Page 31 of The Twins

If he was home.

My guts told me he was. And I always trusted my guts.

I put my hand on the door and looked at first Cillian and then Andrew.

Both held their guns at the ready.

Andrew nodded, once.

I pushed into the dimly lit room and instantly took in the space. A window with thin red curtains, a wardrobe, door off its hinge and angled to the floor, and a bed, no headboard with a mound in it.

The mound moved as Cillian came up behind me.

“Wakey-wakey,” Andrew said gruffly and dragged the duvet back.

A tall figure shot upward, his hand reaching under his pillow.

“Don’t even think about it.” Cillian set the business end of his gun against Archie McDougal’s temple.

He froze, eyes wide.

He hadn’t changed from the image we’d seen of him on the internet. Scruffy brown hair, sunken cheeks, dark rings under his eyes, and what appeared to be a shark’s tooth hanging on a bit of leather around his neck.

“Who the fuck are you?” He glared at us each in turn.

“That’s not important,” I said. “But you are Archie McDougal, right?”

“Who the fuck want’s to know?”

“The three guys with guns on you, you fucking eejit.” Cillian grunted.

“My crew will be here any second, they’ll take you out, you morons.” He made a strange snarling sound.

Cillian pushed the gun harder against his head.

Archie’s neck tendon’s strained, and he fisted the sheet. “You don’t know who you’re fucking dealing with.”

“You’re Archie McDougal, right?” Andrew asked again.

I spotted a wallet on the bedside table. Picked it up. Sure enough, his identity was confirmed by a gym membership card. “It’s him.”

“Thought so,” Cillian said.

“What the fuck do you want?” Archie darted his gaze around the room as though searching for a weapon.

“Justice,” Andrew said, “heard you haven’t balanced the scales after your bad fucking behavior.”

“I’m a law-abiding citizen, fuck you.”

“Four people would still be alive if you hadn’t been born,” I said and wiped the wallet before tossing it aside. It landed beside several rolls of fifty-pound notes. “First the guy you killed with careless driving, then the farmer and his wife, and now the kid who was delivering gear for you.”

“Ain’t none of them my fault, just circumstantial. Bad fucking luck.”

“Doesn’t change the fact they’re dead and you’re alive,” Andrew said. His eyes were narrowed and his shoulders drawn up. He hated injustice, he hated murderers, and this was his moment to balance the scales.

“Yeah, whatever.” A nasty laugh scratched from his throat. “They couldn’t pin any of it on me.”

“And you lied about diminished responsibility; you hadn’t been taking your prescription drugs when you’d broke into that farm, had you?”