Page 110 of The Family Cross

I said, “And you did it again with your uncle Drake Conway. You lured him into Rock Creek Park, then shot and lit him up too.”

“Why?” Sampson asked. “With your aunt gone, and since he has no kids himself, are you his heir? Or at least a beneficiary of his life insurance policy?”

O’Hare’s flat affect broke: “He left no will. His estate goes into probate. But, yes, his attorneys will eventually track me down, and whatever was Uncle Drake’s will be mine.”

“What did he do to deserve that?” I asked.

O’Hare shrugged and said, the flatness returning to his expression and voice, “I’m tired of being homeless. Fought for my country, got nothing from it but nightmares. Uncle Drake was a means to an end, man. Nothing more.”

“Why Jeffrey Frost?” Sampson asked.

“Who?”

“The developer you shot in that building near where the first victim died.”

“Wasn’t me.”

I glanced at Luke, hating that I had to keep pushing. “But what about Anna Stein? Anna Bananas.”

O’Hare shook his head. “Not me either.”

“Sure it was,” Sampson said.

“I had nothing to do with it,” he said.

“Did you kill my mom?” Luke cried.

“No!” O’Hare said. “I do not know what they’re talking about. And you know what? I’m sick of talking anyway.”

I saw him thumb the safety on the Remington 1911. “You going to kill two police officers and three children?” I asked.

Bing Bang’s eyes dimmed. “In the teams, they teach you ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’”

He raised his gun, aiming toward Luke, who covered his head and moaned, “No.”

Boog spit at O’Hare, “You coward. Shoot me first, coward.”

“Suit yourself, you stupid little meddling brat,” O’Hare said and took a step in Boog’s direction, aiming his gun at him as more of that sooty grit fell.

Boog did not turn away from the gun. He pushed his head toward it and sneered, “Do it, you loser coward asshole.”

97

“WITH PLEASURE,” COLIN O’HARE said.

A split second later, I heard a furious raging bellow come from the burned-out apartment above us: “Not in my house! Not today!”

I looked up. Through the burned lattice of dripping, charred, and disintegrating wood, I saw a large figure leap high into the air and land on one of the weakest sections of the floor. Before O’Hare could turn his gun toward the figure, what was left of the boards and rafters there gave way with a terrible crack, and a big piece of the fifth floor collapsed on top of all of us.

I raised my hands to deflect debris from my head and saw the figure fall all the way through the ceiling. He hit the rubble a few feet behind O’Hare, who shook the blackened debris off his back before Sampson and I could react. Bleeding from gashes on his head, O’Hare aimed his gun at us and snarled, “Move and you die.”

The kids were screaming.

Behind O’Hare, the guy who’d come through the ceiling staggered to his feet, looking like a wild man. He was covered in dark soot and gray ash, and chunks of burned wood fell off him. Clad in grimy clothes with a tangled beard that hung to his mid-chest and a riot of sooty dreadlocks, the wild man was Black and big and carried a metal pipe about three feet long.

“Not in my house,” he rasped again, his eyes absolutely crazed. “Not today.”

O’Hare turned around, firing his gun as he did. He missed the wild man, who chopped diagonally with the pipe and hit the former Special Forces operator’s right side. I heard ribs break.