Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(73)

“He’s gonna kill us!” Sheriff Corker said. “I told you about what he’s got in there.”

The sheriff had wrapped himself into a ball on the ground.

“Shoot back, dammit!” I yelled at him. “Get off the ground and shoot back!”

I hadn’t expected to get into a protracted firefight, so I only had one clip of ammunition containing ten rounds. I’d fired three shots.

“Never mind,” I said to the sheriff. “Give me your gun belt.”

He looked at me and shook his head. Something came over him at that moment, as though he would forever think of himself as less than a man if he gave me the Pythons. He pulled one of the pistols out and squeezed three shots off at the trailer. I was relieved to have the help. I fired two more, but we were so overmatched in firepower that I didn’t think it was going to matter.

The shooting stopped for a minute, which concerned me because I didn’t know what Roby was up to in there.

“We can’t stay here,” I said to the sheriff. “If he’s got a grenade launcher, he’ll blow us up. Even if he doesn’t, he’s eventually going to come out of the trailer and work his way around until he can pick us off from a distance.”

I was wrong about the grenade launcher, but at that moment, the door to the trailer opened and a scene straight out of Rambo unfolded. Roby walked out with his machine gun and a long belt of ammunition wrapped around his arm.

“Oh no,” I said. “We have to split up. I’m gone. Kill him if he comes after me.”

I got up and started running for the tree line.

I heard Roby yell, “I’ll be back for you directly!” and then the machine gun opened up.

The sound was deafening, and dirt began to fly up near my feet. The rounds tore through the trees, shredding the smaller ones. The bullets were closing in on me as I ran with everything I had through a small stand of trees and over a small hill. When I cleared the hill, the shooting stopped. I glanced to my right and saw what looked like a garbage dump just a few yards away. I ran to the dump and dove behind a berm of dirt. I pointed the pistol in the direction I thought he would be coming from and waited.

Less than ten seconds later, I saw him. He was more than thirty yards away, a little too far for a confident shot with the pistol. I needed him to get closer. He was walking slowly now, his eyes scanning the property. The front of his T-shirt was covered in blood, and his left arm appeared to be dangling. He disappeared behind a small rise, and I raised my head just a bit. When I did, he saw me, and he turned straight for me. I fired two more shots, but he opened up immediately with the machine gun, and the withering fire drove me into the dirt. If I could have, I would have started tunneling like a mole. But all I could do was duck my head and hope maybe he ran out of ammo or the gun would jam. When he was almost on top of me, I said goodbye to Claire and wondered whether I’d be seeing Grace, my little girl, and my mother soon. I wondered whether the sheriff was running away or whether Roby would kill him as soon as he was finished with me.

And then, just like that, the shooting stopped.

I looked over the berm and raised my pistol, expecting to see Roby trying to unjam his weapon, but he wasn’t there. I looked around and saw nothing. The only sound now was the wind and my own heavy breathing. I raised up higher, and I saw him, lying on his face. I stood and walked slowly over to him, pointing my gun at the back of his bald head. The machine gun was on the ground by his right arm, the barrel steaming in the cold air. As I got close, I noticed a hole in the center of the back of his head. I reached down and felt for a pulse. He wasn’t breathing. I tossed the machine gun to the side, rolled him over, and was confronted with a gruesome scene. Roby’s forehead, along with his nose, and part of his left cheek, had been blown away.

Roby Penn, probably the most feared man in Knox County, was dead. The question was, who had killed him? Had Sheriff Corker run up behind him and put a bullet in his brain and then run away? That didn’t make any sense.

I began hurrying back toward Roby’s trailer, hoping I wouldn’t find the sheriff shot full of holes. About halfway back, I heard an engine start. I sprinted up a hill and saw a Jeep pull slowly out of a stand of trees, drive through a field in the direction of the road, and then disappear into another stand of trees.

The Jeep looked exactly like the one owned by Eugene Tipton.





CHAPTER 42

I found Sheriff Corker walking in my direction before I got back to Roby’s trailer. He was dirty from lying on the ground behind his patrol car but didn’t look too much worse for the wear.

“Did you kill him?” the sheriff said.

“No, but he’s dead. Somebody else killed him.”

“Who?”

“I didn’t see him, but I think it was an old friend.”

“So somebody else knew you were going to be out here this morning?”

“I told somebody last night, and that somebody must have told somebody else.”

I had no doubt that after my conversation with Claire, she had called Granny Tipton. Eugene was probably in the woods at Roby’s place within hours after that phone call.

“I shot him, you know,” the sheriff said. “Just so you don’t think I’m a coward. When he was getting a bead on you with that machine gun, I put a round into him. I think it hit him in the left shoulder. Didn’t stop him, but it bought you some time.”