The Last Word (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

know to remove the safety before firing and that Rawlings could take him down in a matter of seconds if someone could neutralize the threat posed by Cora.
    Olivia was too far from the armed woman to be of any use. Her only option was to throw something at her, but Harris didn’t have a heavy bookend or paperweight or glass vase handy. His table surfaces were knickknack free, and Olivia doubted Cora would stand passively by as Olivia unplugged a lamp to use as a missile.
    Once again, time seemed to slow, the seconds extending and lengthening until Olivia had the sensation of being underwater. Sounds grew muted. The insect murmur died away, and even Haviland’s barking inside the car faded. And then, noise exploded like the roar of a hurricane gale.
    It began with Boyd shouting a warning to his wife that he’d spotted a cop outside the window. Rawlings tried to keep Cora calm by assuring her that the officers were the same pair sent to watch the house. He hastily explained that his men must have realized something was amiss and that she and Boyd would be better off setting the civilians free and accepting him as their sole hostage.
    “This is only going to escalate if you involve anyone else in this room,” Rawlings told her, sounding more like a nagging aunt than the chief of police.
    Cora’s eyes were charged with a frenzied light. They were open so wide that the whites showed, giving her the appearance of a spooked horse.
    Without warning, she lurched forward, intent on grabbing hold of Millay, but Harris put out his hand to stop her, as though his long elegant fingers could stop a bullet.
    His abrupt movement caused Cora to jerk, and she pulled back on the trigger. At the same time a woman, Laurel or Millay, Olivia couldn’t tell which, cried out with a shrill “NOOOOO!” The desperate scream sounded like a cave echo, distorted and too loud in the murky, underwater world that had once been Harris’s living room.
    What freed her inert limbs was the impact of the bullet hitting Harris. She only saw it from behind—the shiver of the muscles in his back as the metal seared into them. And then, a fraction of a second later, the forward fold of his shoulders; an innate, defensive gesture by his shocked and wounded body.
    Another scream. Harris tottered and his knees began to buckle.
    Olivia moved. She grabbed his left arm and fell with him, inviting his weight to come down hard on her, cushioning his limp form with her flesh.
    Cradling his head in her arms, she squirmed out from under him and saw the blood blooming through his gray T-shirt like a poppy opening its petals to the sun. A cacophony of sound erupted above her head, but she took no notice.
    Part of her mind registered the fact that the other officers had entered the house. Multiple voices exchanged shouts and threats. A woman shrieked. There was a crash of glass shattering against the tiles in the kitchen.
    For Olivia, there was only the blood and Harris’s slack, ashen face. She didn’t remember stripping off her shirt, but there it was in her hand, pressed against the wound in Harris’s chest. The bullet had entered below the ridge of his collarbone and Olivia had no idea what damage it had done. All she knew was that there was too much blood pumping from his body, a spring of fresh crimson staining her pale blue shirt a deep and frightening indigo.
    At some point, she couldn’t say how long, a pair of gloved hands eased her own away from her friend’s chest. A soothing voice complimented her actions and then she was separated from Harris. Two paramedics, a bag of medical equipment, a breathing mask, and a gurney appeared. Olivia looked down at her red hands as though they belonged to another person.
    Laurel coaxed her into the kitchen. She filled the sink with warm water and soap and used a dishtowel to scrub Olivia’s hands. She did not speak but cried softly as she washed her friend’s fingers and palms with infinite tenderness and then dried them with paper towels, her tears speckling the countertop.
    Olivia gazed from her pink, clean hands to the freckled skin of her chest. She touched her bare flesh to the right of her bra strap, seeing the hole in Harris’s chest. Laurel left the room and came back moments later with one of his T-shirts. Olivia slipped it on, and the two women stared at his company logo until the thud of the ambulance doors closing startled them into movement.
    Outside, the dark yard was awash in flashing lights.