The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(100)

The sound in my ears compressed into a roar. I looked at Dwight. "How much time, you sick f**k?"

He cocked his head. "Air consumption is unpredictable when their metabolism slows down. It's a race, really, whether his heart fails from the drugs before the air gives out."

Next to me, Pena made his hands into fists. "You killed her. You drugged Adrienne. You followed us—waited for me to leave. You goddamn—"

Dwight made shhshhshh sounds, the way you would for a restless infant. "Adrienne was getting too close to you, Matthew. She was softening you. I couldn't allow that.

You made too good of a shadow to stand in, allowed me to get away with so much. I couldn't give up all the years I'd cultivated you."

"You pointed Pena toward Techsan," I said. "You made the pact with Ruby, killed her when she started having regrets. It was all"' your idea—you intended to destroy Jimmy."

He rubbed his hand across Maia's belly. "Lopez needs help. I'll tell you what, Maia—there's my equipment. I'll let you go in. Only you."

If it was possible for Maia to look any more tense than she already did, with a gun at her throat, Dwight's comment did the trick.

"It's only about twenty feet there," Dwight told her. "Pitch black. And of course, you'd have to feel around—not knowing when you'll touch human flesh, and if he'll still be alive when you do. What do you say, honey? It would be worth it, letting you save Lopez's life, just to see you face that."

Pena said, "I'll destroy you."

Dwight raised his eyebrows. "Don't lose your only admirable quality now, Matthew.

You've got to be strong. You've got to cut those ties, stand alone. That's what you always wanted. That was why I visited your parents that Christmas. I granted your wish."

Pena was deadly still for half a second, and then, foolishly, he charged. It might have been an opportunity, but before I could even think of using it, Dwight fired.

The bullet caught Pena in the gut. He contracted like he was catching a football, slammed down on his knees.

After the shot, the silence was intense.

"I've learned a lot of lessons from you, Matthew," Dwight told him. "I was hoping to spare you. But it's only right you're here to help me end this."

Matthew hugged his middle, made small sounds of pain.

A sheen of sweat had formed on Dwight's blackened face, but I got the feeling it had nothing to do with the insulation of the wet suit. Dwight Hayes was overheating from the inside.

"You remember, Matthew? How many times we lay awake at night in the dorm room talking, that first semester? Don't you remember when you gave me the idea? You told me about changing your name, how you wished your parents were dead for ignoring you all those years? You were my inspiration."

"No," Pena managed.

There was a wet stain on the wood, blood spreading around his knees.

"Oh, yes, you were," Dwight insisted. "You gave me the courage to live. You gave me a purpose."

I met Maia's eyes, saw what she was thinking. Distract him.

"You're Jimmy's brother," I told him. "Clara and Ewin's son."

Dwight's smile became disdainful. "You don't see the resemblance, Tres? Don't worry—the disk there on the table, I take the blame for it all. When they find your bodies, they'll understand. All the roots will be pulled—all the pieces of my family, Jimmy's family, will be gone. I'm sorry Garrett couldn't be here, but he'll have enough charges against him to destroy him. After tonight, Clara's younger son can rest in peace."

The way he spoke of himself in the third person chilled me even more than his threat.

"Kill him, Tres," Pena moaned. "You have to kill him."

Maia's first finger went down.

I'd have to tackle him. But the way Dwight shot, the speed with which he moved—I was pretty sure Maia and I were both going to die.

Maia's second finger went down.

A floorboard creaked in the main dining room, and a voice grumbled, "Eh! What the f**king gunshot about?"

Armand the biker. I had never been happier to hear a Cajun accent in my life.

Dwight's eyes turned heavylidded. He readjusted the muzzle of his gun against Maia's neck, then turned her, walked her backward toward the railing where he would have a clear view of the doorway. I stepped back, too, slowly, moving around Pena, now crumpled on his side, his breath a faint rattle. The gun Lopez had dropped—the

.380 Raven—was three feet from my boot.

"Eh!" Armand called again, irritably.

"On the deck," Dwight called, his voice completely altered, like a teenager's, feigning fright and surprise. "It's okay, man. We were just screwing around."

Armand appeared in the doorway, the lug nuts in his beard glinting, a sawedoff shotgun in his hands. But the shotgun was down, not ready to fire.

I met Maia's eyes one last time. Her third finger went down. Then things happened quickly.

Dwight said, "Hey, man," and shot over Maia's shoulder, hitting Armand in the chest.

Maia fell sideways out of Dwight's grasp and went into a prone sidekick, slamming her foot into Hayes' rib cage.

She knocked Dwight off balance but he spun as he fell, firing wildly behind him.