Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

feeling I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
    “I guess that’s why you stopped to render aid while that man and two innocent children were lying on the shoulder dying. That’s why you called nine one one. And that must be the reason why you tried to kill me tonight. Because it was an accident , right? Because you care ?”
    He shakes his head as if disbelieving I could be so callous. “You don’t understand.”
    “I don’t want to understand.” Disgusted, I glance toward the hall, watching for the flash of police lights through the front window. “Is that your truck I found in the barn?”
    The look he gives me is so cold, so devoid of anything human, that I feel the hairs on my arms prickle. “I’m not going to answer any more questions until I have an attorney.”
    “That’s your right.” I force a smile that feels like broken glass on my face. “You know we’ve got you dead to rights, don’t you? No matter what you say or do, you’re going down.”
    Closing his eyes, he sets his forehead against the floor.
    Movement outside the French doors draws my attention. I glance over, expecting T.J., wondering why he’s come around the rear. Shock jolts me when I discern the slender figure in the black dress and apron. The pale face and white kapp. I catch a glimpse of the shotgun an instant before the blast shatters the door.
    Glass and fragments of wood pelt me. I drop to a crouch, but not before something hot tears through my right hand, knocking the .38 from my grasp. I watch in horror as the weapon clatters away. I start to retrieve it, but shock freezes me in place when Mattie steps through the destroyed French door, a shotgun in her hands, the muzzle leveled at me.
    The room falls silent. Papers from Armitage’s desk flutter down. Pain thrums in my hand and shoots like a hot wire to my elbow. I glance down to see blood dripping on the floor next to my foot. A sliver of wood the size of my thumb sticks out of the top of my hand and through the palm.
    My .38 lies on the floor to my right four feet away. “Mattie.” My voice is so low and rough I barely recognize it. “What are you doing?”
    Her expression chills me. There’s no shock. No emotion. Her demeanor is calm, her eyes filled with purpose and deadly intent. Armitage wriggles toward the gun, uses his foot to slide it closer to him. “Give me the key to these handcuffs, Burkholder.”
    I can’t tear my eyes away from Mattie; I can’t make sense of her being here. Disbelief is a bullwhip snapping at my back, laughing at me, flaying my flesh, drawing blood, slicing me open so that some vital part of me pours onto the floor like entrails.
    “Mattie,” I say, “put the gun down.”
    “Shoot her,” Armitage says. “Kill her. Do it!”
    “For God’s sake, don’t.” I look at him, motion toward Mattie with my eyes. “Backup is on the way. Stop this or you’re going to get her killed.”
    “The key.” His lips peel back in an animalistic snarl, and for an instant he looks as if he’s going to pounce and tear me to shreds with his teeth. “Give it to me. Now.”
    I turn my attention to Mattie, try to break through the shell of whatever she’s surrounded herself with to get to the warm and caring person beneath. The woman I’ve known for half of my life. The girl I’d once loved more than my own sister.
    “Mattie,” I whisper. “Honey, don’t do this. Think about David. He’ll be alone without you. Please. He needs you.”
    She looks at me, but her eyes skim over me as if I’m not there. “David doesn’t matter anymore.”
    Something sick and ugly moves through me. “What do you mean?” I ask.
    “He saw us.”
    “Saw what?”
    “He’s the only one who knew,” she tells me. “He was going to ruin everything.”
    “What did you do?” Panic and urgency and cold, hard fear echo in my voice. “Mattie, for God’s sake what did you do? Where’s David?”
    My words have no effect. When she looks at me, her eyes are devoid of everything that had once made her a human being, a mother capable of love and compassion. Her mind has fractured and something evil has crawled out of the crevice. I’m no longer her friend, but an impediment to her goal. And I know that no matter what I say or do, this is going to end badly. It’s only a question of who will die and at whose hand.
    The shotgun is an old break-action, double barrel, probably handed down to her from her father. A deadly weapon to be sure. But there’s