Hell and Gone

all the way up his arm, across his shoulder, and down into his chest. The tire iron went up, and then began its swift descent toward Hardie’s face. Hardie let himself drop down to his ass and grunt as he swung the cane back around. The tire iron struck the car so hard it created tiny white sparks. Hardie thrust the cane up under the guy’s ribs, hoping there had been enough time for the damned thing to recharge. He thumbed the button and—

CLICK

Nothing.

The guy lifted the iron again. Hardie used his free hand to reach into his jacket pocket.

BLAM

The guy was flying backward into the side of another vehicle.

The third guy, the one with the gun, screamed, took aim, fired.

Almost at the same time, Hardie twisted the gun around in his jacket and fired again.

The first bullet went SPACK into the car.

The second bullet ripped through Hardie’s jacket and sliced through the third guy’s stomach.

He moaned, dropped to the floor.

Hardie removed the warm gun from his jacket, aimed, and gave the third another one in the head, then turned his attention to the second guy in the jumpsuit and shot him in the head, too.

As soon as Hardie struggled up from the floor, a man in a pair of greasy overalls came bursting into the room, cursing about all the noise. Hardie nearly shot him in the head until he recognized him as Doyle, the second lawyer.

Doyle looked down and saw the bodies, then Hardie. Recognition washed over his face.

“You.”

Hardie raised the gun an inch. “Don’t move.”

Doyle moved like he was on fire.

Shit.

What was it with these lawyers bolting like jackrabbits? Did they all run track in their spare time?

But he couldn’t risk shooting and accidentally killing the son of a bitch.

Not before he talked about Abrams.

Hardie hurled himself toward Doyle, limping as fast he could. He ended up catching him and bodychecking him into a table. Doyle’s hands reached out wildly for the closest sharp tool or blunt object. There was no time to fuck around. Hardie put the cane under Doyle’s neck and pulled back hard, as if doing a barbell pull-up. Doyle’s cry was choked out immediately. But then he shifted his body weight back onto Hardie. No cane, no support. Hardie’s right leg tried to support the weight, but it was too much. It shook wildly before giving out. Both men tumbled to the floor, Hardie hanging on to his cane as if it were the only thing preventing him from a sixty-story drop to a hard sidewalk.

“Where’s Abrams?”

“Eat me.”

“Which address in L.A.? Tell me and you’ll live.”

“Eat your mother.”

The contact file on Gedney’s phone had five L.A. addresses. House in Holmby Hills. House along the Venice Canals. Office in Century City. Some building in Arcadia, California. Some other building in Thousand Oaks, California. So which one would it be? The revenge clock was ticking.

And only Doyle knew the magic answer.

Hardie briefly considered running through the addresses one by one, but he expected Doyle to say pretty much the same thing. Shame he couldn’t have hung out with Bobby a little while longer in that hellhole. Hardie was sure the man would have had some fantastic interrogation tips to share. So instead he settled for choking Doyle with the cane until he passed out. There was a certain finesse to doing such a thing. You want them out, but not out forever.

After he was sure Doyle was unconscious, Hardie relaxed his grip and rolled away. He was exhausted down to the marrow in his bones. He couldn’t remember feeling so tired. Old Man Hardie.

He reached out and put his hand against the nearest vehicle—the big black car he’d seen when he first entered the garage. Using the cane and the car, Hardie somehow made it back up to his feet. Only then did he realize what he was touching.

Jesus Christ.

He hadn’t seen this thing in more than five years.

The Coma Car.

Well, technically, it was a Lincoln Town Car. But the last time Hardie had seen this—or its older cousin, because this thing looked brand-new—he’d only been able to enjoy it from the inside. While unconscious.

And it was the last thing he remembered before waking up in prison.

A trunk-release trigger was mounted under the dash. Hardie popped it, then walked around to the back to fully admire Doyle’s ingenuity. As he remembered, the trunk contained a fully functional life-support system. Complex and expertly engineered, to be sure, but even a first-year nursing student could figure out how the needles and hoses and wires would be inserted in a living human being.

“Doyle, buddy, we’re going to Hollywood,” muttered Hardie.

Which is when he heard movement behind him.

 * * *

“Charlie?”

Deke Clark.

More or less the last person Hardie expected to see in this garage. Deke—who’d really gotten old. Still, he held a gun, classic two-hand grip.

“Hi, Deke.”

“Where the fuck have you been, man.” A statement, not a question.

“They sent me away.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. They sent me pictures. I’ve been looking for you for five years. I hired people to go looking for you. But you vanished without a trace.”

“Well, I’m back. So what are we going to do?”

Deke looked around the garage, saw the bodies lying in pools of their own blood. “You do that?”

“You would have, too.”

“Who’s the guy on the floor?”

“His name’s Doyle. He’s one of the ones who sent me away.”

“Law firm of Gedney, Doyle, and Abrams,” Deke said, then sighed. “The police found Gedney. On the roof of the St. Francis.”

“Yeah. He’s another one who sent me away. There’s this one. Doyle. Fuckin’ Abrams will be next.”

Deke tensed up. “You don’t understand, man. Stop for a minute and consider your situation. The world thinks you’re a killer. That’s right. Far as everyone’s concerned, you killed an innocent woman five years ago and went on the run. Now you show up and start killing more people? Don’t you realize the road you’re headed down?”

“You don’t know what these sons of bitches did to me.”

“I know, Charlie. Believe me…I. Know. They’ve been threatening to do the same thing to me, Ellie, everyone close to me. They deserve to die screaming for what they’ve done. But this isn’t how we fight them. We drag their asses out into the light and we burn them.”

Hardie said nothing. Deke Clark was one of the smartest and toughest guys he’d ever worked with—besides Nate Parish, of course—but now his eyes were full of fear. Maybe Hardie would have been the same way had the roles been reversed.

“Come on, Charlie. Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

“No. I’m not finished.”

“Finished what? You have nothing to finish. You come back with me and you start explaining. Other people will finish this. You? You’re done. You don’t have to do this anymore. We can get help. You’ve got to stop now and come home.”

Home.

That’s when it occurred to Hardie.