“Let her go, Kechner,” Avery bellowed. “Last warning!”
He didn’t even give Avery the consideration of looking her way. He now had both hands on Heather, determined to pry her loose. It would mean that he would fall with her but compared to the time he’d spend in jail for four murders, Avery assumed he’d rather have death.
She could help him in that regard.
“Let her go!”
When he didn’t respond this time, Avery took a step forward, aimed with skill that had remained with her during her time off, and squeezed the trigger.
In her career, she had avoided headshots at all costs. But this time, she had no choice. Anything other than a certain kill shot might only injure him, causing him to fall and take Heather with him.
The shot landed true, creating a black hole directly between Kechner’s eyes. He looked almost confused for a moment as his body went limp. His hands unclenched themselves from Heather and he went falling backward.
Avery ran forward, relieved to see that his falling body had missed Kellaway by a good five feet. She had made it over to the cable and was using it to hoist herself upward, her feet inching along the side of the bridge back toward the rails.
As for Kechner, his body continued to fall. She watched it until it slammed into the cold water below them. Even Heather Ellis seemed to break out of her frozen state to watch his descent.
Kellaway was still out of her reach, about ten feet down along the edge of the bridge. She looked tired and nervous as hell.
“Can you make it?” Avery asked, looking for a way over to where she could help.
Kellaway only nodded, her attention solely on the cable and the edge of the bridge. Behind them, two cars pulled to a screeching stop as O’Malley and five officers arrived. They got out of the car with guns drawn.
“Barry Kechner is dead,” Avery said. “And Kellaway is hanging on for dear life over here!”
By the time O’Malley and the others had reached the rail, Kellaway had firm footing on the same ledge that Heather Ellis was perched on. She slowly made her way over to her, holding on to the rail for dear life.
“Heather,” she said. “Come on back to the other side with me, what do you say?”
Heather nodded and said something, but Avery didn’t hear it.
Her phone was ringing. She checked it quickly and saw that it was Rose.
Shit, Avery thought. I’m supposed to pick her up from the hosp…
The thought seemed to fracture and break as the world grew dizzy. She looked to Kellaway, slowly helping Heather back over the rail and to the pavement on the other side. Avery smiled wanly, took a stumbling step forward, and then passed out.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Three days later, Avery found herself sitting in Connelly’s office. It was Connelly’s first day back, having mostly recovered from the spider bite. It had been a weaker genus of funnel web spider and though its venom was still deadly, it had been stalled by several injections at the hospital. Connelly still wore a small bandage over the area where he had been bitten but other than that, he was basically back to his old self.
And that included a brash and transparent communication approach. He looked over his desk at Avery and sighed. It was just the two of them and the door was closed. It felt both intimate and suffocating all at once.
“I want you back,” he said. “I know you’ve been through hell and this Barry Kechner case was only a favor you did for the A1 but…I want you back. I want you working for me until you’re too old to hold up a gun.”
Avery couldn’t help but smile at the thought of a fifty-five-year-old version of herself battling with Barry Kechner on the edge of the Tobin Bridge.
“I appreciate that,” Avery said. “And I’d be lying if I told you that I had absolutely no interest in coming back for a few more years. But for right now—in the next few weeks or months—I have to focus on Rose. I have to get my personal life right before I can think about my work.”
The right side of her head was still sore from the fall she’d taken on the bridge. While the doctors who had seen to her had no real reason why she had passed out, the psychiatrist she’d seen yesterday seemed to think it was some sort of emotional or mental trauma—that her old life and desires were crashing into the need to correct things with her family. Her mind had felt exhausted for a moment and had simply shut itself down for a moment. It had been enough motivation for her to choose one over the other as she sorted her life out, and Rose had won out without much of a contest.
Connelly nodded and relaxed in his seat. “I can respect that. I expected it, even. So…do I need to let Finley know he only has your office for a few more weeks?”
“No,” she said with another smile. “Let him keep it. And please…Connelly, do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Wait for me to call you this time. I’ll be back. I just…well, I have to finally put Rose first.”
“Understood,” Connelly said, getting to his feet. He went to the door and opened it for her. “Now get out of here before you see what I look like when I pout if I don’t get my way.”
Avery did as he asked. She thought about going to say goodbye to Finley and O’Malley but didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. She’d already been lauded a hero because of her actions on the bridge. Kellaway had also enjoyed some of the praise and was already back out on the streets working her next case. Avery couldn’t wait to see what became of the young woman’s career.
Hell, who knew…maybe someday soon, they’d share another case. Avery certainly hoped so; she was well aware that she still owed Kellaway for saving her life.
***
She had originally feared that having Rose around the cabin would be weird. But in the end, it turned out to be exactly what she needed…what they both needed, actually. The plan they’d come up with on their first night in the cabin together was to unplug from everything, to just stay in the cabin as winter approached and get to know one another again. If necessary, they’d talk about Jack, they’d talk about Ramirez, and how life had dealt them a shitty hand as of late.
Rose had also agreed to family therapy and although neither of them liked the idea, they were also not too stubborn to realize how much it could help them.
On her second week at the cabin, Rose sat down on the couch with Avery. Avery’s reading habits had turned to fiction, something pointless and inane to just reset her mind, to keep the stress of the real world away.
“Hey, Mom?” Rose said. Her voice was soft and sweet, letting Avery know that what was coming was not going to be easy for Rose to say.
“Yeah?”
“I want to live here for a while,” she said. “And not just to fix us. I mean into the foreseeable future. As I finish school, as I find an actual job.”
“I think I’d like that, too,” Avery said, her heart about to burst.
“I don’t want to be the deadbeat kid that still lives with her mom, though. I want you to charge me rent. I want to be roommates.”
“So long as you’re my daughter first, that’s fine with me.”
Rose nodded and gave her mom a smile. Avery’s heart ached a bit when she was reminded just now much of Jack peeked out when Rose smiled.
“Now, as my roommate,” Avery said, “I do believe it is your turn to do the dishes.”
“Oh, you’re going to be that kind of roommate,” Rose said with a smirk. Still, she got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen.
Avery looked out of the back window to the trees, now stripped completely. The sky looked like snow, though there was none in the forecast. She thought about the quiet hill somewhere out there she had once tried to hunt and realized that she did not quite recognize that woman any longer.
And that was fine. Because that woman had nearly given up, had thought about ending her own life. And quite frankly, Avery hated that bitch.
EPILOGUE