Free Last Shot (2006) by Gregg - Rackley 04 Hurwitz

the wheel, slamming the door a little too hard. The dash clock showed 2:03 A.M., and it was ten minutes slow.
    A long night, and they'd wound up with three words. Three words that could mean a lot of things but were cause enough for Walker Jameson to kill Boss Hahn and break out of prison.
    And were likely cause enough for him to do more than that.

    Chapter 12
    The run-down community within earshot of freeway traffic showed off couches, carports, and rusted truck bodies languishing on dirt lawns. The street was 3:38 A.M. quiet. Walker pulled over his Accord, shut the door soundlessly, and prowled.
    Shadows, shrubs, tree trunks--even the pit bulls didn't pick him up. A light through a particular kitchen window caught his interest. He crept close, on his toes, peering. An open refrigerator door cast a golden glow across the sleep-puffy face of a slim brunette in her mid-thirties. Attractive features starting to wear down from work and worry. A pert mouth showing the pull of gravity at the edges. Shoulder-length hair cut in no particular style and parted in the middle. Her body, visible beneath a too-long L.A. Clippers T-shirt, still looked fit. Firm in the chest, pinched at the waist when the fabric shifted. Wide, flat feet, nails covered with chipped pink paint.
    She returned the water pitcher to the refrigerator shelf and shuffled back down the hall with her glass. His steps muffled by the barren flower beds, he mirrored her movement outside, picking her up in her room through a seam in the blinds. Converted den, fold-out couch. She eased back beneath the sheets, took a final sip, and set the glass on her bed-stand. He followed the movement of her torso in the faint blue glow of the night-light. After a few minutes, her breathing grew deep and steady.
    Walker withdrew silently, circled to the back of the house, and found a sliding glass door with a broken latch. He moved down the dark hall as if floating--not a creak beneath his boots. The doorknob turned soundlessly. Five well-placed steps and he was bedside. He inched the top sheet back, exposing a bare shoulder, and took in the swirl of brown hair on the pillow.
    He stood over her sleeping form, the cool metal of the Redhawk pressed to the small of his suddenly sweating back.

    Chapter 13
    Boston bounded past Tim over the porch, leapt through the truck's open passenger door, and Bear pulled out from the curb with a wave. Tim entered the house quietly. Dray was out cold on their bed, paperback butterflied on her chest.
    She stirred, grinding a hand into her eye. "Your son requests your presence."
    Tim checked his watch. "He's not down?"
    "Is he ever? He doesn't fall asleep for good until he sees you. We know this."
    Tim crossed the hall and saw Tyler's head poke up over the padded guardrail of his bed. Snowball, the aptly named hamster, snoozed on his exercise wheel. Habitually lazy, Snowball had never evolved into the playmate they'd hoped for; he'd just evolved into a larger hamster.
    "Fuff pillow."
    "It's fuffed. You want me to fluff it again?"
    A solemn nod. Tim tapped the pillow on either side then kissed the outsize head. "Sleep tight."
    "Elmo funny."
    "I love you."
    "I want a dog."
    Then Tyler was asleep.
    Tim sat on the glider rocker and watched him. Most parents he knew remarked that their children looked like angels when they slept. Not Tyler. His chin inexplicably weakened and his lips pressed out like a duck's bill. He wound himself in the sheets, contorted like a head case fighting a straitjacket. Sweat matted his fine blond hair. His head felt to be two hundred degrees--it had taken Tim and Dray months to figure out that he wasn't running a nightly fever, that he just slept hot.
    From the time Tyler was a baby, Dray had dealt with him directly and easily--"Sorry, pal, the breastaurant's closed." Tim had been largely responsible for Ginny during her first three weeks of life when post-C-section complications had kept Dray bedbound; from the gates, his