When the Devil Comes to Call (A Lars and Shaine Novel Book 2) by Eric Beetner Page A

can get yours. Now, back to my question. How do we do this?”
     
    ***
     
    Lars and Shaine arrived at the hotel and checked in to their adjoining rooms. Lars took off his shirt and rolled his T-shirt sleeve up over his biceps. Two small pellets of steel fell out of his sleeve onto the floor. He wondered if the third had lodged in his arm. Lars went to the bathroom mirror to examine his wound. Three tiny circles, already scabbed over. He’d had pimples that were bigger and hurt more. He pressed on the area, the three spots making a triangle. He put a finger on each round hole and on the third felt something hard. He pinched the skin on either side of the tiny welt and out popped the third buckshot pellet. He let it fall to the carpet with the others. Let housekeeping vacuum them up in the morning. Better than rooting around on his knees with his fingers dug into dirty carpet.
    He went down to his knees anyway, not to search, but to do a few quick yoga moves.
     
    ***
     
    Shaine sat on the end of her bed and tried not to cry.
    She’d almost gotten used to how quiet Lars was. He wasn’t the one to go to if she had anything serious to talk about. Luckily for her, nothing serious had come up since they moved to Hawaii. Nothing she couldn’t handle. But there were times when she needed to talk. The quiet reminded her too much of her father.
    Growing up in a house of secrets, where so much couldn’t be said, made her dread the quiet of a crowded room. The unsaid. And tonight had been so momentous she needed to talk about it.
     
    Lars was stretching on the floor when Shaine knocked on the common door between their rooms. Lars stood and answered.
    “I’m sorry,” she said.
    “For what?”
    “For all that. For letting her get away. For getting you shot.”
    “This?” Lars said. “This is not getting shot. You tend to notice it if you get shot. This is nothing.” He tugged on the bloody shirt to make his point.
    “Still, I’m sorry,” she said. “I could have gotten you killed.”
    Lars moved aside to let her in. Shaine walked past him and sat on the bed.
    “You mean I could have gotten myself killed. As I recall, I walked in the door first. I drove us there. I came all the way here to kill him.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “Hey, don’t beat yourself up about it. If anything, you should be pissed at me for sending you into a room with a psycho lady.”
    “When she ran, when she tried to get away, I aimed at her. I squeezed the trigger.” Shaine looked down to the carpet. “But the safety was on.”
    “Good,” Lars said, his voice dropping in volume, trying to fill it with sincerity. “I’m glad you didn’t shoot her.”
    “But she almost got you.”
    “And she didn’t. It’ll take a lot more than a screaming housewife to take me out.”
    Shaine cracked a small smile.
    Lars met her eyes. “You really tried to take a shot at her?” Shaine nodded, looked down to the carpet again. “How did that feel?”
    “I was glad the gun didn’t go off.”
    Her answer made Lars happy. “Shaine, you’ll find in life there are some people who deserve killing, and some who don’t. Like your dad—he didn’t deserve it, so I didn’t do it. Leo Ramoni? He deserved it. His wife didn’t deserve it. Until she did.” Lars watched her eyes closely to make sure his message was being understood.  “When she was up in the bedroom with you, she didn’t deserve to die. So it’s good you didn’t shoot her. When she started taking shots at me with a shotgun? That changes things.”
    “I was only going to wound her. Get her to stop running.”
    “Okay,” Lars said, sitting in the chair at the small desk. “That’s good.” He looked at the girl on his bed, practically his adopted daughter. An adult, in most ways. She certainly was no sheltered lamb, unaware of the realities of the world. She’d seen more reality than most people twice her age.
    He knew he could talk to her frankly. “Shaine,” he said.