The Final Shot
Back at the station, Marcus Shaw changed into his police uniform. It had been so long since he'd worn it that it felt a bit loose.
Vince Conrad had mentioned earlier that Dominic Hale was filial. Though their interactions were limited, the impression was that he was always calling his mother, wanting to bring her things.
"Do you know where his mother lives?"
Vince Conrad shook his head. "He guarded against everyone. None of us knew."
Marcus Shaw went to check the upscale residential complex and, using the community's surveillance, identified one unit owned by an elderly woman.
Though the household records showed no connection to Dominic Hale, Marcus Shaw felt certain this was his mother.
Past 4:30, Marcus Shaw prepared to apprehend Dominic Hale. He reapplied for his service weapon. He hadn't touched a gun in nearly three years. The weight of it in his hand felt heavy—his palms sweated. He quickly wiped them dry and holstered it.
As he was heading out, he suddenly remembered his mother's words—that he was the pillar of the family. He turned back and put on a bulletproof vest. He wanted to call colleagues to join him, but they were all out on calls. He simply couldn't round anyone up.
That was the nature of police work—whenever citizens filed a report, no matter how trivial, someone had to respond in person. More often than not, it was something utterly minor, a waste of manpower. But there was nothing for it—they weren't doing it on purpose, and at most they'd get a brief lecture.
He borrowed a police cruiser from the traffic division and drove to a small road with few residents on either side, parking it out of sight by the curb.
This was rush hour. To reach that furniture store, the other two main roads would be gridlocked. Dominic Hale would definitely take this route.
Marcus Shaw waited for a long time. The clock was pushing six, but no Range Rover appeared, nor that license plate.
A vague anxiety crept in. Had he been made? Or was Dominic Hale not coming?
But then he reconsidered—Dominic Hale doted on his mother. He wouldn't skip this.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, a black Range Rover appeared around the bend. Marcus Shaw's heart rate spiked. He stepped into the middle of the road and made a stopping gesture.
The car drew close and came to a halt. Sure enough—it was Dominic Hale, wearing a hat, no mask. He poked his head out. "What's the matter?"
"License and registration, please."
Dominic Hale frowned at him but didn't move for a long moment.
Marcus Shaw's stomach tightened. Had the sunglasses failed? Had Dominic Hale recognized him?
Before he could stew further, Dominic Hale ducked back inside, seemingly searching for something, producing a rattling sound.
Marcus Shaw tensed, one hand quietly reaching for his weapon.
"Here." Dominic Hale extended an arm and handed over his license.
Marcus Shaw examined it—another fake identity. He stole a glance at Dominic Hale, who had propped his arm on the window frame, fingers drumming rhythmically against the door panel.
Marcus Shaw needed to get him out of the car. He closed the license, handed it back, and said, "My equipment's in the cruiser. Come with me for a breathalyzer test." He turned and walked toward the police car.
Marcus Shaw strained his ears but heard only his own heartbeat.
If Dominic Hale grew suspicious, he could simply drive away at any moment.
Nothing behind him. Marcus Shaw kept walking, feigning nonchalance, his stride casual.
Just as he debated whether to turn and call out again, he finally heard the car door slam shut. The stone in his chest dropped.
He took a deep breath, but his heart immediately shot back up.
Next step: figure out how to subdue him.
Dominic Hale followed, glancing around. Marcus Shaw grabbed the breathalyzer, inserted a mouthpiece, turned, and offered it. "Here, blow."
But somehow, Dominic Hale seemed to sense something was wrong. He didn't take it—just turned and bolted back toward his car.
Marcus Shaw dropped the device, drew his weapon, and fired a warning shot, ordering him to stop.
Dominic Hale didn't listen, still scrambling for his car door.
Marcus Shaw fired again, chipping the paint off the car door, startling Dominic Hale into releasing the handle.
Another shot forced Dominic Hale back from the car.
But Dominic Hale reacted swiftly—one quick dodge, and he was behind the vehicle.
Before Marcus Shaw could advance, Dominic Hale popped the trunk. With a sharp click, a bullet flew past Marcus Shaw's ear.
Blood pounding, Marcus Shaw dove behind a utility pole, pressing himself flat against it, aiming carefully while shouting, "Look behind you—I've called for backup! You have nowhere to go!"
Dominic Hale quickly twisted to look. Sure enough, a police car was approaching from behind, siren wailing, lights flashing.
Truth be told, Marcus Shaw was bluffing. It was just a traffic officer, and one without a gun at that. He had no idea if it would actually intimidate Dominic Hale.
The police car stopped about 300 meters from the Range Rover.
Marcus Shaw resumed shouting: "You killed Shane Mercer, didn't you?"
From behind the car, Dominic Hale bellowed, "He took the wrong medication himself. It had nothing to do with me."
"Bullshit. Vince Conrad told me everything—that kid followed your every word. If you hadn't told him to, why would he have bought two separate batches of medicine, and why would combining them be lethal?"
The words flew like spears, clattering across the road and shattering on the asphalt.
Dominic Hale said, "He didn't want to live anymore. He killed himself out of guilt."
"Then why are you hiding? Why not come back to the station with me like a good citizen?"
Before the echo faded, another shot came from Dominic Hale's direction, striking the metal casing of the utility pole with a loud, reverberating clang.
"You're the one who was monitoring my phone, aren't you? Can't take a hint?"
"Yes, I fell for your trap. So what? You really want me dead that badly? You think killing me means no one will come after you for all the things you've done?"
Dominic Hale said nothing.
Marcus Shaw continued: "With so many lives on your conscience, where can you even run? Even if you kill me, even if you killed Captain Reed—behind me stand thousands of brothers. They'll hunt you to the ends of the earth, and you'll never have another day of peace!"
Dominic Hale shouted, "I don't know what you're talking about. None of it has anything to do with me."
Marcus Shaw thought, Fair enough. He won't confess until he sees his own coffin. Let him talk tough.
Just then, a voice crackled over the radio at his hip—Officer Ji from traffic, asking what to do next.
Marcus Shaw whispered, "He's armed and dangerous. Just block the far end. Don't approach."
While Marcus Shaw was distracted, Dominic Hale darted out from behind the car, rolled forward, and tried to open the driver's door. Marcus Shaw fired immediately, driving him back again.
Dominic Hale returned fire—two shots, both misses.
They hunkered down in their respective positions. Marcus Shaw's heart sank—he was down to his last bullet.
A standoff ensued. Perhaps Officer Ji had heard the gunfire and grown concerned, because he slowly crept the police car forward, using a loudspeaker to call out to Dominic Hale: "Surrender now, and you can still get leniency. Otherwise, we'll open fire. There are three of us."
But Dominic Hale ignored him completely, firing repeatedly at Marcus Shaw instead.
Marcus Shaw tried to adjust his position, but in a moment of inattention, Dominic Hale seized the opening—a shot to the abdomen. Marcus Shaw crumpled to the ground.
Seeing this, Dominic Hale didn't hesitate. He emerged from cover and reached for the car door.
But Marcus Shaw wasn't dead. Lying on the ground, he found his angle, held his breath, steadied his aim, and squeezed the trigger.
A crack rang out. Dominic Hale's head burst open, blood spurting far.
Marcus Shaw rolled upright, pressing his hand to his belly, muttering to himself: "Danny, Mikey. Your brother avenged you."
He looked up. The sky was crisscrossed with fish-scale clouds, like shredded cotton balls.
---
Marcus Shaw filed his post-shooting report.
The review concluded that Dominic Hale's criminal acts were clear and substantiated. During the apprehension, after the officer fired warning shots, Dominic Hale had continued discharging his weapon at police. The officer's use of lethal force met all three prerequisites: violent criminal conduct, exigent circumstances, and failure of warning—the shooting was deemed lawful enforcement. The court dismissed the wrongful death suit filed by Dominic Hale's family, and the public security bureau rejected their compensation claim.
Per regulations, Marcus Shaw should have been recused from the case, but given the suddenness of events and the exigent circumstances, the decision was made to issue him a formal reprimand.
For three straight days, Marcus Shaw compiled the evidence report, arranging Dominic Hale's crimes in chronological order:
Case One: Food poisoning—murder of Shane Mercer. Witness Vince Conrad provided testimony. Dominic Hale was suspected of using others' personal information, filing false materials for corporate registration, evading legal liability as the entity's representative, maliciously framing others; murdering Shane Mercer and staging it as a guilt-driven suicide; directing others to give false testimony; bribing police insiders to create multiple false identities and evade justice. Surveillance footage of identity fraud was obtained; financial records and surveillance footage of misappropriated funds were obtained; a search of Dominic Hale's residence yielded two sets of genuine accounting books and multiple false identity documents. The bribed insiders are still being pursued.
Case Two: Attempted murder of Marcus Shaw—resulting in the death of Daniel Shaw. To silence the original case officers, Dominic Hale used virtual dialing software to send fake discount text messages for a park to the officers' family members, luring three people to drive there. He then triggered a landslide via explosives and other means, causing severe vehicle damage, killing Daniel Shaw and injuring two others. Park ticketing staff confirmed the discount messages were fabricated; explosive residue was found at the site during inspection.
Case Three: Murder of Vince Conrad's mother—murder of a witness. Vince Conrad had disclosed past events to his mother, leading to her being targeted. Dominic Hale studied the victim's routines, lay in wait, killed her with a meat cleaver, and sexually assaulted her corpse. He then framed a local butcher. Shoe prints from the suspect were collected at the scene; the murder weapon was recovered; the victim's body showed evidence of sexual assault; traces of sodium benzoate used to implicate the butcher were found.
Case Four: Murder of a vocational school teacher—suspected witness. The victim had been Shane Mercer's homeroom teacher and was believed to have learned of the original incident from Shane Mercer (unconfirmed). Dominic Hale is suspected of obtaining key evidence of the teacher's sexual assaults on students from Shane Mercer, then using it as leverage. During a school parent-teacher meeting, he blended in with parents, disabled the surveillance system, coerced the teacher, and committed murder—staging it as a guilt-driven suicide. A female student's eyewitness testimony described a suspect whose physical characteristics matched Dominic Hale; a forged suicide note and related evidence were recovered.
Case Five: Attempted murder of Marcus Shaw. Seizing the opportunity of Marcus Shaw's car being in for maintenance, Dominic Hale used unknown means to gain access (unconfirmed), injected a white viscous liquid into the fuel tank, causing fuel line irregularities and a traffic accident. Marcus Shaw narrowly survived and sustained minor injuries. An inspection report from the insurance company's designated repair shop was obtained.
Case Six: Murder of Gordon Pike—a witness. Dominic Hale studied the victim's routines, disabled a surveillance camera dome and cut the brake line on the victim's motorcycle, causing a fatal traffic accident. The tampered motorcycle was recovered.
Case Seven: Production and distribution of obscene materials; attempted murder of Marcus Shaw. Information obtained via phone surveillance indicated Dominic Hale was involved in producing and selling obscene materials, and had engineered a situation that placed Marcus Shaw in danger, causing serious injury. Three buyers were apprehended with detailed confessions; recorded audio of transaction negotiations was obtained.
Case Eight: Orchestrated entrapment of Marcus Shaw for solicitation. Dominic Hale directed an individual to impersonate a sanitation worker, using the offer of "leads" as bait, drugging Marcus Shaw and setting him up to be temporarily suspended, thereby obstructing the investigation. The fake sanitation worker is still being pursued.
Case Nine: Murder of Captain Reed. The victim was the original supervising officer of the food poisoning case. Dominic Hale is suspected of silencing him and framing Officer Marcus Shaw. The murder weapon was recovered; shoe prints matching Dominic Hale were found at the crime scene, and surveillance footage from nearby showed a suspect whose physical characteristics matched.
Case Ten: Directed kidnapping of Marcus Shaw's family; attempted murder of Marcus Shaw. Dominic Hale used virtual dialing software to send anonymous tips to the kidnappers, directing them to abduct Marcus Shaw's father and wife and demand a massive ransom; he engineered a situation placing Marcus Shaw in danger, causing serious injury; through the kidnappers' actions, Officer Viktor Dunn was killed, Marcus Shaw's father was seriously injured, and Marcus Shaw's wife sustained minor injuries. Four kidnappers were apprehended with detailed confessions; records of anonymous messages were obtained.
Case Eleven: Illegal possession of a firearm, resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer. Eyewitness testimony from Traffic Officer Jim Farrell.
The evidentiary chain was largely intact. Though some details remained uncertain, Dominic Hale was dead. Certain specifics would never be known, and they could only make reasonable inferences based on available evidence.
Captain Harris reviewed it all and sat in silence for a long time.
Marcus Shaw said, "Actually—actually it was Zack who compiled this. I just ran the errands. Want me to call him over? You can ask him yourself."
Captain Harris waved dismissively. "I know, I know. Leave this with me—I'll verify it again and figure out how to submit it upstairs. Let's close this case as soon as possible."
As Marcus Shaw was about to leave, he turned back. "But I still feel... there are inconsistencies. You and the others can make the call—I'll keep thinking it over too."
Captain Harris nodded.
Back at his desk, Marcus Shaw had just revised the first page when Nora called.
He smiled, picked up immediately—but her voice came through, breathless: "The house is on fire!"