“Goddamn, I won’t say it again. Just keep walking or I swear I’ll shoot you.”
“It will alert them that we’re here. Anyway, I’m already dead.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You can shoot me if you want, but I’m already dead.”
He looked at her as if she were the crazy one.
“Cancer,” she said. “Here.” She pointed to her head. “I’ll be gone in a few months. Killing me now will just speed things up. So, who hurt you when you were a kid?”
“What are you, a goddamned psychiatrist?”
“A nun. Or I almost was.” She smiled then. “Do you know what an epiphany is?”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s a realization. For me a spiritual one. I’ve had an epiphany, and I have you to thank.”
“Lewis should have killed you.”
“But he didn’t. And I think I know why.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“You.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think this was meant to be, our meeting.”
“You’re nuts, bitch.”
“No, I think I’m finally clearheaded. I’m going to die and that’s the truth and there’s no why about it that I’m going to understand. You’re going to die, too, and you’ll never understand the why of it either, no more than you can understand the why of the sun coming up. Acceptance. Embrace. Giving over to the Great Mystery without struggle.” Her smiled broadened, but it was not meant for this man. “Giving over completely, that’s the whole point. It makes it all so much easier.”
“I’ve had enough of your bullshit. Go now or you’re dead.” The hollow black eye at the end of his gun barrel stared her in the face.
“I told you,” she said, still smiling. “I’m already dead.”
He stepped forward so that the barrel of his gun was less than a foot from her forehead.
The shot that came next shattered the stillness of the afternoon and sent a covey of grouse flapping noisily up from the meadow grass.
CHAPTER 43
Mathias Paavola began to descend the stairs.
“Hands on the top of your head!” Monte Bonhomme ordered.
Paavola laced his fingers over his scalp.
“Where’s your weapon?” Monte demanded.
“I left it upstairs. I have a permit,” he said.
“Don’t move your hands from your head.”
“I understand.”
“Keep coming.”
Paavola continued slowly down. When he stepped from the last stair, Daniel turned him and patted him down. “Nothing,” he said to Monte, then he used a plastic restraint to secure the man.
“Are you arresting me?” Paavola asked.
“For the moment, just detaining you,” Monte said. “Just to talk. What happens after that depends on you.”
“I want a lawyer.”
“You haven’t been arrested. Not yet, anyway.”
“I got nothing to say.”
“All right, but just in case,” Monte said, then gave him the Miranda warning.
Agent Shirley turned to Irene Paavola. “Why are you hiding here?”
“Matt was afraid my ex-husband was going to kill us.”
