Bull Mountain(81)

“I’m at a crossroads here, Agent Holly.”

“I’m not an agent anymore.”

“Right, you’re just Simon now. The Bureau fired your ass. Too many questions that couldn’t be answered is the way I heard it.”

“Something like that.”

“Nobody ever asked me. I could have answered all their questions. I could have spelled out what a murdering piece of shit you are for anyone that wanted to know, but nobody really wanted to know anything. They just wanted you to disappear before you embarrassed them any more. That’s what you are now, Simon. An embarrassment. I could have told them how you lied and manipulated everyone you came into contact with so you wouldn’t have to pull the trigger on your own blood yourself.”

“Well, then why didn’t you?”

“Two reasons,” Kate said, and stood up. She held the gun loosely but kept it trained on Simon. “One,” she said, “I once told you if you pulled Clayton down a rabbit hole he couldn’t get out of, I’d kill you myself. I meant it. Michael even gave me this gun.” She paused when she saw that the name wasn’t striking a bell with Simon. “Scabby Mike,” she said. “Michael Cummings is his Christian name. He assured me I could put every one of these fifteen rounds through your miserable black heart and not one of them would lead back to me.”

Simon smirked at her. “You can’t kill me, Kate. I might be down right now, but I still have friends on the force that—”

“Friends?” Kate said, cutting him off. “Friends like who? Like your ex-partner, Jessup? Like the guy you f*cked over and made an accomplice to all this? How do you think we found you, Simon? Your own people gave us a list of addresses. You think any of the people you manipulated into helping you want any of that shitstorm to get out in court? You’re circling the drain, and your friends aren’t looking to go down with you.”

“Bullshit,” Holly said.

“Look at me, Simon. Do I look like a liar to you? You’re a master at it, you should be able to tell.”

Simon chewed his lip, and Kate drove it home. “Yeah, Simon. Everyone who has ever met you wishes someone would make you disappear.”

“Yet, here I am,” he said. “Still standing. The only one standing. It’s been what? Three months? And nobody has the balls to kill me.”

“Is that what you think? That no one has the balls? Here’s the news, Simon. No one has shown up here to kill you out of respect for me. What you did, you did to me. Not one of the men on that mountain was going to rob me of the chance to settle this myself. You’re not the last one standing . . . I am.” She pointed the gun at his face.

“You think I’m supposed to be scared of you, Kate? I took down Bull Mountain. Me. I did what no one else could do for damn near seven decades, and I did it by myself. So if you’re gonna do it, then get on with it, but don’t think for a second I’m going to be scared of some poor little hillbilly girl with a gun.”

Kate laughed.

“What’s so goddamn funny?”

“You sound just like him,” she said. “Hell, seeing you here, like this, you look just like him. I wish to God I could’ve seen it before.”

“Like who, Kate?” The pills were kicking in, and Simon was beginning to feel like his cocky self. He licked his teeth. “Who do I look like? Your drunk of a husband? Is that why you can’t kill me?”

The muscles in Kate’s face tightened and she aimed the gun directly between his eyes. This time Simon took a step back.

“No, you son of a bitch. You’re nothing like Clayton. You look just like your father. For all your wanting to twist Clayton into what you imagined him to be, he’s nothing like that psychotic old bastard, but you? You’re the protégé he always wanted. You fought so hard to punish him and everyone else for a wrong he did you and your poor mother, and now look at you. You’re the one most like him. He’s the one you made proud, not Marion.”

Simon looked surprised at the mention of his mother’s name. Kate noticed and smiled. “Oh, your boy Jessup? He gave me a whole box of poor Marion’s journals. They belong to me now. I assume that’s what got you started on this vendetta in the first place, right?” She didn’t let up and kept going. “You’re a joke. I guess that’s the one difference between you and the man that sired you. People on that mountain respected your father, God knows why, but they did. They still talk about him. But you? No one will ever respect what you did. No one will talk about you. You’re no better than Halford or any of the people you claim did you an injustice. You’re exactly the same. And it looks like you’ll end up the same as they did without any help from me.”

She lowered the gun, but Simon stayed planted against the counter. They stood there in silence for a long time.

“You said there were two reasons you never talked to the feds,” Simon finally said.

Kate was tired, it was showing on her face, but she reached down with her free hand and smoothed the front of her baggy sweater over the small bump of her belly. She held the sweater tight for Simon to figure it out. It didn’t take him long.

“You’re pregnant,” he said. It was more a statement than a question. Kate put both hands back on the gun.

“I wanted to tell you myself,” she said. “I needed to see your face. For all your plans and years of preparation to end the Burroughs bloodline, it was all for nothing. You failed. Clayton would have found out about his son the day you set him up to die. You took that from him. From me. But you’re done taking things, Simon.” She raised the gun again. “So that brings me to the crossroads I mentioned. Do I kill you? Right here, right now, and be done with it? Do I infect myself with the same sickness you brought into my home, or can I be content letting you rot away in a federal prison, or watching you kill yourself in a hole like this one, one pill at a time?”