“No, I didn’t. But they’ll think I did because of my background.”
He was guilty. She knew it with sudden, absolute certainty. Why else would he have a gun in her ribs? She thought of running the car off a bridge, crashing it into a brick wall, driving headlong into an eighteen-wheeler. She would gladly die for the honor of killing him.
“Turn here,” he shouted, pointing to a dirt road in a wooded area.
She turned without slowing, letting her tires slide on the gravel.
“Stop the car!”
“No!” she shouted. “I’m going to kill us both.”
He fired the gun across her, shattering her window. She screamed and let go of the wheel.
“I said, ‘Stop the car!’”
She slammed on the brakes, afraid he would fire it again. The fear made her angry. Didn’t she want to die? Wasn’t it worth it?
Her survival instinct kicked in, and she realized that what she wanted most was to get out of this car and run for her life.
“I don’t want to have to use this, honey,” he said in a breathless voice, “but I will. I’m driving. Move over.”
She watched through the blur of angry tears as he came around the car to her side. He put the gun to her head, so she scooted over. He had trouble getting his casted leg in, but he managed.
He started the car, turned it around, and started taking the back roads toward New Orleans.
“If Detective Shepherd figured it out, they’ll find you,” she said. “They’ll hunt you down like a rabid animal.”
“They won’t find me.” His voice was softer now, almost calm.
She wondered if Stan would realize that Gordon had kidnapped her. If not, then when Jill realized Ashley had disappeared again, she would be certain she had run off with a bottle of sleeping pills. This time, she might finally realize that Ashley wasn’t worth chasing.
“Where are we going?” she said.
“New Orleans,” he said.
“Where in New Orleans?”
“Your mother’s house,” he said.
Horrified, she thought of jumping out. “I won’t tell you where it is.”
“You don’t have to, sweetie. I looked it up days ago. I know right where it is. They won’t think to look for me there.”
Chapter Ninety-Three
While Dan went to the hospital’s rehab center for his therapy session, Jill drove back to Newpointe to help Ashley at Gordon’s.
But when she turned the corner onto Gordon’s street, she caught her breath. Police cars were lined up on the front of his property, their blue lights flashing. She pulled up behind them. What on earth had happened? Had Gordon died? Was Ashley in trouble?
She bolted out of the car. “What happened?”
A cop with an ATF jacket stopped her. “Ma’am, you can’t go any further.”
She fought him out of her way. “Please! I have to know what happened!”
She saw Stan then, standing at one of the cars. He hurried toward her, calling to the cop to let her go.
“Stan, what’s going on?”
“Jill, I hate to break this to you, but we have strong reason to believe that Gordon Webster planted the bombs at the Icon Building. And I think he might have Ashley.”
“What?” She couldn’t have heard him right. “No, that can’t be. He was in there himself. He was a victim.”
“I have a witness who says he’s the one who rented the truck that was used in the bombing. The FBI just searched the property he used to own outside town. It was foreclosed on last week, but they found evidence of bomb-making materials in an old barn on the property. Now he’s vanished, and I’m afraid she’s with him.”
“No!” She hit Stan, shoving him back. “If you knew, why didn’t you tell us?”
“I called her and told her to leave the moment I knew, Jill. And maybe she did—maybe she got away safely. But I’m afraid the call was a mistake. The phone call may have made him suspicious. I raced over here, but they were already gone. Do you know how to reach her?”
“No! I called my house on the way over and she wasn’t there.” Numbness bled through her, and she stared up at the house. Was it really possible that the old man she had helped down the stairs, injured and needy, the one who had lost his wife and his retirement and his job, could really have killed over a hundred and fifty people in a cold-blooded act of murder? Had he taken Ashley hostage?
“If you called her, don’t you think she might have left? Maybe he has an accomplice. Maybe someone picked him up.”
“It’s possible.”
She turned back to her car. “I’ve got to go find her.”
“Be careful, Jill. He could be dangerous.”
Jill wept as she drove away. Ashley couldn’t be with Gordon. If Stan had warned her, maybe she had listened. Maybe she was home by now.
Jill drove by her own house but didn’t see Ashley’s car. She tried to think.
If Ashley had left as she was told, then figured out that Gordon was involved, what could she be thinking? Would it destroy her trust in everyone? If she had gotten away, would she buy some more of those pills and carry out her suicide plans?
She pulled her cell phone off the waist of her jeans and pressed number one—the speed dial number she’d programmed for Dan.
He answered quickly. “Hey, babe.”
“Dan, pray!” she shouted into the phone. “They figured out that Gordon is the one who planted the bombs, and they think he may have Ashley!”
“Gordon?” he said. “The man you’ve been helping?”
“Yes! I’m driving to New Orleans. I’m hoping she’s at her mother’s house and not with him after all. But pray, Dan! Please!”
“I will. Jill, be careful!”
“All right. Keep your phone on you.”
She flew across Lake Pontchartrain and into New Orleans, and then she raced to Ashley’s neighborhood.
As she turned onto Ashley’s street, she saw her Subaru in the carport.
“Thank you, God!” she cried out. “Oh, she’s here!” Screeching into the driveway, she bolted out and went to the door. It wasn’t locked, so she burst inside.
Ashley sat on the floor in a corner of the living room, her hands, feet, and mouth taped up with duct tape.
Gordon sat on the couch, a gun pointed at her head.
“Come on in, Jill,” he said. “We started this out together. We might as well finish it together.”
Jill froze. “Put the gun down, Gordon. Put it down now.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Jill,” he said. “Get over there with her.”
Jill ran to Ashley and threw her arms around her. Ashley fell against her.
And as Gordon got the duct tape to tie her up, Jill pressed the number one on the cell phone hanging on her waistband and quickly sent the call.
Chapter Ninety-Four
Dan was wheeling himself back to his room when his phone rang again. He grabbed it. “Hello, Jill?”
There was no answer. He thought maybe Jill had reached a bad area and lost the signal. He started to hang up, but then he heard voices.
“Gordon, think about what you’re doing! We saved your life on those stairs. You want to kill us now?”
“I didn’t ask you to save my life!” he cried. “I told you to go without me. I had planned to die there! But you kept dragging me down those stairs.”
Dan closed his eyes, clutching the phone. Then pressing his hand over the receiver, he looked up at a passing nurse. “Hand me another phone! Hurry! I have to call the police!”
Chapter Ninety-Five
Gordon tore off a strip of tape and wrapped it around Jill’s hands. “Gordon, why did you do it?” she cried. “Why did you kill all those people?”
He started on her feet. “I was desperate,” he bit out. “What would you have done? My wife died because we didn’t have the insurance to pay for her treatment. Then she died a horrible, suffering death, and I got this phone call. It was my superv
isor, and I thought he was calling to tell me how sorry he was, give me his condolences and all that. Instead, he told me I was on the list of layoffs.”
He set the duct tape down and lowered himself painfully into a chair, keeping his gun trained on them.
“He told me about severance packages and all that, but I didn’t believe a word of it. I knew that the people who had already been laid off were having trouble getting their severance. And then all that stuff came out about Donald Merritt on the news, how he’d stolen from his employees, robbed the 401K accounts, committed fraud, and lied to the stockholders. It wasn’t just Merritt. They were all involved. Everyone still in that building was in on it. They were padding their pockets at our expense. And all of a sudden, I wanted revenge.” He broke off and started to cry. The gun trembled in his hand. “They shouldn’t have been able to get away with it, Jill.”
“They weren’t going to, Gordon,” she bit out. “I was in a meeting that morning trying to fight for the employees. He was about to be indicted. He would have paid.”
“But don’t you see?” he said. “It wouldn’t have brought my retirement back. It wouldn’t have given me a job. It wouldn’t have brought my wife back to me.”
“Icon International was not responsible for the death of your wife,” she said.
“Oh, yes they were,” he said. “One minute the doctors were talking about aggressive chemo treatments. Then when they found out we didn’t have insurance—because those frauds had not paid the premiums—they suddenly backed off and said that they didn’t think the chemo would help. They would have done it if we’d had insurance. Then when she died, Icon rubbed salt into my wound, twisted the knife. I decided that I was going to get even, so I made the bombs. I used my dead brother-in-law’s ID and rented a truck, and I packed it full of explosives and parked it in the parking garage. I had a dozen water jugs of gasoline in the truck, and it took me four trips with my dolly to get them to the tenth and twenty-ninth floors. No one asked what I was doing. Then I carried the bombs up in crates and set them in the middle of those jugs.”
Ashley began a muted wail through the duct tape. Jill prayed that Dan was listening—that he had notified the police.
“I was supposed to die in the explosion. That was my plan. I didn’t have anything else to live for. All I could think about was the fact that Donald Merritt was in that meeting. The bomb was right below him. I never counted on anybody finding it and warning him in time to get him out.”
Jill shivered. “If Ashley’s mother hadn’t warned us, there might have been thousands dead.”
“They were all frauds!” he shouted. “Don’t you see? The ones who were still there, the layoff survivors, they were all getting rich off our misfortune! Everybody there deserved to die. And I was going to die with them.”
“So why didn’t you?”
His face twisted, and he started to cry. “I panicked! I took off running when the alarm went off. When I got injured, I thought it was poetic justice. Only you came along and insisted on getting me down. But I got you out, too. After the second bomb, I told you how you could get out, remember? I knew that when the truck bomb went off the building would come down. I directed you to the other stairwell so you could get out before it did.”
Ashley’s muffled screaming got louder, and she fought to break free of the duct tape.
“It was a horrible thing I did,” Gordon said. “I realized that later. And then you were so kind, Jill. You kept coming by the hospital, and you had all those church people feeding and caring for me. I never had people provide for me the way you and your church did. They made my life worth living again.”
Jill thought of all the people who had served this dangerous man. They had ignored Ashley to embrace him. Had believed he was the one most lovable.
“And then I started to realize that maybe what I had done was a desperate thing, and I really didn’t have to do it. Maybe life would have been all right if I’d just given it more time. Merritt deserved to be blamed for the explosion.”
He watched Ashley for a moment. Her face was crimson, and she screamed into the duct tape that locked her mouth shut.
“I’m sorry for you, young lady,” he said, rubbing his face. “I really am. I don’t blame you for hating me like you do. I suppose you’d kill me if you could.”
Ashley fought and screamed muffled threats.
“You were right, you know. If I leave here, they will hunt me down like a rabid animal. And you two have been good to me.”
He started walking toward them, that gun shaking in his hand. “Gordon, please,” Jill said. “Just go. You can take my car. Just walk out of here and leave us. You’ll get a head start before the police start looking for you.”
He kept hobbling toward them, wincing as he stepped on his cast. He stopped over Ashley, and she looked up at him with murderous hatred in her eyes. Jill knew she was daring him to kill her.
Instead, he pulled out a pocketknife . . . and cut her hands free.
She came at him, but he thrust the gun at her. “Here, darlin’,” he said.
She froze and stared at that gun.
“I know what you want to do,” he said. “Take the gun, Ashley. It’s only fair you should have the honors.”
Ashley took the gun.
Chapter Ninety-Six
Stan was with Mills when he got Dan’s frantic call. They had quickly discovered the location of Jill’s cell phone.
“It’s my fault,” Stan said. “I should never have called her. I should have just gone there and got her out myself.”
“You did what you thought was right, Stan.”
Stan held on as Mills flew through traffic. “Can’t you go any faster?”
The blue light on his dashboard was flashing, and his siren blared, but people were slow to get out of their way.
He held his cell phone to his ear, waiting for the FBI to patch into Jill’s call so he could hear what was going on.
Suddenly, voices came across the line.
“Gordon, please, just go.” It was Jill’s voice. “You can take my car. Just walk out of here and leave us. You’ll get a head start before the police start looking for you.”
There was a long pause. Stan closed his eyes and prayed. Lord, please . . .
“Here, darlin’.” Gordon’s voice. What could he be doing? “I know what you want to do. Take the gun, Ashley. It’s only fair you should have the honors.”
“He’s giving the gun to the girl!” Stan shouted. “She’ll kill him, just like she wanted to kill Merritt!” He thought of that poor, hurting kid, with vengeful murder on her hands to top everything else.
“We’re almost there,” Mills said.
Stan hoped it wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Ashley ripped the duct tape off of her mouth, then leveled the gun on Gordon. “You murdering monster!” she screamed.
The gun trembled in her hand.
Jill struggled to break free of her own tape. “Ashley, don’t pull that trigger,” she said. “Untape me, and I’ll call the police. They can lock him up!”
Ashley’s teeth ground together. “Why shouldn’t I kill him?” she cried. “He has no right to live!”
“Ashley, cut my tape and give me the gun.”
“No! You’ll turn him over to the police! He’ll sit in some cushy jail cell for months before he even goes to trial. I’m going to pull this trigger and blow his head off, and then some distant relative of his will have to come to the morgue and identify his disfigured body.”
The words were uttered with such pain that Jill almost hoped she would do it.
But she knew what it would do to the girl.
“Honey, untape me. Give me the gun.”
“No, I want to do it!” Ashley shook so hard that Jill thought she might drop it.
“Your mother wouldn’t have wanted this,” Jill cried. “She wanted you to be okay. She didn’t want you to have a man’s blood on your hands.”
>
Gordon was weeping openly now. “Come on, Ashley,” he said. “It’s the only thing that’ll give you peace.”
Ashley closed her finger over the trigger.
Chapter Ninety-Eight
Dan had made it to his room, clutching the phone to his ear and listening to every gut-wrenching word. Clara had followed him in and stood over him, waiting for word.
“What’s happening?”
Dan held out a hand to silence her. “Oh, dear God. He gave Ashley the gun.” He heard Gordon taunting her, urging her to pull the trigger.
Where was Jill? Was she in the line of fire? Was she fighting Ashley for the gun?
Suddenly the gunshot cracked across the line.
“Oh God, no!” Dan cried. “Please, God!”
Clara caught him before he fell out of his chair. Throwing her arms around him, she held him and tried to calm him down.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Stan burst through the door, his gun drawn.
Gordon lay on the floor in a pool of blood, clutching his arm.
Ashley and Jill sat just a few feet away. The girl dropped the gun. Hysterical screams shook the house.
Jill sat next to her, wailing out her own terror.
The room filled with agents and cops, and Stan got the gun before Ashley could go for it again. Then he bent down and cut Jill’s hands free. She reached for the girl and pulled her into her arms.
Stan turned back to Gordon. The gunshot had merely grazed his arm.
As police swarmed around him, he stooped down and looked into Jill’s face. “I know you’re upset,” he said, “but, Jill, you might want to get on that phone and let Dan know you’re all right.”
Sobbing, Jill pulled the phone off of her belt.
“Hi, honey,” she said.
Chapter One Hundred
Ashley couldn’t stop shivering. She sat curled up on the couch, her mother’s handmade quilt draped around her, long after they had taken Gordon off in the squad car. Jill held her, just the way her mother would have, as the police swarmed the place.
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