“Hey, officer. Brodie wants to know have you taken care of it yet?”

Nash looked up to see one of Brodie’s men, the big half-Indian guy, standing on the dock in front of him.

Nash walked toward him, saying, “I’m just going in to do it, right now.”

Tony shrugged and said, “Well, Mr. Brodie was very clear in his instructions.”

“I know. I just needed to get myself…get ready to do it.”

“I meant his instructions to me.” Tony lifted the TEC-9 and sprayed a short burst, the bullets hitting Nash in a tight arc from his chest to his head, sending him falling backward onto the dock.

Tony put the gun down, then dragged Nash’s body toward the end of the dock; halfway out, he rolled him off the side. With a splash, the body hit the shallows next to the swamp boat.

Tony picked up the TEC-9 and looked at the shed. Next!

Just as he stepped off the dock, the light in the shed went off.

Ugh. Were there going to be heroics?

God love ’em—there’s only so much you can do against a man with a machine pistol.

Tony opened the door a crack and poked his head into the gloom.

“Yoo-hoo. Anybody home?”

He opened the door wider, and in the half-light felt rather than saw something glitter as it whipped toward his face.

The steel fish hook at the tip of the rod caught Tony just under the right eye, slashed his face open, carving across his nose, opening up his forehead; the blood instantly gushed down his face like a red veil. He staggered backward blindly, gasping in surprise and trying to sweep the blood from his eyes, his gun firing a half-second burst into the dark before Jenner slammed the canoe paddle into his groin, then again into his head. Tony dropped, Jenner sprawling on top of him, punching at his face, driving his knee repeatedly into Tony’s belly, into his groin, into his hip.

Jenner kept smashing Tony’s bloody face, and when Tony’s arms could no longer block his blows, when they slumped to his sides, Jenner rolled off him and scrabbled around the floor in the pitch black, desperate to find the gun. The hot barrel seared his fingers; he shoved the weapon around and grabbed the handle. He stood quickly, pointed the pistol down at the man, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

Deb swung the door open, and Jenner now saw Tony beneath him, a dazed figure with a bloody mask where his face should be. But he was still moving, slowly rolling himself out onto the mud in front of the shed. Jenner followed him, lifted the heavy pistol high, and smashed it into Tony’s face with all his strength. He felt the bones buckle like cardboard, the force knocking the gun from his wet hands.

Jenner grabbed the knife handle, pulling it out of its sheath, a big steel blade with strips of sawtooth on the back, a big fucking shark of a blade. And he knew the knife and he grabbed a fistful of blood-matted hair and yanked Tony’s head way back, and carved open his throat with the big knife, and felt the blood pour out over his arm, hot and heavy as water from a bath tap. And it felt like a good result, and Jenner carved into the neck again, pulling the blade back as hard as he could.

Behind him, Deb was feebly saying, “Jenner! No, stop!”

But she didn’t understand: this man lived to kill and torture, and he’d butchered Marty, and he had come there to kill them, and Jenner had no choice but to kill him, and if you’re going to kill someone, you don’t stop killing them until they’re dead. Jenner knew this, Jenner had killed before: Jenner was a killer.

He let the head drop and stabbed the back of the man’s neck from the side, driving the blade home until it hit bone.

Jenner lifted his arm again, but Deb caught his elbow and dropped to her knees against him in the mud, crying, holding on to him, and murmuring, “Enough, please Jenner, enough, please stop it! He’s dead, Jenner, he’s dead…”

Jenner kneeled over Tony’s body, crying, feeling the horror and effort and fear roaring away inside him. And then he felt her head against his, felt her hand holding his swaying forehead, felt her breast on his back. His body shook as she held him, her arms pulling him from Tony’s body and into her.

He wiped the tears and the blood from his face, looked down at the body.

Tony wasn’t breathing. Jenner shook Deb’s arm off, reached out, felt for a pulse. There was none.

Jenner turned to her and said, “Go back inside the shed, Deb. Stay dry, okay? I’ll deal with him.”

She pulled herself to her feet, wincing. She was looking at him differently now, but Jenner barely saw her at all.