself. I know I’m tired.”
“But aren’t you staying up all night?” she asked, with a wry look. “Isn’t that what heroes are supposed to do when they rescue a damsel in distress?”
He laughed. “Maybe, but that’s not what I’ll do because I need sleep too. So, we’ll both go upstairs and grab some sleep.”
“How will that protect us with you asleep?” she asked.
“The captain has two people on watch outside. Plus, Stefan will keep an eye on us via his special gifts.”
She frowned. “I’m still not sure I’ll even close my eyes.”
“And again I think you’ll surprise yourself. Come on. Let’s show you that all the doors are locked, and then we’ll go from there.”
“What difference does it make to lock the doors when he came in anyway?”
“That’s a good point. Come to think of it, how did he get in?”
“He’d already figured it out,” she muttered crossly.
“I don’t suppose you keep a key outside, do you?”
“Yes, I do, and I know you’ll slam me for it.”
“And now your armed stalker probably has that key, right?”
She glared at him but nodded anyway.
“Any reason why you keep a key outside?”
“Because I don’t like carrying metal around,” she snapped, glaring at him.
He frowned at that and asked, “Any reason?”
“Of course there’s a reason, but not one I’m prepared to divulge.”
He smiled and nudged her up the stairs. “You go first.”
“That’s not very hero-like, is it?” she asked sarcastically. “What if he’s hiding under a bed upstairs?”
“Well then, we’re about to find out, aren’t we?” Her footsteps slowed as she reached the landing, and he added, “Bravado will only get you so far, sweetheart. I promise I will look after you.”
She shook her head. “Not sure with my stalker around that anybody can make that promise,” she murmured. “It’s just not doable. He’s like a ghost.”
“Nope. Everybody gets caught at some point.”
She laughed. “And you yourself know that’s a bald-faced lie. Lots of people have gotten away with murder. Sometimes they’ve confessed on their death beds, and sometimes they’ve never been caught. This guy is happy to go to his grave in exactly the same way.”
“I thought so, but now I think he’ll want more answers.”
“Sure, and that’s because you made me a target,” she snapped. “Remember that part? So, how does protecting me work with that bull’s-eye on my back?”
“I’ll keep you close to me, and we will work it out,” he shared. “I’ve already got the captain working on a plan to keep this guy on our radar. Remember all the cameras that guy should show up on? Then we do some facial recognition, matching him to street cams, and voila. We can pick him up and talk to him.”
“Pick him up and talk to him?” she repeated, grimacing. “Do you really think he’ll allow that?”
He gave her a one-arm shrug. “No, I really don’t. I think there will be a shootout. I’m counting on his being shot, not you or me.”
“That’s an awful lot to count on,” she noted, staring at him starkly. “This guy has a long history of taking people out. Hell, he’s paid to take people out.”
Porter nodded. “Yes, but this one is personal, and that’s how we will get him. I promise.”
Kylie shook her head, but he placed a finger against her lips and whispered, “I promise that he will not get you.”
“You can’t promise that,” she whispered, staring up at him, “I wish you were able to, but I know in my heart of hearts that you can’t, and, therefore, you also need to look after yourself.”
He shook his head. “Just because you think you know everything about me doesn’t mean you do. I have a few tricks up my own sleeves.”
“Yeah?” she asked in a challenge. “Then why didn’t you use them when he was here?”
He smiled at her. “What makes you think I didn’t?” He could see the wheels turning in her head. “He didn’t shoot you, did he?”
“No.” She frowned at him.
Porter nodded. “He didn’t shoot you. He didn’t shoot me. He turned and walked away. So think about it. Who do you think made him do that?”
“Why would you let him walk away?” she asked in exasperation. “That would be daft. We needed him caught.”
“Sure,” Porter agreed, “but I also didn’t need him to shoot anyone. I have tricks, but not a load of them.”
“I would have cheerfully taken bullets,” she stated, “if it meant taking him down. He killed my family, and I won’t ever forget that.”