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“Regardless of your motivation and regardless of the type of person Robert Shapiro was, you’re still going to jail.”
“I’m aware.”
Cassie wondered if David felt as frustrated as she did. She wasn’t sure what kind of person she had built McLaughlin up to be, but it didn’t match the man in front of her. She knew McLaughlin had killed a serial killer and not a random innocent person. But taking a life was still significant. Soldiers did it out of a sense of duty and morality, and yet many of them struggled with their decisions daily.
McLaughlin didn’t look proud. He didn’t look remorseful either, but he wasn’t bragging or begging for his life. He looked weak and exhausted. His body, which must’ve once been muscular, now looked soft. His cheeks were gaunt. His eyes sunken.
“You’re sick.” The constant stench of cigarette smoke made so much more sense now to Cassie. “Lung cancer?”
“How did you know that?” McLaughlin looked confused.
Cassie shrugged. “Secret weapon, remember?”
“That’s why you did it now.” David nodded in realization. “You had nothing to lose.”
“Only had a couple months left anyway. Maybe longer, if I was lucky. But no matter what I did, I wouldn’t see a full sentence.”
“Then why run?” Cassie asked.
“I guess I just wanted to live out my last days as a free man.”
“You could’ve turned your evidence over to us.” David’s pleading tone surprised Cassie. “With the amount of overwhelming evidence you had, we would’ve nailed Shapiro to the wall.”
“Shapiro killed twelve people in a brutal, horrific manner.” McLaughlin’s eyes once again flashed with anger, but the heat dulled quickly. Cassie noticed his grip on the gun loosen. “He didn’t deserve to live out the rest of his days in a cell, with three meals a day. He deserved to feel the pain he had inflicted on others. And I made sure he did.”
“You don’t get to make that call, Noah,” David said.
McLaughlin shifted and his gun clattered to the floor. He looked down at it but didn’t bother retrieving it. “I’m not supposed to make that call, but I did anyway. And I don’t regret it. Not in the least.”
“They’ll use that against you.”
“It’s already too late for me.”
“Your cause was righteous if misguided, but—”
Cassie placed a hand on David’s shoulder. “That’s not what he meant.”
It had taken her a moment to understand what she was seeing. His weakness, his frailty. The burst of energy that had left him exhausted. His apathetic resignation. He wasn’t planning on making it out of this church, and considering his gun now lay on the floor, Cassie didn’t think he was trying to go out like that.
McLaughlin must’ve seen her looking at it.
“I thought about doing it that way. Gun in the mouth, pull the trigger. It would’ve been fast. Painless. But violent. And I wanted to do it here, in a church. I’m not even that religious. But it felt right to come here, you know? I wanted to say goodbye to my sister. I don’t think I’ll be going where she’s currently residing.”
“Noah.” David stood now but didn’t approach McLaughlin. “What did you do?”
“Secobarbital.” Noah’s body slumped a little in the pew. He didn’t right himself. “Did you know doctors used to prescribe it as a sleeping pill? Then they figured out they could use it in assisted suicide.”
Cassie brought her hands to her mouth. “My God.”
“How much did you take?” David had crossed the aisle and now had one hand under Noah’s arm. He kicked the gun away. “When did you take it?”
“I took enough.” His breathing was a little shallower now. “About twenty minutes ago.”
“Why?” Cassie already knew the answer, but it was hard not to ask the question. She’d been around death more than she cared to admit, and yet she still had trouble comprehending it. Like looking at Shapiro’s body in the morgue, it felt too wrong not to question whether this was real.
McLaughlin shrugged a shoulder. His eyes were heavy now. “It was either die today or die a couple months from now. Die painlessly or die when I coughed up half my lung. I decided I’d rather die here and now.”
“For what it’s worth,” David whispered, “I would’ve done the same thing.”
