Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

The disadvantages of using a .22 caliber round are equal and opposite to the advantages. On the plus side it’s a small round, not much kick, so you can be accurate enough without putting in too many hours on the range. The bullet tends to stay inside the body, which is useful when you don’t want to blow something to a pulp. Like if you are squirrel hunting, or assassinating people discretely. On the other hand, the .22 caliber is slow, and not very powerful. It doesn’t have much stopping power. The guy wasn’t going to fall down unless I put a bullet into exactly the right spot. Which could be one of his vital organs, or his head. Most vital organs are contained in the thorax, so a body shot would do it. But hitting the right internal target would be a throw of the dice. The wrong part, and he’s out of the clearing and into the woods on the other side, maybe with a broken rib, or maybe just a flesh wound. On the other hand, a head shot would knock him down and probably kill him right off the bat, but the head is a smaller target than the body.

I braced my shooting arm against the trunk of a spruce tree. Slowed my breathing down and tracked him over the sights, leading only slightly. The gun had a suppressor screwed into the barrel. It coughed loudly, twice. The first shot missed completely. After the second, I saw a tiny impact at the top of the guy’s head and he went down.

When I got to him, he was face-down in the dirt, alive. The bullet had nicked his skull and might have concussed him. I rolled him over with my boot. He was confused, disoriented. I said, “You need a minute?”

The guy’s eyes focused and he brought his hands up defensively. He said, “No, don’t.”

“Why not?” He didn’t have an answer. I said, “Who sent you?”

He said, “Fuck you.”

I shot him twice more in the face. One of the rounds went under his eye, another into his forehead. He had three tattooed tears under the edge of his left eye. The .22 round had made a small hole right beside them, like a fourth teardrop. His expression didn’t change in death, it remained exactly as frightened and sour as it had been in life.

Twenty-Eight

The guy had no ID on him, or anything else for that matter, except for a Glock 19 in his hand and an extra magazine in his pocket. I pried the Glock from his death grip. The gun had a full magazine, plus one in the chamber. I slipped it into my waistband at the back. The extra magazine went into my front pocket.

When I returned to the house, Hank was in the kitchen with his dead mother. I had come around and was standing over the murder artist’s body. The boy was sitting at the little breakfast table, his eyes wet with tears, face red as a plum tomato. A Mossberg 500 was on the table. I figured that was the bear gun. Helen’s body was slumped on the floor between the kitchen and living room. Her face blank with the eyes shot out. I stepped over the dead guy, came through the kitchen door and Hank looked at me without malice.

He said, “Why did they do this?”

I said, “I don’t know exactly. I guess they thought they could get away with it.”

I pulled a light blanket from the sofa and covered Helen’s body.

Hank said, “Who are they?”

I walked to the corpse of Helen’s killer. The body was laid out on the dirt and already looked unhealthy, like a magnet for insects and worms. I searched the dead guy and confirmed what I already knew, nothing. No ID, empty pockets. Same as his younger friend up in the woods. And just like the friend, covered in Neo-Nazi tattoos.

I figured that even members of the 1488 gang got out of jail once in a while.

I looked up at Hank, he was sobbing into his hands.

I said, “Hank, help me move this body inside. The drone might come back.”

Hank didn’t respond, he wept onto the table, tugging his hair with both hands. He was moaning in anguish. I came back into the kitchen and looked at him for exactly a second and a half. On any other occasion I would leave the kid alone, but we weren’t safe, so I wasn’t going to let him wallow in despair just yet.

“Hank.” No response. I stepped over to him and pulled his head up by the hair. Forced him to look at me. “Hank.” He didn’t struggle or avert his eyes. He looked at me, mute and flush, cheeks wet with tears. I said, “Mom’s dead, Hank. I liked her, even though I only knew her for five minutes. She didn’t suffer, didn’t get too old. You just got an advanced start on your own life as an independent person, like a second birth. You went from teenage dependent to grown up man in about fifteen minutes. You can either take that badly or take it well. If you take it well you’ll be more of a help getting back at the people who sent these assassins to kill you and your mom. If you take it badly, you’ll be less helpful. That’s pretty much it. You want to help me move that body now?”

Hank nodded.

Together, we carried the body into the house and put it on the living room floor. Hank stood over the dead guy, looking down at him. There was something slack about the killer’s face. I was thinking about other matters. I looked at Hank. “You good?”

He shook his head, not quite sure that he was good, but getting there. He said, “I’m a long way from being good.”

I was aware of ruthlessly shoving the kid into the fast