High Noon

arms.
    “Now that’s more like it. I’m going to grab a shirt, so I don’t make the women in the house swoon when I come downstairs.” He set Carly back on her feet. “We’ll be right along.”
    “Okay.” She dashed off, shooting him a dazzling smile as she ran for the stairs.
    “Guess she approves. Now we’ll see what Essie has…What?” Panic streaked across his face as he turned and saw the tears sliding down Phoebe’s. “What’d I do wrong?”
    Her throat was so thick she could only shake her head as she wrapped herself around him, held tight. Tighter. “We got along without you, you know,” she managed. “We got right along. But, God, oh God, things are so much better with you.”
    “Happy crying.” He let out a little breath of relief. “I get that.”
    “Very happy.”
    “That’s good. So…how about that puppy?”

29
    The timing was perfect, and the location—that had come about largely due to luck. Or maybe, he thought, it was fate. It was Angie looking down, guiding hands.
    It would be today.
    A pity, a goddamn pity, pieces of Mc Vee hadn’t flown all over Barnard Street. His slut of a neighbor had intervened there. Bastard had flown some though, he thought with some satisfaction. Oh yeah, the bastard had done a little fucked-up Superman.
    It had taken all the willpower he’d had not to yank out his nine from under the windbreaker and put bullets in the son of a bitch and the neighborhood slut where they lay bleeding on the side of the road.
    But as satisfying as that would’ve been, as right as it would’ve been, it could have cost the rest. And the endgame was in sight.
    Better if Mc Vee died, and there was always the chance of that. Better yet if there was time and opportunity to take out the boyfriend, just for good measure. And it was a damn shame he had to abort the plans to stake out the pansy-assed brother in front of the house where they grew up—with a vestload of explosives.
    Cowards, a couple of dickless cowards is what they were, hiding out in that house, behind the women’s skirts. Not worth his time, Walken told himself, not worth his trouble.
    He continued to load his gear with careful hands.
    They’d be looking for him now. Let them look. In a couple of hours, they’d know just where to find him. And he’d be where he wanted to be, doing what he’d planned to do.
    Before he was done, everyone would know Phoebe Mac Namara had killed an angel, just as sure as the bullet. And when it was over, it would be fucking over.
     
    “He turned in his papers and moved out of his apartment. He had two months left on his lease, left a check to cover it.” At Dave’s bedside, Phoebe went through the checklist. “He had two credit cards at that time. Neither have shown any activity in these three years. He’s contacted no one, not his best friend, nor his former commanding officer. He had a checking account, and a savings account totaling six thousand and change, and a safety deposit box. He cleaned everything out on the same day he quit the department. There was an oh-one Chevy pickup registered to him. He sold it, for eight thousand cash, to a Derrick Means, in the same apartment building. We’re checking that out, but don’t expect it to go anywhere. Also registered to him were a nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson and a thirty-two Remington semi. His friend knew him to own a hunting rifle, with scope, a thirty-thirty, and a twenty-two pistol which had been his father’s.”
    “Likes guns.”
    “Yes, he does. He’s a trained sniper, and had training in explosives during his time in the army. He also worked with our own bomb squad before he requested and received the transfer to SWAT. He’s somewhere in or around Savannah, but as far as we know, you’re the only one who’s seen him.”
    She lifted her hands. “I don’t know what to do. I negotiate, I don’t investigate.”
    “A puzzle’s a puzzle, Phoebe. It’s all pieces.”
    “I have some of them. He blames me for Angela Brentine’s death, maybe because there isn’t anyone else to blame. He was on the team that day, Dave. He was on the incident where she died. His scope trained on the bank, waiting for the go. We didn’t know the names of the hostages, or the injured. He didn’t know she was in there, dead or dying, while he waited outside, while all those hours passed.”
    “Ineffective. Impotent.” Dave nodded, then closed his eyes as the slight movement stirred pain in the base of his