Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

front door, going around the right side of the building. I hang back, out of sight, and watch him disappear. I wait until I see a light in the window and then walk along the tree line toward the rear.
    I reach the deck. I see Armitage through the French doors. He’s disheveled and pacing his office. He looks panicked and scared, his hands going repeatedly to his head and clenching his hair as if he’s going to pull it out. After a several minutes of that, he goes to his desk, collapses into the chair, and puts his face in his hands.
    Holding my .38 at the ready, I step onto the deck. My feet are silent as I sidle to the French doors, one of which stands open a few inches. Four feet away, Armitage sits at his desk with his back to me, his phone to his ear. I wonder who he’s calling and why. I ease open the door. The hinge creaks. Armitage jumps to his feet, spins to face me, makes a sound like the growl of some startled animal. The phone falls to the floor at his feet.
    I step inside, level the .38, center mass. “Get your hands up. Get them up now !”
    He blinks at me as if emerging from a fugue. His face goes corpse white. His mouth opens, his jaws working, but he doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t obey my command.
    “Get your hands up or I will shoot you!” I shout. “Get them up! Get on your knees! Now !”
    His hands fly up. His eyes go wild. I see the fight or flight instinct kick in and I know he’s not going to go down easy.
    “On your knees!” I shout. “Get your hands behind your head! Do it now or I will put a bullet in you!”
    My pulse skitters wildly, a high-octane mix of adrenaline and rage and fear that’s powerful enough to make me shake. But my gun arm is steady, my finger snug against the trigger. I have no compunction about using deadly force if I have to.
    “This is not my fault!” he chokes out as he lowers himself to his knees.
    “Get on the floor, you sick fuck. Facedown.”
    He goes to his hands and knees and then lays flat. “I tried to get to you. After the vehicle went into the water. I tried, but it went down too fast.”
    I glance down at his feet. His slacks are wet only to his knees. His shoes are covered with mud. “I guess that’s why your clothes are wet,” I say nastily.
    “I swear! I—”
    “Put your hands behind your back.”
    He obeys, keeping his head turned toward me. “I didn’t want to do this. I’m no killer.”
    Blocking his voice lest I lose control and ram my fist into his face, I pull the handcuffs from the compartment on my belt and walk toward him. “Do not fucking move or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in your heart. Do you understand?” I kneel and set my knee in the small of his back. Holding my gun with my right hand, I snap the cuffs onto his wrists with my left and crank them down tight.
    “You son of a bitch.” Relief is a sigh against my nerves as I holster the .38. Rising, I look around for a phone, spot the wireless on the floor. Keeping an eye on him, I snatch it up and dial the station. Mona answers on the first ring. “Painters Mill PD!”
    I identify myself and tell her, “Ten twenty-six.”
    “Chief! My God, I’ve been trying to get you on the radio for an hour. T.J.’s looking—”
    “I’m at the Hope Clinic. Tell T.J. to get out here as fast as he can.”
    “Roger that.” In the stunned silence that follows, I hear the click of computer keys. “He’s seven minutes out.”
    “Ten thirty-nine.”
    “Ten four.”
    I toss the phone onto the desk and look at Armitage. I feel like kicking him after what he did to me. He’s watching me, his expression telling me he might try to talk his way out of this, so I put my temper aside and recite to him his Miranda rights. “Do you understand those rights?”
    He nods, then sighs, puts his forehead against the floor as if he’s considering pounding it against the wood. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
    “What way is that?”
    “No one was supposed to get hurt.”
    I hear my molars grinding. “What the hell did you expect when you rammed that buggy with your truck?”
    “It wasn’t like that. It was an accident. I was frightened. I hit my head and I suspect I was in shock. I panicked.”
    “You killed an Amish man and two children. You devastated a family.”
    He chokes out a sound of indefinable emotion. “I know what happened. Like I told you, it was an accident. Once I came to and realized what had happened, I felt … it was the worst