Free Gundown by Ray Rhamey Page A

years old, wearing her favorite flowery party dress, her black curls shining and her brown eyes alight. Her silver butterfly necklace hung draped over a corner of the frame by its delicate chain. She’d been wearing it the day she—the day she—
    He turned his back . . . then he pivoted, gathered the necklace, and slipped it into a pants pocket. Outside the window, sailboats scudding across Lake Michigan caught his eye. His focus shifted north, to where the cemetery was. Dr. Kensington said Hank’s inability to remember Amy came from denying what had happened to the two people who lay at rest in that graveyard.
    But he was wrong. Hank knew what had happened because he’d read the report—it had been a righteous shooting. He didn’t need to remember the actual event. He was done with it. He knew his failure.
    When he drove out of the parking garage, he turned north instead of heading for O’Hare Airport.
    At the cemetery, the two flat granite plaques lay side by side, surrounded by lawn. A surge of spring air jostled a dandelion plant that had evaded mowing and bloomed bright yellow next to the plaque engraved “Amy Lynn Soldado.” Amy had loved picking dandelions gone to seed and blowing the white fluff into a breeze. She’d chase after it, all a-giggle.
    Hank clutched the necklace in his pocket, and then knelt to pluck the dandelion flower and lay it over Amy. But he decided to leave it be—if a mower didn’t get the flower, soon a breeze would waft white fluff across her grave.
    His gaze turned to the stone marked “Marcella Caruso Soldado.” He would never understand how things had gone so wrong with Marcie. How she could have done what the report said. How she could have thrown . . . could have thrown— Pressure grew in his mind, a sense of something surging against the inner barriers that kept him operational.
    Enough. He had a plane to catch. Duty called with a good mission to execute.

    Sending a Message
    Martha Hanson pulled the living-room curtains aside and peeked out. Her miniature poodle joined her and stood on its hind legs, yapping to be picked up. Martha scooped her up and held her so she could see out the window, petting her head. “Shh, Sparky.”
    Across the street, the pushy reporter with the camera was still camped out, sitting in a lawn chair. Thank God Mackinac Island didn’t allow cars or there’d have been a news van parked out there. She looked up at the sky, hoping for rain to pound the jerk, but there was nothing but blue overhead. She shut the curtains, gave Sparky a hug, and put her down. Martha went to her office and fired up her computer. She pulled up her militia website, but then just sat there and stewed, too angry to think.
    She had never been so pissed off, never. The goddam media still pestered her every time she went out about dumbass Jason Schaeffer trying to shoot that asshat Noah Stone. The reason she lived on an island was to avoid exactly that! Her gaze drifted to a .22 semi-automatic rifle leaning in a corner. Maybe if she just winged the guy . . . She shook her head. That would be even dumber than what Jason had done.
    On the other hand . . . She snatched up the rifle, chambered a round, and went to her front door. When she opened it and stepped out on the porch, the reporter stood and lifted his camera to his eye. He’d march across the street any second now, yelling questions at her, embarrassing her in front of her neighbors.
    She snugged the rifle into her shoulder and aimed at the reporter. She was close enough to see his one visible eye widen, and he lowered the camera. At that moment she squeezed off a shot and splintered a leg of the chair behind him.
    And then she almost hurt herself laughing as he ran down the sidewalk at a pretty damn good pace, holding his camera cradled to his chest. The abandoned chair sagged on the sidewalk. Her across-the-street neighbor stepped out of his front door, gave her a thumbs-up, and hauled the chair inside his house.