The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3) Brian Shea (good book club books .txt) 📖

Kelly lowered his weapon slightly. Bobby did the same. Gray slowly dropped his weapon, but not completely.

McDonough reached for the door again.

Kelly waved McDonough off and shook his head, but he turned the knob, calling Kelly’s bluff. McDonough knew Kelly couldn’t pull the trigger.

The open door momentarily shielded McDonough from view.

Kelly heard a strange mechanical thunk, out of place in the silence.

They stepped wide to the left, slicing the pie and trying to reestablish visual with McDonough.

Just as Kelly caught sight of McDonough standing at the top of the stairs leading to the basement, an explosion erupted, sending a fireball up the stairwell. McDonough was launched through the air, bouncing off the countertop before disappearing from view.

The house shook violently, as if every bit of the frame buckled at once. The impact knocked Kelly to the tile. Gray slammed down on top of him. Flames flashed over the kitchen island as they fought to regain their footing.

The heat was intense. The kitchen cabinets and walls were already fully engulfed by the ravenous flames. Kelly and Gray stayed tucked behind the kitchen’s sturdy island as flames ripped and tore at the walls, the fire burning faster and brighter than anything Kelly had ever seen. It was like the house was designed to burn.

Gray coughed and said, "Got to get out of here!" He darted back in the direction they had come, through the open door and into the hallway, disappearing behind a wall of fire.

Kelly looked toward his one chance of escape as the opportunity quickly dwindled. Survival instincts kicked in as he prepared to follow, but even in the midst of the inferno, Kelly couldn’t leave his friend behind.

He snapped out of his desperate need for flight and scanned for any sign of McDonough. Through the smoke and fire, Kelly saw his friend’s foot sticking out from behind a cabinet on the far side of the kitchen.

Kelly sprang into action, crawling fast and low across the shattered tile floor. Bits of the damaged ceramic slashed at him as he moved. He put the pain out of his mind and pushed forward. He rounded the corner and found McDonough crumpled in a heap, the gray suit covered in black, a portion of it near his shoulder still on fire. Kelly swatted at the flames, dousing them.

He reached over and grabbed his friend by the collar, pulling him close. Nothing, no movement. No time to check for vitals. Either way, dead or alive, Kelly wasn’t leaving his friend inside. Without question, Bobby McDonough would do the same for him.

Kelly yanked and pulled his friend across the floor, staying low. McDonough’s dead weight made for an incredibly slow go of it. Kelly had pulled his sweatshirt over his nose and mouth, trying to keep himself from being taken out by the smoke blinding his vision.

Near the refrigerator, Kelly banged his forehead into the corner of a cabinet. Had he not been in a dire situation of life and death, he might have yielded for a moment to the pain of the sharp edge. He felt it immediately, the warmth of his blood trickling down into his right eye, blinding him further.

Kelly persevered, taking each inch forward as a small victory. He was beginning to lose steam. The smoke was filling his lungs. The more he exerted, the more he coughed. The flames swirling overhead intensified as Kelly’s vision faded into a haze. He’d lost sight of the door. His head began to spin, and he knew it was now or never. The hard ten, Pops called it. The last ten seconds of a round when a boxer unloaded with everything left in the tank. Kelly heard Pops signaling him to move, to unload. Problem was, he had nothing left to give. Kelly’s head dipped. He felt a jagged piece of tile gouge at his cheek.

As the bright fire dimmed and his mind battled for strength, Kelly felt something grip his shoulder. He was moving, but not of his own accord. His brain was mush and couldn’t complete the thought and make the connection.

He was met with a whoosh of air. Kelly’s vision and mind cleared enough to realize he was back in the mudroom, which hadn't been fully ravaged by the fire yet. Kelly instinctively reached for McDonough and panicked when he realized his friend was not with him.

A split second later, Gray appeared from the kitchen door, dragging the unconscious McDonough behind him.

Kelly stood. His lungs burned, but he’d regained enough strength to help. He grabbed McDonough under the armpits and started to drag him, his academy training kicking in.

Gray jumped in to assist, picking up McDonough’s feet. The two lawmen moved in tandem to carry the mob enforcer to safety.

Kelly slipped and fell, coughing wildly. His lungs had filled with the black smoke and his eyes still stung.

Gray helped Kelly up, and they grabbed McDonough by the wrists, pulling with all their strength as they dragged his limp body out of the mudroom and into the house’s hard-packed, iced-over yard.

They didn’t stop once outside. Kelly and Gray continued hauling McDonough’s dead weight as they put as much distance as possible between them and the burning house.

About twenty feet away from the house, a secondary series of explosions erupted from inside as Kelly and Gray collapsed in total exhaustion.

Not a portion of the house wasn’t totally consumed by fire.

Kelly and Gray wheezed and coughed as McDonough remained unmoving where they dropped him.

23

"Explain to me one more time why you and our guest here happened to be at a house in suburban Agawam that's fully engulfed in flames. To boot, we've got one near-dead mobster unconscious at the hospital. Worst of all, I'm only hearing about this after the fact. I thought I made myself exceptionally clear when we spoke earlier today." Halstead’s face held no line of tension. And though the message conveyed was one of both outrage and disappointment, none of it could be discerned in the calm, steady