The Devil's Own Game

by Annie Hogsett

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  For Tom, time had died. He let go of me, but not before I read a flash of animal terror all over him. I was unraveling too. Out of ideas. Out of guts. Out of time.

  Otis? Now would be good.

  And here was the sound I’d been straining my ears for. The sole of a shoe, brushing over concrete. Barely there, but right here.

  Mercury.

  “Sorry, guys.” Pause. A musing, almost philosophical, tone from outside our cage.

  “I lied about the thermal. You need to come out here.” Matter-of fact. “Now.

  “Tom. I can see you both. I know which image is you. And which one is Allie. She just moved her arm. Hey, Allie. Wave—or don’t. Makes no difference.”

  He was looking directly at me.

  “I’m going to count to ten, and if you’re not making a sincere move to get up out of there, Tom. I’m going to shoot Allie. Not the kill shot. But enough. I’ll let you lie there with her until she dies. Then I’ll take your hands and leave you here. If you don’t bleed to death, you’ll have the problem you’ve been concerned about since Tito. And I’ll have a couple of trophies. Let’s go. One. Two. Three—”

  Bull’s-eye. Both targets annihilated. Tom sat up. Threw the drop cloth aside.

  “Good. Now come on out.”

  “That was cheating, Mercury.” Shadow Man. “The thermal. Seriously cheating.”

  “You should pay closer attention to the guy you’re betting with, Everett. All’s fair in war. End of story.”

  Tom stood up and raised me to my feet. Ignored the “you cheated” spat going on outside our cage. Held me tight. Put his hands on my face, pressed his forehead to mine, and spoke as if we were alone somewhere lovely.

  “No matter what happens, Alice Jane. You and I—” His voice broke. “We’ve been lucky. Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

  He led me out, skirting us around the crouching shapes. So many Thinkers. Not a single bright idea. When we arrived at the door he stopped. Waiting. One of our two Judases opened it for us. Gallant.

  Mercury. “Come on out.” I couldn’t see him. Not even an outline. Or smell him. Or hear him breathe. But his voice, so close, was a punch, dizzying. My knees gave way for a second and I braced myself against Tom. The man snickered.

  “Now that we’re all together, we have time for…closure. To be clear, I have a Beretta PX4. Suppressed. As if any of those noncombatants upstairs would recognize a shot. Or believe it could actually be a shot. On such a festive evening. This means I’m in charge.”

  I wondered what Shadow Man thought of that. He’d never struck me as anybody’s second-in-command.

  Mercury continued. “You looked quite lovely tonight, Allie. Nice dress. Those fancy shoes I happen to know you really couldn’t afford anymore. Glad I captured you for posterity in the armor court. I took the liberty of emailing a copy to Ms. Southgate. You’re in it too, Tom. Her ‘knight in shining armor.’ You might say that was the first time I shot you both this evening.”

  Of course. A camera-zoom behind my eyes: Tom and me with Cece. Beneath the tapestry of “Mercury Delivering Bad News.” Of course. The long-haired, owl-eyed photographer in his damn vest. With an all-access pass to get him and his “equipment” past security. Of course. A great wig to hide his hair and funky glasses to disguise his eyes. Of course.

  Our guard had been so far down.

  I concentrated on my ears. The crowd noise from upstairs had diminished. The storm must have passed over. The brightly-dressed partiers would be emerging into the sparkling night. Pretty people. Dancing with balloons. The contrast between Tom and me up there then and us down here now—lead in my chest.

  Cry. Or Whine. Pick one. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

  * * *

  “Allie.” Him again. “I believe Tom has a gun in his pocket. Tom. Give Allie the gun. I know you blind folks have magic ears to help you aim a shot. Like Mickey Mouse.”

  I was wondering about the mental competence of the sniper. He sounded a tad manic to me. This made me think of Ruth. I could use her calming influence about now. I closed my eyes, exchanging Mercury’s darkness for mine. In/Out, Deep/Slow, Calm/Ease. As usual, I got hung up on the smiling part.

  Tom moved closer and put the gun into my hand. Handed me something else. The spare clip? No. The Yale lock. Locked tight now.

  Brass knuckles. I knew some stuff. The lock was warm.

  Mercury said, “Excellent. Now. Tom. Come over here and stand by me. Yes. Right there. Now Allie. Go nuts. Shoot anybody you like. You don’t have magic ears though. Maybe you’d hit me. Maybe Tom.”

  I enjoyed the weight of my useless weapon. Otis Johnson’s gun felt like a friend.

  The sniper moved very close. Uncomfortably close. I could hear him breathing now. Smell him too. Sweaty. Traumatizing people was demanding work. I held my ground.

  “Tom handed you something besides the gun, Allie. Show me.”

  Well, it was worth a try. I held out the lock. He took it.

  “Nice.” He slapped me across the face. Hard. The force of the blow made me stagger. For a split second he’d been point-blank close, but I heard him dance away long before I could un-jolt my head. My TV heroes would be so disappointed.

  “Allie.”

  “I’m okay, Tom.” My cheek stung. My eyes were watering and for sure out of focus but who cared? Where was Shadow Man in all this? If he wasn’t close to Tom, maybe I could shoot him—A gun in your hand can mess with your common sense. But the idea was appealing.

  Mercury’s voice was ice.

  “That was stupid, Allie. Go ahead and try something else. Next time, I’ll have that lock in my fist. Assuming you live that long. Your minutes are numbered.

  ”And Tom. Extra stupid for you. Stand still. Hold out your hand. Left or right. You choose. Or maybe I’ll just do all your fingers.”

  He came close to me again and put the tip of the blade at the notch in my collarbone. I didn’t even think about raising the gun. A tiny, sharp sting. A warm trickle of blood. “You need to exercise extreme self-control for this part of our adventure. Got it?” I nodded and the knife stung me again.

  “Good.”

  I was now officially frantic and utterly optionless. In my fog of horror, I wondered what had happened to Otis. And if I’d find out before—

  Every now and then, your burning question gets answered in a blinding flash of light. For real.

  Shadow Man, from right next to me, shouted, “Go for it, man. Now.”

  With a sudden metallic screech from the far end of the room, all the lights came on.

  Otis Johnson was back in the game.

  My eyes flew open, and quickly closed in self-defense. The unnerving brightness was a surprise for me, but the sniper yelped in pain. For a man using night vision and thermal, the sudden light was a few seconds of blindness. Those few seconds were enough.

  Before I could focus my eyes, another gun made the chuffing sound.

  Shadow Man was back too. I was glad I hadn’t shot him.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Three of us stood over the dying killer. I’d seen Tom angry. In fact, I myself had made him pretty mad, but I’d never seen him like this. Not this fierce cold.

  “I want to kill him. I want to personally make him die.”

  His mouth was a tight line. His handsome face was dead white except for the flush of color high on his cheeks, seeping upward into his temples, pulsing his heartbeat under the skin.

  Margo loved to say anger was the top level of fear. I was grasping at last how Tom’s fear of the sniper had built up over the past four months, like sediment making rock. Since the final night of February when he killed Kip Wade, I’d tried to ignore the many layers of threat the sniper had laid down in Tom’s mind. The chaos he’d constructed, one cruel an
d terrifying deed at a time.

  Kip. Gloria. Tito and, God help us, Tito’s hands. The clash of glass cascading down into our greenhouse while we huddled on the kitchen floor. The murder of Patricia Stone and the mockery it made of our attempt to use the money for good. His every act undermining Tom’s determination to make a worthwhile life. Right up till tonight’s attempt to utterly destroy Tom and me. Both of us. Together. The love.

  Shadow Man had shot Mercury in the chest. The bullet hole in the many-pocketed photojournalist vest was not all that big, but his blood—what looked to be all of it—was spreading out around him on the floor. Mercury’s eyes had lost their silvery glint, but he could still talk. He reached over, grunting with the effort, and picked up the knife from where it had fallen. Shadow Man moved to take it from him, but he laughed and held it fast.

  “Tell you what, Tom. I can see you’re…unhappy with me… Take my knife… Finish me. Keep your hands. Cut my throat… You’ll feel better.”

  He folded the knife to hand it up, and Tom, with his unerring sense of where things were, took it from him. I wondered if Tito looked up at Mercury the way Mercury was watching Tom. Taunting. Sneering.

  Mercury answered my unspoken question. “Tito… He knew… Couldn’t talk or…scream…but…wasn’t dead when I cut into his wrist… Hated me…more than you do, Tom.”

  “Hard to imagine.” Tom stood over the dying man and opened the knife. It was jet-black and as hateful as an inanimate object can ever be, its angled tip impossibly sharp. The blood on it was mine. I wanted to say, Don’t. But Shadow Man shook his head, a warning. Tom’s life was at stake. He was on his own.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Otis open the door into the hall to let somebody in. Music rushed in too. An exultant dance beat celebrating joy on a distant planet. Tom ran his fingers along the blade, and the moment shifted.

  He spoke to the man at his feet. “Thanks, whoever you were. I think I’m good.”

  The sniper’s eyes stared at nothing.

  Tom folded the knife and held it out to Shadow Man.

  Otis, behind me, said, “Allie?”

  I turned. Chad was standing with him, covering his arm with his nice museum guard jacket. “Hey, Allie. Tom.” His voice betrayed considerable pride. “Look. I got winged.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  We were alive. My worldview was slowly reassembling itself for the better.

  Even the corpse was not turning out to be the sticky wicket I expected. Shadow Man made a call. Apparently our “Mercury” was a “national security matter in some context.” The M.E.’s van was not going to show up on Wade Circle tonight.

  “People are coming.”

  Nobody had covered the body yet, and it was unsettling to see. I searched my soul. Gratifying too.

  Cecelia Southgate, Deputy Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, entered the storage vault under the atrium and surveyed the basement of her kingdom. The lights were up. Except for the body, we were leaving this room—and virtually everything else in the building—the way we found it. Once again, it appeared we’d not broken her museum.

  Her eyes widened when she noticed the trail of drying blood on the front of my formerly merely floral Caroline Herrera. I shook my head and glanced at Tom. She nodded. Didn’t ask.

  After a confused and awkward bit, she sighed and said, “I think I’ve seen everything I need to. I’m glad everyone—you and Allie are safe, Tom. Maybe we could talk next week.” She glanced at Shadow Man. He was his usual deadly, hot self and totally black-rip-stopped for the part. He shook his head at her too.

  “Or perhaps not.” She left, but as she went, she paused to rain congratulations on Chad Collins, patched up and incandescent. I’d never seen a man so delighted to be shot. He’d fallen back into the wall, stunned, and “played dead like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Otis was right up against Tom and me. Unremitting bodyguard observation. Valerio and Wood were both here, out of their jurisdiction maybe, but rock-steady in their support of us. Olivia put her hand on Tom’s shoulder. “You told me back in February you wanted to be there when the sniper went down.”

  “It wasn’t as satisfying as I imagined, Olivia.”

  “It never is, Tom. But you had a major role. I’m so happy you’re okay. You’re a good man to know.”

  I examined Tom for residual damage. He looked like a tired, brave, blind man wearing a dirty, wrecked outfit. But whole.

  I was avoiding reflective surfaces. I could cope with a dead body on the floor, but I hadn’t confronted the demise of “Dry Clean Only” yet. Baby steps.

  Shadow Man gave the big space a comprehensive parting glance, let the glance graze the dead man.

  “You all shouldn’t have to be here. Let’s sit down for a second over there.” He pointed to a spot that offered no view of Mercury’s remains. It had folding chairs too. Tom, Otis, and I followed him. Tom slumped into his chair and went to silent running. When I sat down, the room swam around me like a school of minnows, sparking in sunlight. I closed my eyes until it stopped.

  “Shadow Man?” The query in my voice covered many bases.

  “You have questions for me. Not going to say much but you and Tom deserve—It’s simple, actually. He was a man of many skills. Excellent at long range. Unparalleled close-up. Experienced with poisons and unexplained accidents. Bloody hell with a knife, as we know, or a garrote, according to people I spoke with.

  “But—” He made the “tsk, tsk” sound with his tongue, and amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. Sardonic. “He was an excellent killer, Allie. But, beyond rudimentary surveillance equipment, and being almost able to erase somebody’s in-house video, not all that—”

  Ah. “Tech-savvy?”

  “Too bad for him. He put out feelers with mutual contacts. Described a situation I recognized as $250 million distributed in a manner I was familiar with. He needed a hacker. Irony there.” The mouth tug again.

  “Serious luck for us. I played along. Helped him out by wiping the security video at Atelier to ‘prove my capabilities’ and show I wasn’t afraid to bend the law. Nothing on it worth saving.” He shrugged. “I saved it all elsewhere, just in case.”

  * * *

  My scariest, most troubling question was so tight in my chest I could barely breathe around it. “Otis? Were you in on this? Did you know everything? From the beginning?” Otis stayed silent. Staring at a moment I couldn’t see. Vibrating with an emotion I couldn’t read. I was aware Tom was back with us now. Waiting to find out what we all might have lost tonight.

  Shadow Man answered me first.

  “You both need to understand. I’ve known Otis for—hell…for decades now. And I’ve never seen him face down anything this hard. The night you all heard about the money, I came to see him in his quarters downstairs. I believed there was a decent chance he’d kill me. Or at least try. For your sakes, I needed him to be as shocked as you were when word about the heist came down that morning, but then—that night—he had to get 100% on board with a plan I knew he was going to hate.”

  Tall, dark, tired, and uncompromising, Shadow Man gave us the gift of hard truths. “Allie. Tom. You’re alive tonight because over the past three weeks Otis has done things he would not ever do. He lied to you. He accepted a risky, unpredictable situation for you. He put your lives on the line, because, as far as either of us could see, it was your only chance. Only. Chance.

  “That guy was bound to wipe the slate. He told me so. You, Allie. Tom. Anyone who had the slightest link. Including Otis. Otis wasn’t even interested when I told him about that. And I led with it. Remember that, please.”

  I looked at Otis. He was hunched over his knees. Hands clasped. Beyond silent.

  Tom could talk just fine.

  “You told them about the Solstice tickets, Otis. You—helped him arrange tonight. It could have gone—”
/>
  The ground under Tom had crumbled. Tom needed Otis to still be our solid ground.

  Otis came back to us. Sat up straight in his folding chair. Looked me straight in the eye. Spoke directly to Tom. “Yes, Tom. No kidding. We could all of us be dead right now. Like as not, they’d have found us Monday morning. Like as not, he’d make sure even Chad was dead.

  “No matter what lies he told us, that man would never have let you guys live. We had to stop him. Tonight. If we hadn’t, he’d be out there. Taunting you. Stalking you. Targeting you. Up close or 2000 feet out. Everywhere. Anywhere. Anytime. And you’d have no security or peace—24/7—while you waited for him to get you in his sights. And I would not have been able to protect you from that. Tonight was risky, but it was our best shot as we saw it. As controlled as it ever gets. This room was just the right amount of “out of nowhere.” We knew we had a decent chance to stop him here.

  “But you both have always trusted me to be straight with you. And the last three weeks, I’ve been everything but that. I’m sorry.”

  My face spoke for itself.

  Emotion choked Tom’s answer. “I’m insulted that you’d think you needed to apologize being willing to lay your life down for Allie and me tonight, Otis. But I’m going to overlook it. This once.”

  All this fellow feeling gave me courage to bug The Shadow about something else.

  “So. You stole all our money.”

  A brief nod.

  “Geez. Did you put it back?”

  The shadow of a smile. “Most of it.”

  I blew right by that. “How did you get that obviously unprincipled man to trust you not to run off with the cash.”

  “You’d be surprised, Allie. All I had to do was make the assurances and guarantees sound really complicated. It was the clown car of checks and balances. Something like, Mercury and I would have to go to a bank in the Bahamas. Handcuffed together. In our underwear. With matching pass keys. Never would have worked. But, again, he wasn’t very—