Wally held up the first shotgun shell in his sweaty hands and said, “Shane, this one’s for you,” then pushed it into the chamber. He drank a swig of Jack Daniels to that one and picked up the next shell, repeating the pattern until he had loaded four named shells with their offenses listed after each.​
Raging thoughts fit the whiskey burn in his throat.​
Sitting on the couch, he thought of his girlfriend–no, former girlfriend now–who had picked out this hideous pattern on his new furniture because she was supposed to finally move in. She’d be sorry when she saw his face on the news. 

Adrenaline bolstered him as he drove the ten miles to the plant. It had been a week since he had been fired. It was time for the conspirators to pay.​
The security guard leaned out of his booth as Wally’s truck pulled up. He thought about wasting this guy, but he had nothing against him. The guy had waved to him every day as he drove by on his way to the hellhole.​
Just don’t try to stop me, and you’ll be okay.​
“I’m getting my last check,” Wally lied.​
The man saved his own life by waving him on one last time. He would know that soon. No gratuitous killing for Wally. He had his principles, even making sure his only friend wouldn’t be there that day by pulling off the coil wire on his car. Joe Carter was one good guy.​
A shotgun was not the easiest thing to hide, and it did draw attention to him as he walked through the security door after punching in the code they hadn’t changed.​
Dumbasses. They could have stopped me right here.​
He didn’t mind pointing the gun to get what he wanted. “Where’s Shane?” he asked a trembling line worker before she fainted in front of him. Stepping over her, he watched people scramble like mice as he hunted his prey, the one who must die first.​
“Somebody better give it up! Where’s that bastard who fired me? I gave the best years of my life to this place, and I was robbed!”​
Wally didn’t know how long he had been standing in the middle of the room before he realized it was now empty.​
Pent-up fury battled with whiskey and fatigue as he plodded on toward the offices. Maybe Shane was there. Maybe he was firing another poor stiff in the stark room with his desk that he sat behind with a smug look on his face the day he fired Wally.​
He tried the door to Shane’s office. It was locked. A futile attempt to keep him out, he thought as he aimed.  The door exploded in a shower of wood as he pumped another shell into the chamber.​
Hearing whimpers under the desk, he knew he had found his target. He’d already wasted one shot–it looked like it was Tom’s lucky day, because there wouldn’t be a bullet for him, last on the list.​
“Get out here and face me like a man,” Wally ordered. Hearing sirens outside the plant’s walls, he knew they were getting closer, and the other targets were probably gone by now.​
He emptied the shotgun into the desk, pumping, reacting each time with the explosive reverberation in the small office.​
Target Number One accomplished.​
Wally’s head cleared. Standing in a corner of the room with an empty gun, he saw an arm fall out from under the desk. He zeroed in on the hand–a gold class ring stood out like a match in the dark. Stumbling to the desk, he picked up the finger. Jackson High School Class of 1985. How the hell had Joe Carter gotten to work?

A mouse of a man fidgeted as he waited in the attorney’s visiting area of the county jail. He read the case file about Wally, who had mistakenly killed his only friend. It hadn’t been Joe Carter’s day at all. He’d been late for work that day, and  had just been fired--even after he explained that his car wouldn’t start.

Wally stepped into the visiting room.​
“My name is Bart Dreyer. I’ve been hired to represent you,” the mouse-man said as he held out his hand, then dropped it when he saw that his client wasn’t responding.​
“You’re my public defender?” Wally asked. The conspiracy continued against him. Someone had hired this idiot to lose the case and get him the needle as soon as possible.​
As the man sputtered, Wally knew what he had to do to break up the plot against him. “Get me somebody else. You’re fired.”

Attorney Bart Dreyer could have sympathized with Wally because he had been fired by firms and clients alike. Too many times. ​
Dreyer’s tension headache made him want to blow up his head by the time he reached his lousy downtown apartment. Through the pain, his brain muddled to a plan.​
He could sneak his semiautomatic glock into the jail by putting it in a lead bag inserted in a sealed bubble mailer, then inside his briefcase. Sure, the guards checked attorneys, but not that closely.​
He wasn’t going to take this firing sitting down.​
Wally was going to pay.