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Jason could stay put and wait for Kennedy to show up with the cavalry. Except maybe Kennedy wouldn’t have the cavalry. Maybe the cavalry was on the other side this time.
And if Kennedy walked into Rexford looking for Jason, he would put himself in the line of fire.
Jason waited by the door of the cellar, watching the panes in the window overhead turn gray with twilight.
Maybe Gervase hadn’t made it to Rexford yet? Maybe he was still hiking in? In which case Jason was wasting valuable minutes hovering in this doorway.
No. No, Gervase was in great shape for his age—plus he had desperation to fuel him. No, he would have reached the village by now. And he would know exactly where Jason was.
All he had to do was wait for Jason to stick his head up.
Whac-A-Mole. Only with police issue mallets.
Angrily, Jason realized he was shaking. He told himself it was from the cold water. He was not going to come unglued at the idea Gervase was standing up there waiting to put a bullet in him.
Think.
First of all, if Gervase was going to kill him—kill a federal agent—it was going to be because he believed he could get away with it. He was acting to protect himself, so he could go on living his life as police chief and solid citizen. So he wasn’t going to murder Jason outright. That would be idiotic. Aside from having to also and immediately deal with Kennedy—and how the hell would he explain the murder of two federal agents?—he’d bring the full investigative resources of the entire federal government down on himself.
No. Gervase was intelligent. And practical.
Even if his original idea had been to shoot Jason on the spot, he’d had the entire hike from the highway to calm down and think.
And what he would think was that if he was going to get rid of Jason, he would need it to look like an accident. Gervase would need to fix it so that even in a worst case scenario, there would be a nice big reasonable doubt in his favor.
Therefore…he was not going to pop Jason when he walked out of this cellar.
He would not want to kill Jason in Rexford at all, if he could help it.
Jason focused on this thought, breathing slow, calming breaths as he continued to reason it out.
An accident. That’s what Gervase would be thinking.
Maybe he would sabotage Jason’s car? Or maybe he would ambush Jason on the way back to the car. He was not going to shoot Jason when he walked out of the cellar unless Jason didn’t give him a choice.
Which meant if Jason could walk out of this cellar looking like he was not expecting trouble…Gervase might give him the benefit of the doubt long enough for Jason to make it to some kind of cover where he wasn’t completely pinned down.
Either way, he could not continue to stand in this doorway, paralyzed by indecision.
No. Call it what it was.
Paralyzed with terror at the idea of being shot.
He had made it all the way to this point—spent how long in that swamp downstairs?—and now he could not get himself to walk out the fucking door. Just thinking of it was turning his breath fluttery and shallow, making him feel light-headed and unsteady.
Because he could not forget how it felt to have a bullet slam into his chest. Could not forget the sound of metal chewing flesh and bone, the smell of gunpowder and blood, could not forget the sight…
He swallowed down the sickness.
He had promised Kennedy he was fine. Promised him that if Kennedy needed him, he would be there to back him up. And now he couldn’t force himself out the door.
Even though he didn’t know for a fact Gervase was there, waiting.
And even though he did know for a fact Kennedy was on his way. Was he going to just stand here and let Kennedy be shot?
Coward. You useless, gutless coward. His eyes stung with the revelation. He wiped them impatiently.
How long had he already wasted standing here?
