It sounded similar enough to him out here, out in the rain, so he thought little of it other than the fact that he’d told his dad to stay right where he was.
He headed back towards the shoot house, looking up at the unceasing rain, and then, just before he made it back inside, he heard a new noise.
An engine firing on the opposite side of the building.
He ran back to the top of the berm just in time to see the other gray Suburban roll off towards the trees.
Court was far away, over fifty yards, and he couldn’t see who was inside, so he knew better than to fire.
So, just as his dad had said, two men had gotten away, but they’d each taken a different vehicle.
Court climbed back down the berm, squinting in the rain, and then he went back inside the shoot house to find his father.
—
The Cirrus Vision Jet flew over the East Coast, halfway between Jacksonville and Norfolk, Virginia, over two hours into its journey, the first time Court Gentry considered answering his phone.
It was two p.m.; he’d made it back to the airport by eleven thirty, just after the storm ended, and then the jet waited its turn to take off. All the while the FibreNet app on his phone kept buzzing, every ten minutes or so.
Each time, he’d reject the call.
The Signal app rang a couple of times, as well, and this would be Hanley, who knew what had happened, or Zoya, who by now probably also knew, although he hadn’t spoken with her. He’d called Hanley when he was still on the property, when the storm still raged, before any police or ambulance had arrived, and who knew who Hanley had told?
Hanley had agreed to contact Skip, to have him come back out to the scene as soon as the weather cleared a little, and to make sure the body of his friend, Court’s father, was respected by local authorities. Court wanted to take his dad back home with him, but that was a no-go. Hanley insisted the locals had to process the scene, that Court’s dad had to be there or the incident would grow in complexity and attention by five thousand percent, and Skip would be told just what to say and just what to do.
Court told himself that someday he’d come back down to Florida and shake Skip Echols’s hand. The man had meant a lot to his dad in these last weeks of his life.
Court had sat here for most of the flight, looking out the portal at the Atlantic, but now, as he continued looking out the starboard side of the jet, probably somewhere along the North Carolina coast, FibreNet buzzed for perhaps the dozenth time since they’d taken off.
This time, he told himself, he was ready.
This time, he accepted the call.
But he did not speak.
After twenty seconds or so, he heard a familiar voice, but it was softer somehow. “You there, chief?”
Court said nothing.
“I hear you breathing. Look…that was a bloody brutal situation all around. Made worse by my associates, I’m sorry to say. We had a plan goin’ in, and it certainly wasn’tthatshite.”
The man alone in the back of the tiny jet finally spoke. “You killed my father.”
“Aye. No words I say will make a difference, but I do want you to know, that was, in no way, my intention. It wasn’t an ‘eye for an eye’ situation. Not at all. Your da was about to take me out, and I tried to stop him. Or…” He seemed to think a moment. “Or maybe it was just reflex. I keep playin’ it back in me head…and I can’t really tell you how it all happened, but I’m sorry it did.
“It was me or him…I did what I had to do.”
“Where have I heard that before?”
“Out of your own mouth, yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re right about one thing, though,” Court said.
“What’s that, chief?”
“You were right when you said, ‘No words you say will make a difference.’ ”
Silence again. Then Coyle said, “That shoot house. More like a house of horrors. I don’t get rattled, but I was bloody rattled this mornin’.”
