Deputy Edyth Flournoy walked in at that moment, carrying a rifle encased in plastic, which she displayed for Rex to see.
“That’s it?” he asked her.
“This is it.”
Rex looked over at Abby, then back at the rifle.
It was Mitch’s childhood gun.
Rex, who had shot it many times himself, would have recognized it anywhere because of the heart and initials that Abby had scratched into the wooden barrel, an act of loving vandalism that might have infuriated another boy but had only made Mitch laugh and kiss her. Rex had been there to see it and he remembered thinking at the time, it must be love.
His cell phone rang. When he saw on the Caller I.D. screen that it was his parents’ number, he answered, saying, “Mom?”
“Rex-” His mother’s voice was shaky. “Mitch is here.”
“Mitch is there, at your house? Now? ”
Both the nurse and Abby looked up sharply at him.
“He’s in our driveway, Rex,” his mother said, sounding near panic. “With Jeff. Rex, he’s got a gun.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“Upstairs.”
“Can you get to Dad’s gun case?”
“No!” Abby screamed, breaking away from her father’s nurse. “No, Rex!”
Ignoring her, he continued giving instructions to his mother. “Get out one of Dad’s rifles. You know how to use it, Mom. If Mitch does anything to threaten either of you, shoot the bastard.”
“Rex, I can’t! I couldn’t do that!”
“Mom, it’s his rifle that shot and killed Doc.”
“No!” Abby screamed again.
Rex took the phone from his ear for just long enough to look his friend in her eyes and say, “Maybe it’s about time that you and I believed the worst of Mitch Newquist.”
She ran after him when he raced out to his SUV and jumped in before he could stop her. He didn’t have time to argue with her or to force her out of the car. He had told his deputies to leave what they were doing and follow him. “But don’t make any moves until I tell you to,” he instructed them.
Rex flipped on his siren and his lights and left them on until they were close enough to be heard from the ranch. At that point, he turned them off again, but he continued to speed toward his parents’ property, driving faster than any car Abby had ever been in before. He did it all with one hand, because his other hand never left his cell phone and his cell phone never left his ear.
When he got to the front gate, he heard his mother say in a calmer voice, “It’s all right now, Rex. Your father has things under control.”
Under control meant that Nathan Shellenberger had his own rifle leveled at Mitch Newquist’s face as the four of them-Nathan, Mitch, Jeff, Verna-stood on the side porch by the kitchen.
When Rex and Abby walked up, Abby’s heart betrayed her and lurched at the sight of the man she realized in that moment she would always love, whether she ought to or not, whether it was right or not, whether he had done the worst possible thing he could do to her family or not. She loved him, she had always loved him, she would always love him, God help me, Abby thought as she stopped in the driveway, exactly where Rex told her to.
“Rex, tell your dad to put his gun down!” Mitch yelled. And then to Nathan he yelled, “What is wrong with you? I’m Mitch! Remember? Mrs. Shellenberger, you know me, or you used to, and I know you know Jeff-”
“Where is your gun, Mitch?” Rex asked him, drawing nearer.
He did not tell his father to put the rifle down.
“Rex, my gun,” Mitch said in a tone of deep sarcasm, “is over there on the ground where I dropped it when your father came charging out of the house with his gun.” To Nathan again, he said, “What do you think? That we’re here to rob you? Or is this how far you’ll go to keep me from telling what I know?”
“You show up with a gun at my house,” the old sheriff said gruffly.
“After you’ve shot Quentin Reynolds,” Rex said. “What do you mean, what Dad-”
Mitch turned so fast to stare at him that Nathan tightened his grip on his rifle, causing Verna to cry out, “Nathan!” Mitch interrupted, “What? What are you talking about, Rex? I haven’t done anything to anybody. I haven’t shot anybody. Are you telling me that somebody shot Abby’s dad?” He looked at her. “Abby-”
“Do not move,” Rex told him. “Jeff, are you all right?”
“Well, yeah,” the teenager said in sarcastic tones to match his brother’s. “What are you talking about, Mitch shooting Doc? We were just over there, dude. Nobody shot Doc. Okay, they yelled at each other. I don’t know what that was all about. But nobody fucking shot anybody.” Belatedly, he realized Verna was standing there. “Sorry,” he mumbled, with a glance at her. “But I mean, I was there the whole time, Mitch and me, we walked out of the house at the same time, and I’m telling you, Doc was just fine.”
“Abby?” Mitch said, looking concerned and worried. “Your father?”
“My son told you not to move,” Nathan warned him. “If you didn’t shoot anybody then what the hell were you doing walking up to my house with a gun?”
Mitch ignored Nathan and talked directly to Rex. “It’s Dad’s old pistol, Rex. Remember the one he kept in the bed stand at the ranch house?” Then he remembered its history and turned back to look at Nathan. “You gave it to him, Sheriff. You and Doc, for one of his birthdays, remember?”
“I don’t care who gave it to him, what are you doing with it here?” Nathan demanded.
“I had it,” Jeff said, stepping forward. “Mitch made me give it back.”
“You had it?” Rex asked.
“Okay, I took it. The other night, from the ranch house.”
“We were arguing…talking…about it in the car on the way over here,” Mitch said, “after we left Doc’s house. Just now, when we got out of my car, I made Jeff give it to me. That’s what your mom and dad saw.” He looked at the older couple. “Verna. Nathan, that’s what you saw, that’s all it was. Now will somebody please tell me what’s going on? Did something happen to Abby’s dad after we left there?”
In spite of the arm that Rex put out to hold her back, Abby came walking up until she stood within a few feet of them. She looked at Mitch first and then at all of them and she began to cry again.
“Dad’s dead,” Abby confirmed for them. “Somebody shot him in the house.”
“Abby,” Mitch said for the third time, and started to move toward her.
“Stop!” Nathan barked, but then his arthritic arms gave way and he lowered the rifle.
“Will somebody tell us what the hell is going on?” Jeff said to all of them.
For the first time, Verna stepped forward and took charge. “We’re going inside,” she informed them. “You are going to clean up your language, young man,” she said to Jeff, though her tone held affection as well as disapproval. “Come here, Abby.” Abby ran forward into the older woman’s embrace. With Abby enveloped in her arms and crying on her shoulder, Verna Shellenberger looked at her husband and then at each of the others in turn, and she said in tones that brooked no argument, “We’re going inside.”
The old sheriff gave her a wary look, but then something in his spirit seemed to collapse in the way his arms had, because he nodded, turned, and was the first to go into the house. All of them, looking at him, understood that that was the moment when Nathan Shellenberger really grasped that his lifelong friend was gone.