“No, I still want you dead. I’ll always want you dead.” She paused and sipped her coffee. “But after seeing you, seeing this place, I’m wondering if I need to be the one to do it. I mean, look at you. I’m not sure if you’re more worried about me being here or that I took your dope. It’s over there, by the way.” She pointed over to the counter by the sink. The old faithful orange medicine bottle was sitting next to the other coffee mug. The look of relief on Simon’s face was too obvious to cover up, and Kate shook her head like a disapproving parent. “Go ahead. Pop a couple of those. Even out. I know you want to.”
Simon debated waiting it out to prove a point but held out for less than thirty seconds before making a beeline to his stash. He flipped the plastic lid off the bottle, poured four oblong white pills into his palm, slammed them to his face, and washed them down his gullet with the piping-hot coffee. It’s surprising how the confidence of a drug addict can flood back by simply performing the ritual of doping, even way before the dope itself can take effect. He swung back toward Kate, renewed and inspired, but then deflated when he saw she had set her coffee mug on the floor and produced a Ruger nine-millimeter equipped with a homemade silencer and a grip wrapped in duct tape. Bile mixed with the bitter coffee in the back of Simon’s throat.
“I’m at a crossroads here, Agent Holly.”
“I’m not an agent anymore.”
“Right, you’re just Simon now. The Bureau fired your ass. Too many questions that couldn’t be answered is the way I heard it.”
“Something like that.”
“Nobody ever asked me. I could have answered all their questions. I could have spelled out what a murdering piece of shit you are for anyone that wanted to know, but nobody really wanted to know anything. They just wanted you to disappear before you embarrassed them any more. That’s what you are now, Simon. An embarrassment. I could have told them how you lied and manipulated everyone you came into contact with so you wouldn’t have to pull the trigger on your own blood yourself.”
“Well, then why didn’t you?”
“Two reasons,” Kate said, and stood up. She held the gun loosely but kept it trained on Simon. “One,” she said, “I once told you if you pulled Clayton down a rabbit hole he couldn’t get out of, I’d kill you myself. I meant it. Michael even gave me this gun.” She paused when she saw that the name wasn’t striking a bell with Simon. “Scabby Mike,” she said. “Michael Cummings is his Christian name. He assured me I could put every one of these fifteen rounds through your miserable black heart and not one of them would lead back to me.”
Simon smirked at her. “You can’t kill me, Kate. I might be down right now, but I still have friends on the force that—”
“Friends?” Kate said, cutting him off. “Friends like who? Like your ex-partner, Jessup? Like the guy you fucked over and made an accomplice to all this? How do you think we found you, Simon? Your own people gave us a list of addresses. You think any of the people you manipulated into helping you want any of that shitstorm to get out in court? You’re circling the drain, and your friends aren’t looking to go down with you.”
“Bullshit,” Holly said.
“Look at me, Simon. Do I look like a liar to you? You’re a master at it, you should be able to tell.”
Simon chewed his lip, and Kate drove it home. “Yeah, Simon. Everyone who has ever met you wishes someone would make you disappear.”
“Yet, here I am,” he said. “Still standing. The only one standing. It’s been what? Three months? And nobody has the balls to kill me.”
“Is that what you think? That no one has the balls? Here’s the news, Simon. No one has shown up here to kill you out of respect for me. What you did, you did to me. Not one of the men on that mountain was going to rob me of the chance to settle this myself. You’re not the last one standing . . . I am.” She pointed the gun at his face.
“You think I’m supposed to be scared of you, Kate? I took down Bull Mountain. Me. I did what no one else could do for damn near seven decades, and I did it by myself. So if you’re gonna do it, then get on with it, but don’t think for a second I’m going to be scared of some poor little hillbilly girl with a gun.”
Kate laughed.
“What’s so goddamn funny?”
“You sound just like him,” she said. “Hell, seeing you here, like this, you look just like him. I wish to God I could’ve seen it before.”
“Like who, Kate?” The pills were kicking in, and Simon was beginning to feel like his cocky self. He licked his teeth. “Who do I look like? Your drunk of a husband? Is that why you can’t kill me?”
The muscles in Kate’s face tightened and she aimed the gun directly between his eyes. This time Simon took a step back.