Page 39 of Hush (The Seaside Saga #25)

THE GUY’S ARM IS RIGID as he keeps his black pistol aimed at Kyle.

No matter what the guy does—push Kyle aside and reach into the cash drawer himself; grab fistfuls of twenties, tens, fives, ones; stuff the bills in his sweatshirt pocket, his jeans pockets—that gun never wavers from Kyle.

The thief’s eyes persistently dart back and forth from the cash drawer—to Kyle.

Kyle’s his target.

That gloved hand clenching the gun twitches, adjusts, shifts with the thief’s every move—keeping Kyle in the weapon’s lethal aim.

But suddenly, there’s a new sound.

Inadvertently, in his fierce rush, the guy knocks most of the coins out of the cash drawer. Quarters, nickels, dimes all clatter, clang and roll onto the floor.

At the very same moment, Jason’s voice is nearing.

Kyle can’t miss it.

His friend, his best man, is approaching the diner counter from the kitchen area. Jason’s talking some shit about anteing up, dealing the cards.

And Kyle chokes on his next words.

But he utters them, nonetheless. “Don’t do it, Barlow,” he calls, croaks, manages. “Stay back , damn it.”

As soon as Kyle warns Jason, the armed robber lurches to leave—while holding a last fistful of wayward bills. He shoves Kyle aside hard enough that Kyle stumbles and nearly crashes to the floor behind the counter.

The thief doesn’t slow. He scrambles out from behind the counter, half jumps over that fallen chair and heads toward the diner’s entrance door.

Kyle struggles to regain his balance and not fall. And succeeds. He quickly grabs on to the counter and rights himself—knocking off several small pumpkins as he does. Turning just in time then, he sees Jason round the corner.

In plain sight now.

Wearing a black tee—long sleeves pushed up—and cargos, Jason’s practically a shadow.

“Barlow.” Breathless, Kyle holds up a hand for him to stop, then whips around to the thief just as he nears the door. In one fluid movement, the guy fully spins around.

Spins around, randomly raises his arm and pulls the trigger of that gun.

Sends one shot firing from his black pistol.

One deafening explosion echoing into the diner.

** *

Kyle winces with the noise.

Involuntarily squeezes his eyes shut as he sharply recoils at the violence of it.

Flinches at the shock of it.

He twists around toward another sound then.

Toward Jason.

Right as Jason’s stumbling backward near the diner’s counter.

Right as Jason loses his footing.

Right as he falls and lands on his back.

Right as his arms splay to the side.

Right as his head hits the floor and slightly rises with the impact before hitting it again.

Right as his dark hair flies up, then down, with the momentum of it all.

Right as the long gray chain of his father’s dog-tag necklace slides backward along his neck, then pools behind his head, the battered dog tags resting at his still, unmoving throat.