Paul kept crawling.
Walker froze for an instant, his head lifted, and he locked his gaze on Anthony.
“Drop the weapon!” Anthony yelled. “Drop it now!”
Walker shook his head. “I won’t go back.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Anthony advanced on him. “Now drop it!” Or he would put a bullet in him.
Walker glanced down at Paul. “I have the power.”
He lunged for the detective.
Anthony fired his gun, sending a bullet straight at Walker’s heart. At the same moment, Paul rolled over and came up holding his weapon. He fired. His bullet hit Walker just seconds after Anthony’s.
Walker’s eyes widened as he stumbled back. The guy’s mouth dropped open and shock swept over his face.
The knife fell from his fingers. He fell back and hit the ground.
Anthony raced to him. He kicked the knife farther away. Two bullets were in the bastard’s chest, and Walker was coughing up blood as he struggled to bring in his last breaths.
Crouching and keeping his gun trained on him, Anthony said, “You aren’t going to be hurting anyone else.”
Walker tried to turn his head toward Anthony. “W-Weep…”
“What?” Anthony demanded.
“W-weepin’…wil…low…tree. T-tell…Lau…”
A gurgle ended the words. A rough rasp that was the last breath the Bayou Butcher would ever take.
“Is he dead?” Paul gasped.
Anthony’s heart slammed into his chest.
“Yeah.” About f**king time. “The bastard is on his way to hell.” Try escaping that prison. You want hurt Lauren, you piece of shit. You won’t hurt anyone, not anymore. Anthony hurried back to Paul’s side. “Now let’s make sure you stay alive.”
Matt leaped out of the brush, breath heaving. A few moments later, Wesley appeared. They took in the bloody scene and saw Anthony working to stem the blood from Paul’s wound.
More backup arrived. Cops. EMTs. Paul was loaded into the back of an ambulance. He was lucky—the knife wound wasn’t lethal.
A survivor.
Judge Hamilton hadn’t been so lucky.
The ambulance’s siren screamed as Paul was driven away. Anthony watched the vehicle vanish, the knot in his gut still tight.
“You did it,” Matt said as the other marshal came to his side and slapped him on the back. “You caught the Bayou Butcher.”
“Killing him isn’t the same thing as catching him.” The Butcher’s last words replayed in Anthony’s head.
“It is to me.” Matt’s gaze was dark and steady. “Now he doesn’t get to torture anyone else. Our job’s done.”
The job of tracking down and apprehending Walker, yes. But what about the bastard’s partner?
The only person who knew the man’s identity was being zipped up into a body bag.
“It’s not over,” Anthony said.
Not yet. Not even close.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Anthony didn’t go back to the police station. He called Jim and was told Lauren was at her office. When he was clear, Anthony went to her. He wanted to talk to her—alone—without all of the prying eyes at the police department.
Word of the Bayou Butcher’s death had spread like wildfire. Even as he drove to Lauren’s office, he heard the DJ talking about the death on the radio.
“Folks can rest easy in Baton Rouge tonight, the Bayou Butcher is off the streets. I for one am glad the bastard is burning in hell…”
Anthony leaned forward and pushed the dial, ending the broadcast.
He should have felt relief. He’d already gotten a call from his boss congratulating him.
Yeah, he’d stopped Walker, but Hamilton had still died. Stacy Crawford had died. The doctor at Angola—dead. The guard—dead. Walker had left a bloody trail in his wake.
A trail that had finally ended.
But one that still raised questions.
He showed his ID at Lauren’s office and got a fast track to her. There were two uniforms in the lobby, both wearing big grins. Everyone seemed to be celebrating Walker’s death, but didn’t they get it?
Another killer is still out there. A killer who’d taken far more lives than Walker had. A killer who could be hunting, even as they whooped and hollered.
Jim met him outside of Lauren’s office and offered his hand. “Good job, sir.”
So he kept being told. “I should have brought him in alive.”
Jim lowered his voice. “Why? To me, it’s better this way.”
Jaw locking, Anthony passed him and entered Lauren’s office. She was sitting behind a wide desk with a slew of papers in front of her. When she saw him, Lauren jumped to her feet and hurried toward him. “I heard—”
He caught her in his arms and pulled her tightly against his chest. Her sweet scent filled his lungs, banishing the coppery stench of blood that had clung to him since he’d found the judge’s body.
Her body felt warm and soft against his. Delicate. Fragile. He thought of Walker, charging with his knife.
He’d used that knife on Lauren.
When he’d pulled the trigger, Anthony had seen Lauren in his mind’s eye. The truth—brutal, dark—was that he could have shot the knife out of the bastard’s hands. He could have done it. He was a good enough marksman to have made it work.
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted to just stop Walker.
He’d wanted to kill him.
I should have kept him alive. I wasn’t thinking, just feeling. Now we don’t have a link to the other bastard.
She pulled back and stared up at him with the gaze that had always seemed to see too deeply into him. “Is Paul going to be all right? I wanted to go to the hospital, but Jim said I should stay here.”
It had been Anthony’s order to Jim. Anthony hadn’t wanted her to leave until he got to her.
“Walker killed the judge before we got there. He stabbed Hamilton in the heart.”
Her eyes widened. “Does Julia—”
“She knows.” Cadence had made sure of it.
Lauren nodded. Her hands slid away from him. “I’m glad Walker’s gone.” A stark confession.
Tell her. His jaw locked, and he couldn’t speak. She said she was glad, but it was the heat of the moment. She didn’t fully realize the stakes.
If Walker had lived, he could have taken them to Jenny’s remains. Lauren could have finally brought her sister home.
“What is it?” She stared up at him, a faint furrow between her brows.