Chapter 16: Reckoner

Eight thousand people were chanting, and Cassidy was smiling in the owners' box.

She wanted the town to see the soldier with another woman.

She wanted it to be the last picture of me they had.

Carys saw it too.

"Let her look," she said.

She took a fistful of my gray shirt and kissed me.

It was long and slow and not for the camera, and the whole arena roared.

I put my hand against her face and kissed her back.

When she let go, she was grinning and her eyes were wet.

"Ten minutes," I said into her ear. "Hold the seat."

"Don't be late."

I went up the aisle with my hat low, while everyone in the building watched the screen.

Section C was the highest row on the north side.

The man in the green jacket had not looked up from the arena.

I sat down in the empty seat beside him.

"Evening," I said.

His hand moved toward the guitar case.

I closed my fingers around his wrist.

I did not squeeze hard.

I only turned it a quarter of an inch until the bone said it would break.

"You were hired to shoot me when I went down for the girl," I said quietly. "I'm not going down."

He swallowed.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then you won't mind two of Carys Dunning's riders walking you out for a drink," I said.

Two men in stock vests had already come up the stairs behind him.

They took the case without a word, and one of them lifted the man by the elbow.

They went down the steps, and no one in section C so much as turned around.

The case was heavier than a guitar.

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