Through the curtains, the dark silhouette of a lifted four-wheel-drive pickup truck skidded to a halt in the driveway, its high-intensity LED lightbar suddenly blazing to life. Blinding white light, ten thousand lumens of raw illumination, exploded through the living room windows, washing out every corner, turning the lace curtains into glowing screens of pure glare.
"Federal agents! Drop your weapons!" a deep voice shouted from outside.
It was Team Leader Davis from the U.S. Marshals detail.
The response was immediate and violent: the sharp, metallic clack-clack of a twelve-gauge shotgun racking, followed by the deafening blast of a heavy-caliber firearm discharging into the night.
BOOM.
The lead blast tore through the windshield of one of the Marshals' unmarked sedans parked near the hydrangea hedge. Glass shattered into thousands of safety pebbles.
"Fire! Return fire!" Davis bellowed.
A synchronized volley of controlled double-taps from the Marshals' duty pistols cracked through the heavy summer air—*pop-pop, pop-pop*.
A man outside cursed, his voice thick and rough, screaming obscenities about Dalton Voss and burning the county to the ground. Footsteps pounded across the wooden boards of the front porch. The front screen door was violently ripped from its hinges, the thin wire mesh tearing with a sickening screech.
Then came the heavy boot against the solid pine door.
BAM.
The deadbolt held, but the frame splintered with a sharp crack that showered white paint flakes across the entryway rug.
"FBI! Don't move!" Calloway shouted, her weapon pointed dead center at the door's peephole.
BAM.
The second kick blew the door inward. The brass latch plate sheared from the oak jamb, sending the heavy wooden door swinging violently into the hallway wall.
A large, broad-shouldered man in a dirt-stained canvas jacket and a grease-stained baseball cap burst through the opening. In his hands, he held a short-barreled Remington 870 pump shotgun, his finger hooked inside the trigger guard, his face twisted in a feral, methamphetamine-fueled snarl.
He didn't get to rack the slide.
Calloway fired twice.
The two 9mm rounds hit him square in the center of his chest. The kinetic force punched the breath from his lungs with a wet, hollow thud. He staggered backward, his boots tangling in the shredded screen door, and collapsed violently onto the porch boards, his shotgun clattering across the painted pine.
From the yard, another series of shouts erupted.
"Suspect down! Clear left! Clear right!"
"Marshal, on your flank! Move, move!"
Through the open doorway, I saw Team Leader Davis and two other plainclothes Marshals flank the lifted truck. A second man, who had been crouched near the rear wheel-well holding an AR-15 rifle, saw his partner lying bleeding on the porch and the three service weapons tracking directly onto his skull. He dropped the rifle onto the gravel and threw his hands skyward, screaming for mercy.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I'm just the driver! Pritchard paid us! Gary Pritchard gave us ten grand to burn the house!"
Davis drove the man into the red dirt with a knee between his shoulder blades, ratcheting heavy cuffs around his wrists with brutal efficiency.
"Suspect in custody! Area secure!" Davis yelled toward the house. "Calloway, you clear?"
Calloway lowered her sidearm, her breathing deep and controlled, though the barrel of her weapon was still hot. "We're clear inside. Davis, call county EMS for the shooter on the porch. He took two center-mass. He's breathing, but he won't be for long if they don't plug the leaks."
"Copy that," Davis answered, already keying his shoulder radio.
I stepped out from behind the brick hearth, my eyes sweeping the living room. Plaster dust hung in the air like a ghostly fog, illuminated by the blinding lightbar still shining from the truck outside. Kayla Dupree was trembling violently on the floor of the hallway, her face buried against Lester Odom’s dark suit coat. Odom was patting her shoulder with rhythmic, steady strokes, his voice murmuring words of comfort as if he were tending to a family at a graveside.
Aunt Lorraine had not moved an inch. She remained upright in her hospital bed, her eyes fixed on the open doorway where the smell of cordite and burnt gunpowder drifted in on the humid night breeze.
"Is that Otis Culpepper lying out there on my porch?" Lorraine asked, her voice startlingly clear.
Calloway stepped to the threshold, looking down at the bleeding man who was groaning against the porch floorboards. "You know him, Mrs. Bishop?"
"Of course I know him," Lorraine said, disgust dripping from every syllable. "I failed him in third-grade math back in 1982. Boy couldn't count his own fingers, and he was cruel to stray dogs. I see Dalton Voss didn't change his character none."
I walked to the door, careful not to disturb the forensic evidence littering the threshold. Otis Culpepper lay on his side, his canvas jacket soaked in dark crimson around two distinct entry wounds in his right pectoral. His eyes were glassy, rolling back into his head, his lips frothing slightly.
"Otis," I said, my voice cutting through his fading consciousness.
His eyes flickered open, focusing with difficulty on my face and the heavy fiberglass cast hanging in the black sling against my chest.
"Judge..." he wheezed, a bloody bubble forming at the corner of his mouth. "Pritchard said... said you were gonna take everything. Said you had the records..."
"Where is Gary Pritchard, Otis?" I asked, my tone firm, carrying the weight of a magistrate taking a dying declaration. "Tell me now, and it will be the only mitigating factor your attorney can present when you stand before the federal grand jury."
Culpepper coughed, a wet, rattling sound that caused him to grimace in agony. "The old sawmill... on the river road. He’s got... got three safes in the boiler room. Burning the deeds... burning the cash books before morning..."
He closed his eyes as the distant wail of another county ambulance began its long climb up Old Mill Road.