Finlay Donovan Is Killing It(Finlay Donovan #1)(94)

I stared down at my fist where it braced the ground. At the gritty soil dusting the top of my hand. I glanced up at Andrei through the blowing strands of hair that had come loose from my ponytail. The wind carried exhaust from his tailpipes over the hole. I watched as Andrei blew out the last of his smoke, angling his head so the breeze wouldn’t throw it back in his face.

I blew my first traffic stop when some punk dumped his ashtray in my face.

I eased my hand from Vero’s, sinking it into the soil. My fists closed around two dry handfuls of dirt, crushing them to a fine grit between my fingers. Andrei’s shoulders shook with silent laughter, his head shaking as if he couldn’t believe his luck as he turned back to face us.

“I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s make this quick.”

I threw my hands up, tossing them high. Grit swirled in the wind and sprayed across his face. He cried out, swatting violently at his eyes. The light from the headlamps glinted off his gun as he fought to scrape away the dirt with both hands. I waited for him to drop it, prepared to take his weapon and run, but he only held it tighter, the gun thrashing aimlessly while he shouted and swore at us. I ducked as it fired, the muffled shot scattering dirt beside my knees.

A silencer. He was using a silencer. No one would hear the shots. No one would come to save us.

Heart pounding, I grabbed Vero’s hand, dragging her alongside me as I scurried for cover behind Ramón’s car.

Andrei hollered, shrieking in pain, his boots stomping wildly against the ground as he dug at his eyes. Another shot. Vero and I huddled close behind the bumper, our hands pressed to our mouths, our arms wrapped tightly around each other. Another bullet pinged close to the hood. With a yelp, we scrambled to the far side of the car and crouched behind the back wheel, clutching each other’s hands as Andrei flailed and screamed at us.

If we could make it into the car, maybe we could escape.

I reached over Vero for the passenger-door handle. Another shot rang out. I ducked, throwing my arms around Vero instead. A heavy thump came from the direction of the hole.

Then silence.

We pressed against the side of the car, waiting for him to fire another.

But the shooting had stopped.

The only sound was the soft hum of Andrei’s idling engine. The wind rustled the cedars behind us. Shaky breaths steamed from our lips. Neither of us dared to move.

After a long moment, I peered around the hood of the car. Exhaust from his tailpipes blew over the hole. Andrei’s legs sprawled on the dirt at the edge of it. The rest of him disappeared inside of it, as if he’d fallen in.

Vero clutched the back of my hoodie, hugging me like a shadow as I crept cautiously toward his body. Andrei’s gun glimmered, limp in his hand. I lowered myself into the hole, towing Vero behind me, trying not to think about the sticky dampness soaking through the thin knees of my yoga pants as I crawled toward him. As we inched closer, we both flinched. Andrei’s face had been blown clean away, a dark puddle fanning out from what was left of his head.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, fighting the urge to be sick. “He shot himself.”

“On purpose?” Vero sputtered.

I blinked down at the gun in his hand. He’d been waving it around like a lunatic, thrashing and clawing at his eyes between his blind shots in our direction.

It hurt so bad, I couldn’t think straight … I was lucky I didn’t kill myself.

“I don’t think so. I think it was an accident.”

“What do we do now?”

The pile of bodies Andrei had buried loomed in the shadow of the hole. On top of them, the cherry of his abandoned cigarette dimmed and burned out.

“Turn off his car,” I heard myself say as I patted his pockets, fishing out his wallet and stuffing it inside my coat. “Don’t leave any fingerprints.”

Vero scrambled out of the hole and ran to Andrei’s car. The field went dark as she killed the engine. I took a moment to think. To breathe. To process what I knew, as my eyes adjusted to the moonlight.

The police were going to dig up this field in the next twenty-four hours.

They would find all of Andrei’s victims inside it. Harris, too.

Nick had already assumed Feliks was connected to Harris’s death. As far as they knew, Harris was just one more body.

“We’re going to leave Harris here,” I said, infusing the words with as much confidence as I could muster.

“Leave him?” she whispered, as if she were afraid he might hear us. “We can’t leave him!”

“If we take him, the police will only keep looking for him.”

“But if they find him with Andrei and all the others—”

“They’ll probably assume the mob killed them all.” It was a gamble, but moving Harris seemed far riskier. “Help me put Andrei with the others.” I grabbed his corpse under the arms, Vero grabbed his boots, and with a grunt, we lowered the rest of him into the hole. When the police came tomorrow and found a mass grave, they would find his freshly smoked cigarette and his gun. It would look like someone—probably Feliks—had met Andrei here, watched him bury the bodies, then executed him and dumped him with his victims, ridding his organization of the sloppy enforcer who kept thrusting his dirty business in the public eye.

Nick wouldn’t be here to take credit for the bust, but he would get the satisfaction of knowing he’d solved the case that finally put Feliks Zhirov behind bars. Patricia and Irina would be free of their husbands, Patricia and Aaron could come out of hiding, and Vero and I could get on with our lives.