“Kent?” he asked quietly.

“Stay away, Callahan.”

Mason continued his progress. The blood turned the corner around the far side of the cooler. He stopped at the corner, imagining Kent on the other side with his gun trained at the point he believed Mason’s head would first appear.

“You’re shot.” Mason stated the obvious.

“No shit,” came the voice around the corner. There was no strength behind the words.

“SERT will be here in a moment. They’ll get you to the hospital.” Mason wondered how badly he was hurt. The drops of blood had increased to a trickle as he moved along the cooler.

“I’m not going to the hospital.”

“Where do you want to go?”

Kent didn’t answer.

“I’m going to come around this corner. You going to shoot?” Mason asked.

A long moment of silence made Mason wonder if the man had passed out.

“No, I won’t shoot.” Kent’s voice was soft.

Should he go? Mason paused. He wanted to be the man to bring Kent down for the crimes he’d committed against the people close to him. But the smart thing would be to wait for the SERT team.

“I’m going to be with my son again,” Kent said.

Mason spun around the corner, his gun trained on Kent. The man sat on the floor in the corner, propped up against the wall with his feet spread in front of him. The sniper’s shot had caused more damage than Mason had realized. Blood soaked the front of Kent’s jacket and pooled on the floor to his left. His eyes were slow to look up at Mason. He clutched his gun against his bloody chest; his other hand lay useless beside him. He looked at Mason’s gun and then into Mason’s eyes.

“I can hear him calling me,” he stated. His eyes struggled to focus.

Mason heard commands being shouted out on the floor of the store. “I think you hear the SERT team,” Mason said. Kent looked like a man who’d given up, and Mason felt a pang of sympathy.

“No, it’s Wyatt. He’s telling me to hurry up.”

Shouts of “Go, go, go!” echoed into the back room.

Mason squatted at the feet of the defeated man, his gun ready. “I never meant to hurt your son. I did what I thought was right. And I know I wouldn’t have done anything different.”

Kent nodded and winced in pain, shifting on the floor. “Fucking hurts.”

“Sorry about that.”

“The pain sorta feels good, you know? I actually feel something besides the fucking emptiness in my heart.”

Mason didn’t know what to say.

“I won’t go to prison,” Kent stated, looking Mason in the eye again. “I can’t. I’ve been in prison for twenty years.”

“You don’t know that will happen.”

“Yes, I do. I killed that prostitute and set it up to look like you’d been there. I had to make it look brutal and angry. I wanted the scene to disturb you and everyone who looked at it.”

“Did you take Jake’s suitcase?”

Kent snorted. “Yeah, I was getting desperate. I was beginning to think I’d never get my hands on your son. I’d hoped to find something in the suitcase I could lure him with, but instead I found dirty laundry and a stuffed animal.”

Mason eyed the growing pool of blood on Kent’s left.

“We’re in the back!” Mason yelled out to the SERT team. “He’s down!”

“No!” Kent whispered. “Keep them away.”

Mason reached to take the gun from Kent’s hand on his chest. “Let me take this.”

Kent shook his head, whipped the gun into his mouth, and fired.

Mason tried not to vomit as three members of the SERT team attempted to revive Kent Jopek.

Why didn’t I grab the gun sooner?

Mason had fallen backward in shock as Kent swiftly shot himself, spraying blood on the wall behind him. He’d scooted away from the body, a split second before SERT swept into the back room. Now Mason sat on the floor, his back against a stack of pallets. One heavily armored officer asked if he was injured, and Mason shook his head.

He couldn’t speak. Shock locked his voice.

Mason hadn’t seen Kent’s suicide coming. There hadn’t been time to assess any signs.

The officers shouted commands and acted like they’d practiced the resuscitation a hundred times. Mason stared as Kent’s feet jerked with the officer’s movements, knowing their attempts were futile. No one could survive that damage to the brain.

Jake sprinted from the far end of the cooler, two SERT members hot on his heels shouting for him to stop. “Dad!” he shrieked when he saw Mason on the ground.

Mason lifted a hand as Jake ran closer. “I’m not hurt.”

“I heard a shot!” Jake fell to his knees, panting.

Mason pointed at the officers frantically working on Kent. “He shot himself.”

Jake looked and jumped back to his feet. “Stop it!” he shouted at the officers. “Don’t help him!” He lunged at an officer, but was grabbed around the waist by one who’d tailed him through the back room.

“Jake!” Mason leaped up, snatching his son away from the officer. “What are you doing?”

“Leave him alone! Stop them!”

Mason shook the boy, making Jake look him in the eye. “They’re doing their job!”

“Don’t let them save him,” Jake pleaded as tears streaked down his face. “He’ll come back and do this to us again!”