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And he was using every one of those senses now plus his brain, all the while keeping his amygdala at bay, because he didn’t need it, at least not right now.
He moved forward in a crouch, his breathing slow and even, his heart beating around sixty pops a minute, his brain as focused as it was possible for human gray matter to be.
Devine knew very little of the interior setup of the funeral home. He’d seen the front reception area, the chapel on the video, Guillaume’s office, and the room they had used to show him Jenny’s and Earl Palmer’s bodies, plus the embalming space. But that left a lot that was completely unknown to him. And unknown terrain was always a problem. But there was no alternative, at least that Devine knew of.
The muzzle of his gun poked into the first room on the right. He flicked on the light. It was empty. So were the next three spaces behind doors. He turned right and one of his senses picked up something. A foul odor. Not so unlikely in a funeral home, but there was something about this one that was giving him pause.
Next, he heard a groan. It was male, guttural and prolonged. Devine had heard such sounds before. They all had the same cause: pain, and closer to life-threatening than not.
He edged forward and eyed the closed door. The moan came again. On the floor he saw the source of the foul odor. A pool of vomit was next to the door. And mixed with it was blood.
He eyed the pool of sick and the blood and tried to calculate how much blood had actually been lost. From the sounds of the groan it was more than a little.
He stood to one side and slowly reached out and touched the doorknob. He turned it quickly and then pulled his hand away, right before multiple bullets tore through the wood.
The voice screamed, “I will fucking kill you. Just give me the chance, you little prick.”
Devine didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew who it was anyway.
CHAPTER
80
ITHINK YOU HAVE THE WRONGprick in mind,” Devine called through the wood.
There was no reply for a count of five. Then—
“Shit. Travis Devine, is that you?”
“Yes, it is, Mr. Bing. You don’t sound very good.”
He grunted in pain. “That’s because I took one in the belly and I’m bleeding to death. Threw up and shit my pants.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Yeah, stand in the doorway so I can blow your ass away.”
“How about I call an ambulance instead?”
“So I can spend the rest of my life in prison? No thanks.”
Devine pulled out his phone, moved through some screens, and then set the phone on the floor against the wall.
“Your niece is dead. Somebody strangled her and threw her off a bluff. That would have been you?”
“Poor little thing. What a way to go.” There was mirth, not sadness, behind his words.
“Fred drove here in his Jeep. You got here in your niece’s Bimmer. Your rental is still at the house. I guess you didn’t want any of her trace in your vehicle. And you killed Jenny and tried to kill me. But your nephew tried to kill Dak.”
“How do you know Freddy tried to kill Dak, Sherlock?”
“You went to sniper school. He screwed the shot on Dak even though it would have been a piece of cake to a shooter who knew what they were doing. And you had no reason to kill Dak. What did you care if Dak was selling out and Alex might leave here? But your nephew cared. And I was the one who told him about Dak’s plan to sell Jocelyn Point.”
“Freddy had it really bad for gorgeous Alex, like she’d look at him twice.”
“He tried to appear helpful and friendly to me, but he also tried to subtly convince me thatyouwere the one interested in Alex.”
“Hell, I wouldn’t have minded getting in her pants, too.”
