A man started to enter the office.
Frank watched him through the scope. The man paused just inside the doorway, turning back toward the hallway. His movements suggested he was speaking to someone outside the office. After a few moments, he turned and continued into the room. He was holding several sheets of paper, studying them as he walked. A dark winter cap covered his head, and his face remained lowered toward the documents.
Frank followed him through the scope.
The man approached the desk, still looking at the papers in his hands. He walked around and stopped in front of it, his back toward the window. Exactly where Frank had expected him to stand. There was no hesitation.
Frank fired.
The man jerked forward, collapsing across the desk. The papers scattered from his hands as they struck the top of the desk. His winter cap fell away, landing beside the desk.
For a moment, his body remained folded over the desktop. Then he began to slide. His shoulder slipped past the edge, pulling the rest of him toward the floor. As he fell, his body turned, and his head came to rest facing the window.
Frank watched through the scope.
The man's eyes were open. Wide. Unmoving. Frank stared at the face. Something was wrong.
He knew that face. Anthony Sr.
Frank's chest tightened.
A soccer field appeared in his thoughts. Two boys standing near midfield, talking while the other children chased the ball. A man beside him, laughing.
"I swear, those two could be in the middle of a tornado and still find something to talk about."
He remembered Anthony Sr. chuckling, the easy smile on his face as they watched their sons.
Now that same face filled the scope. The laughter was gone. The familiar smile replaced by the wide-eyed stare of death.
Frank couldn't move. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The man on the office floor, Anthony's father. The father of Jack's best friend.
Frank tightened his grip on the rifle.
He thought of Jack crying for Sarah. A young boy, asking for a mother who would never come home. Now Anthony would be asking for his father, who would never come home. And Frank was the reason.
He remained motionless, his eye unable to move away from the scope, locked on the face on the office floor.
Frank whispered, "What have I done?"