On the floor blocking the way, Fisher showed signs of life.
Meyer lost his patience. “Get up, Fisher. I’ve had enough of your vacillating. If you can’t play your part then you’re useless to me.”
Fisher struggled up, his hand to his crotch.
“There are too many people here,” Meyer decided as he corralled them in the kitchen. “It’s getting impossible to keep track. So who should go?”
“You,” Pepper said.
Very slowly, trying not to push Meyer into a hasty move, Avery stepped in front of Pepper. She gave her a warning look, and to her surprise, Pepper subsided.
With cool command Avery faced Meyer. “You won’t hurt her,” she stated. She pressed back against Pepper, pushing her farther into the kitchen. If anyone started shooting, she could maybe get behind the fridge, or the stove. Or she could possibly grab a kitchen knife...something, anything, was better than being a standing duck.
“You think not?”
“If you even try,” Avery promised him, “you’ll have to kill me, too, and then what will you tell Mom?”
“That you ran away for good?”
Avery shook her head. “She’s believed a lot from you, Meyer, but she won’t believe that. She knows I love her and she knows I’d never leave her for good, especially not now, while she’s being treated for her cancer.”
“You didn’t care before.”
“I didn’t know she’d been sick. But now I do. She and I have talked. We’ve mended things.” Avery crossed her arms and looked at Fisher, seeing him as the weaker link, as insane as that seemed. If she could just keep them talking, maybe she could think of a way out of this. “Why were you hanging around the bar again?”
“I wasn’t. As I told Meyer, you lost your appeal when you started sleeping around with a bum like Rowdy Yates.”
Avery put a hand back, letting Pepper know not to react. “Rowdy knows it was you, Fish.” Adopting Rowdy’s nickname for him worked; Fisher bunched up in impotent rage. “He’s told his cop friends, and even now, they’re checking up on you. If anything happens to either of us, you’ll be one of the first people they come after.”
“That lowlife ruffian is friends with law officers?” Meyer chortled with credible humor. “I don’t believe that nonsense.”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Fisher insisted. “If you’d fallen back into my lap, Avery, then yes, I would have taken advantage by sleeping with you.”
“You mean raping me?”
He gave her a flat stare. “But do you honestly think I’d marry you after you slept with a bar owner?” Fisher shook his head. “Not likely.”
Fisher might not have noticed Meyer’s anger over that disclosure, but Avery saw it, and worried for an imminent explosion. “Then why were you hanging around?”
“I already told you that I wasn’t.” He scowled at Meyer. “Was it you?”
“Yes, but it no longer matters.” Using the gun, Meyer waved away the importance of the question. “The mayor is my friend. The police commissioner is a friend. I can discredit two low-level detectives without even trying.”
“Maybe not this time.” Again Avery backed Pepper farther into the kitchen. “Rowdy’s sister is married to one of those detectives.”
Fisher blanched.
“He’s a good cop,” Pepper added. “The best.”
Avery nodded. “He will never let it go if anything happens to her.”
“Meyer,” Fisher said, easing closer to him. “Let’s think about this. There’s no reason to make matters worse.” Casually, he came closer still. “I’m sure Avery can be reasonable.”
“Of course,” Avery said.
Fisher was only a few feet from Meyer now. “And the cops,” he suggested, “can probably be bought. Between us, we have more than enough resources to make this...breach in good judgment go away.”
Pepper said nothing, thank God. Neither Reese nor Logan could be bought, but if Fisher convinced Meyer otherwise, maybe he’d let them go.
Meyer narrowed his eyes. “I think it’s better if they all go.”
Fisher looked apoplectic. “You can’t be serious.”
“The girl, the cops.” Meyer shrugged. “If you no longer want her, what does it matter?”
Avery tsked. “That’s an awful lot of deaths adding up. Hard to hide that many bodies.”
“It’d be impossible.” And with that, Fisher lunged for Meyer.
It was ludicrous, given that Fisher was so much bigger, younger, faster, but Meyer had insanity on his side.
He squawked—and managed to shoot Fisher in the leg.
The noise was deafening, almost stopping Avery’s heart. Pepper, damn her, took advantage of the confusion and separated from her.
Fisher went down to the floor with a sharp cry, blood pumping steadily from his leg to form a quick puddle of red gore around him.
Wild-eyed and heaving, Meyer shouted, “Goddamn it! Now look what you made me do.” Straight armed, his hand shaking, he took aim at Avery. It felt like everything inside her shut down in that instant.
Pepper yelled, “No!”
And into the chaos, the front door slammed open.
Rowdy went down the steps in one leap. He looked larger than life, confident and in control.
He stared only at Meyer, his gaze so focused and so lethal that Avery’s knees almost gave out.