Page 114 of Trigger Happy

“I’m not bullshitting you.” I barely manage not to growl, and growling isn’t typically in my vocal repertoire.

“Okay, fine. Let’s play,” she says, tilting the gun at the same time she tilts her head. “You have sixty seconds before your brain matter is splattered all over these tree trunks. I don’t miss.”

I talk on triple speed. “A couple of years ago I got a job notification on Onyx. It’s this—”

“I know what Onyx is,” she says. “I created the job posting, remember?”

“Oh. Right. Anyway, the client was some overprotective dad wanting to hire me to find out who was stalking his daughter. So I tail the girl, expecting to find some asshole jerking off in the bushes, but nope. She was on a date with Walker, and I knew of him in an enemy-of-an-enemy kind of situation, so not much, but I knew he was the type who wore plaid bucket hats and said ‘Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, ma’am’ unironically, so I wasn’t too worried when she went up to his place. I mean, until the screaming started. So I broke in and found Walker with a tarp in the kitchen and, well, that led to the bedroom fight…”

To this day, I try not to relive that moment too often. If I had just walked in thirty minutes earlier, I could have saved her. But I can’t live in would’ves and should’ves.

The gun shakes in Bobbi’s hand. “No. You’re lying,” she says, voice trembling.

“I wish it weren’t true,” I say softly, “but after I caught him in his psycho hairdresser moment, I hit record on my phone and he confessed. He probably thought he’d kill me, give me a mohawk, and toss me in a tarp, but he seriously underestimated how pissed I was about what he did to that woman. When he came at me, I didn’t hesitate. His corpse looked pretty tragic with a mullet.”

After, I called my mom to help clean up. We scrubbed down his apartment and buried the woman. I didn’t even think to check the bedroom for cameras. Who would hide cameras in the place they were doing their dirty deeds? The Montoyas found Mom’s fingerprints, Mom got put on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and she fled with my dad.

All to protect me.

“You’re just saying this to save yourself,” Bobbi says, jabbing the gun in my face. A few birds scatter in the pines.

“Obviously,” I snap, but soften my voice, “but it doesn’t make it any less true.”

I thought the truth would make me feel lighter, but it doesn’t. Not even a little.

Tears stream down her flushed cheeks. She’s unraveling, and I feel bad for her, I really do. If I found out the guy I once picked out ass-tats with turned out to be a Texas Jack the Ripper with a balding fetish, I’d be gutted too. But unfortunately for both of us, I’m not in the mood to die today.

“Check my phone.” I nod toward my bag. “The voice recording is on it with Walker confessing. Photos too. Of the woman. It’s all there. You can hear the truth for yourself.”

She keeps the barrel pointed at me as she digs through my backpack, yanks out my phone, and holds it to my face to unlock. I walk her through how to access the voice memo in my private cloud. She listens to every chilling word until black mascara tears sluice her cheeks.

“No. You— This is fake. It has to be. He wouldn’t, he… He loved me.” Her voice cracks, and the gun dips. I can see her breaking, desperate to believe the lie over the truth. “He told me he wanted to remodel an Airstream and do van life across the country.”

“You can still do van life with someone else,” I say, trying to keep her calm. “Just swipe right on any guy with a bike rack on the back of his Subaru.”

Her finger twitches on the trigger. “No. I don’t believe you. You’re dead to me,” she says, eyes wide, hair frayed, decision-making capabilities questionable.

I get out my gun, but I’m a millisecond too late.

She’s already pulled the trigger.

54Lawton

No.

I watch through the pines as Sabrina dives to the forest floor. Did she get hit? Is she hurt? I’m sprinting toward her, barreling through branches before I can remember that I hate her again.

“Sabrina!”

My knees hit the ground beside her, and I shake her shoulders. It’s too hard, I should be gentler, but I can’t think through the panic. Is she breathing? I don’t think she’s breathing. Fuck.

Sabrina doesn’t get to die. Not before I get my answers.

“Sabrina,” I grunt. “Hey—hey, c’mon. You’re fine.”

“She’s a liar!” Bobbi shouts in the distance. “Don’t listen to a word she says!”

“I’m not a liar,” Sabrina wheezes, pushing herself up on the yellow leaves.