I Am Chosen

Model 1920

Kacey was impressed; Hollis's "crazy idea" had actually worked.

He had written the note with his left hand, claiming to be ambidextrous. It had looked to Kacey like a three-year old epileptic had written it during a seizure but what was important was that Captain Bryce took it seriously. And their intervention had actually saved a life for once. That felt good. It was all over the news. It was a huge step in the right direction...

But what next? Hollis had been right to worry about the fact that they seemingly had no way of killing Crowe. So... that was where Kacey's "crazy idea" came in. Crazy, because it required the cooperation of the one person on earth who wanted to have nothing to do with her: her brother J.D.

She found him, as she knew she would, standing at their parents' grave. It was, after all, the anniversary of the accident that took their lives.

"Hey," she said as walked up behind him. A light breeze stirred his curly brown hair as he continued staring down at the headstones, not acknowledging her presence. "I know you get up early, figured you'd be here at the butt crack of dawn..." She came up and stood next to him. The two of them were silent for a long moment. Finally J.D. said "Why are you here?"

Kacey considered trying to B.S. her brother for a bit, butter him up first... but he would see right through that. Might as well get to the point. "To pay my respects but also... because I need your help."

"You need my help," J.D. responded, his voice laced with sarcasm.

"Look I know we haven't really talked since... since mom and dad died. And that's my fault. After the accident I needed to get away. People... process things differently."

"Yeah you run," J.D. said.

"What?"

"It's what you do. You run away. You ran away from home twice when we were kids. After mom and dad died you ran again and then after that incident in L.A. you came running back."

Kacey's hands clenched into fists as she turned to face J.D. "'The incident?' Are you serious? 'I run'? Okay that's better than what you do: you sit. In one spot, and you get stuck there until roots grow out of your feet. What have you ever done? You took over mom and dad's business because it was the safe thing to do. You've stayed in this town all your life because it's safe. You don't take any risks, you don't take chances. You know what? Maybe I run but at least I get somewhere."

J.D. turned and locked eyes on her. "Really? Looks to me like you ended up right back where you started."

It was all she could do not to throttle him. She had to remind herself that she needed J.D. if her hail-Mary plan had any chance of success. She took a deep breath and blew it out. This conversation was getting nowhere. Reaching into her jacket she pulled out a piece of paper, thrusting it at J.D.'s stomach. "This isn't about me. Or you being pissed at me. This is about saving lives. I need something," she said. "It's a Winchester rifle, model 1920."

J.D. yanked the paper from her hand, frowning. "Winchester stopped using years as model numbers in 1919."

"Yeah, I know. Look, I spent like three hours yesterday in a library, looking at freaking microfilm. Microfilm, okay? You know me well enough to know what kind of torture that was. I didn't even know that crap existed until my partner-it doesn't matter, the point is, you're better at tracking down antiques than just about anyone... except for dad." J.D. winced at the mention of their father. "If anyone can find this thing, it's you," Kacey said.

"Why would some old rifle save lives?"

She gazed at her brother, considering telling him what she had found out about the history of the rifle... but he was always such a realist... and there was no way to really tell part of it without telling the whole crazy story. Finally she settled on "You saw the news yesterday, right? You know there are things about what I do that I can't tell you but what I can tell you is that the guy who lived yesterday, he lived because of me and my partner. And I'm telling you that you can save more lives by getting me this gun. So I need you to do something incredibly difficult; something you haven't done since we were kids. I need you to trust me."