The Alex Shanahan Series

by Lynne Heitman

  The hole it covered was about six inches deep and lined with metal. Inside were stacks and stacks of jewel cases. I pulled up the first stack and flipped through it. Using my flashlight, I saw the codes that labeled them. There were about forty per disc. Each code represented a man, each man a life. He had a wife or kids or a girl-friend. A career to be lost. A reputation to be tarnished. Maybe Angel would say that’s what they deserved. Any man who had made the choice to cheat on his loved ones deserved to have that choice used against him. I didn’t know. I couldn’t figure all that out. All I knew was that one of them was Jamie’s, and Angel shouldn’t have them. I reached down to take them away from her, and the fireplace roared to life.

  It was like a grenade going off in the dark room, and I couldn’t keep from turning to look at it. When I did, I knew she was behind me. I dropped the boxes and reached for the gun, but it was too late. As I turned back, her arms were already on the way around, driven toward my head, it seemed, by the accelerating force of her guttural scream. I dropped to my knees with both hands to the floor. A vicious tear opened in the space above my head. I could tell by the sound that she was swinging a fireplace poker, an iron sword that was flying toward me again from her backhand side, this time with lower trajectory and better aim. I tried to flatten and roll away, but she caught my elbow with the downward hack, and the gun went flying. The pain from my elbow shot straight up my arm, across both shoulders, and down to my stomach, where it lurched around and threatened to blow straight up the back of my throat. Jesus, it hurt. I cradled it to my side. My body wanted to wrap itself around the injured limb, but she was coming, moving through the field of furniture with the poker over her head.

  I scrambled into the nearest cover, a crawl space between the couch and the coffee table. She hacked off the corner of the glass tabletop. It was a clean break and a deafening pop right next to my ear. Her second try was a direct, shattering blow to the heart of the thick glass plane. I turned away. Shards flew. Large sections of glass dropped like heavy rocks straight to the floor. I kept moving. She kept coming, tripping around the furniture, chopping and hacking at me, strangling on her screams. I pulled pillows and cushions from the couch to cover my head as I went. Anything I could put my good hand on—ashtray, statue, magazine, potted plant—I tossed back at her, trying to slow her down. Something finally did. The poker tangled in the table’s low legs. I grabbed for it, wrapping my good hand around the tip, the only part I could get to, but she had all the leverage and ripped it away, nearly taking the skin off my palm in the process. I crawled over the field of broken glass and skirted around the end of the couch.

  She was loud and noisy and clumsy with rage, wild to get to me. Every frenzied whack came with a roar that started in her throat and ended with the sound of splintering wood or shattering glass or the thudding of objects raining down around me. My only hope was that all the flailing and swinging might be wearing her out.

  I had to get to my feet. There was no shot on my hands and knees. My elbow was hot and throbbing and swollen massively, but it seemed to still work as a hinge. When I tried to straighten it, the pain was dizzying, but it responded. I crawled on my belly under a side table. She whacked the Stiffel lamp that was sitting on it, pulverizing the lightbulb and sending the shade flying across the room. The heavy base of the lamp crashed to the floor in front of me, then twitched as it reached the end of its electric cord. I reached out for it, grabbed hold, and tried to reel it in, but she had come around. When she saw what I was trying to do, she stepped on the cord. I barely pulled my hand back in time before the sharp end of the poker came down, spearing the hardwood floor. This time, when I grabbed the tip, I pulled it up and toward me, yanking it with my entire body. She didn’t let go. The side table, my shield, tipped back as her countertug yanked me out into the open.

  Goddammit, she was strong.

  I strangled that poker, knowing what would happen if I let go. I tried to climb the ladder, hand over hand, but she kicked at my head and tried to stomp me. When she hit my elbow, I screamed. She screamed back. I rolled over to protect the arm, still holding onto the poker, still connected to her. She stomped on my back, maybe a kidney, and a bright white light exploded behind my eyes. I couldn’t breathe, and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do to keep from closing my eyes and going to sleep.

  She would kill me if I did. She would beat me with that poker until I looked the way Robin Sevitch had. I kept my eyes open … and saw my chance. The lamp. It was right there, the base of it staring me in the face. To grab it, I had to let go of the poker. I had to let go with one hand, grab the lamp, and swing it all at once, because she would use the chance to raise the weapon over her head, and bring it down hard enough to crack my skull open.

  My brain was telling me to move, to move fast and move now, but my body wouldn’t respond. I felt drugged. She made the choice for me when she twisted the poker hard and jerked it away. I grabbed for the lamp. It rolled away. I lurched after it. The poker came down, hit the arm of a chair and then my shoulder. I couldn’t feel anything now. I couldn’t hear anything. All I could see was the brass lamp. She saw it, too, and tried to kick it away. I grabbed at it again and got it this time. I swung it at the most vulnerable part of her I could reach—her knees. Nothing ever felt so good as the sickening collision of brass against bone when I made contact. She teetered but didn’t fall. I got to my knees and swung again with more leverage. Her shriek punched through the cotton that filled my head, and I could hear again.

  She dropped like a bag of stones and rolled over on her side, one hand resting lighty on her devastated knee. Just for good measure, I hit it again and heard it crack. When she saw me moving toward the poker, she made a disturbingly strong grab for it. I got to it first and pulled it away. She didn’t go after it.

  I tried to get up, staggered against the couch, and didn’t make it. I tried again and this time my legs engaged and I was upright, standing over her with the poker swinging from my good hand.

  She was on her side with her upper body twisted facedown on the floor. Her hair had spilled across her face, so I couldn’t see whether her eyes were open. Even with one leg cracked and bent beneath her, she looked lethal. I wasn’t sure about getting so near, but I wanted to see if she was conscious. I inched close enough to nudge her damaged knee with my foot.

  She jerked violently and let loose with a long, loud scream that was raw and disorganized but powerful enough to make me feel that this wasn’t over.

  “Stop pushing at me, you wicked bitch. It’s not enough for you to break my goddamned knee?” She rolled over and stared up at me. “Now you’ve got to stand over me and poke at me like I’m some kind of a dead dog in a ditch.” She tried to leg-whip me with her good leg. I was slow, but she was slower and clearly in agony. I shuffled out of her range and left her lying on her back, face twisted and eyes squeezed tight. She tried to control the pain through her breathing—long, deep breaths sucked through her nose and exhaled steadily through her mouth.

  “Surprised to see me, weren’t you, doll?” She had to stop for a few breaths. “Old Sluggo, he’s not much of a liar.”

  I stared down at her. I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what to do. I knew I couldn’t get close to her. The gun. Turn on the light, and find the gun. But then I started to feel sick.

  “You should see yourself, sugar.” She let her head roll from side to side as if she were enjoying the feel of a feather pillow beneath her. She could barely talk, but she could still smile. “The way you’re looking at me.”

  The poker felt slick in my hand. I looked down and saw the blood running down my arm and dripping into a pool at my feet. I didn’t know where I was bleeding from or why. I could feel myself getting lighter, as if I were pumped full of helium, ready to take off. My face burned. The room began to spiral. I thought I might just let go and flow with it. It would be easier than fighting it to stand up. I felt so hot.

  “You want to kill me. I know you do.”


  Her voice was hypnotic, the only thing that made sense. The sound of it, the tone and the texture were familiar. The way she said certain words. She had been the center of my world, the first thing I’d thought of in the morning and the last before I closed my eyes to sleep. Now her voice was the only thing I recognized, the only thing to hold on to as I started to disappear.

  “You’d better kill me, too, because I swear to almighty God, after you pass out, you will pass from this world, because I will take that poker from you and run it straight through your heart. Then I’ll sit down and smoke a cigarette over your body.”

  I backed away from her. I felt as if I were backing up a mountain. Why was it so hot? I had to sit down. Couldn’t sit down. She was coming. Why was I so… heavy? She’d rolled over and started to pull herself across the floor on her belly. A sick, twisted cry pushed out every time she moved. She was looking up at me, saying something. She was reaching toward me … she had it. She had the poker in her hand. Had I left it… it was supposed to be… it had been in my hand.

  I staggered back and fell into the couch. I sank into… glass. There was glass on the couch. Huge, heavy chunks of it. It was under my feet. It was under her. I heard her moving over it. Everything was slowing down.

  I had to get up. She couldn’t walk. If I could get up, all I had to do was get far enough away from her and… and what? Lie down and wait for someone to find me and save me? My feet wouldn’t move. She was in front of me now, using a chair to pull herself up. I heard the effort. I saw the way her body shook, every muscle engaged, every shred of her will lasered in on getting in position to kill me. I knew she would do it.

  When she was up, she was towering again, her head swimming high above me. She tried to set her feet but could barely stay upright. She held the chair with one hand and raised the poker with the other. She held it like a dagger, aimed at my chest.

  “Wait.”

  “For what, darlin’?”

  “Kiss me.”

  Her right hand, the one that held the poker, dropped slightly. I looked at her face.

  “Kiss me once. Please, Angel.” Every word felt like a lead weight that I had to lift, one at a time, to form into a sentence. “You said…” Breath. “You said…. you wanted to. I wanted it, too. Please.”

  “Oh, baby. You’re telling me a lie now, aren’t you?”

  “No. What difference… anyway?” I reached out to her. “I don’t want to die alone.”

  It seemed like forever we stayed that way. My arm reaching out, Angel staring in. She took a long, deep breath and held it. As she breathed out, she tipped her head back and looked down at me with half-closed eyes. She let the tip of her tongue glide across her upper lip. Her face contorted with pain as she inched slowly toward me, shortening the grip on her poker so she could keep it aimed at my throat. But her eyes were wild, as if she were on fire, burning from the inside. She could love me or kill me. To her it was the same.

  I thought I would smell her perfume as she came closer, but all I could smell was blood, hers and mine. When she was close enough, I lifted my damaged arm and reached behind her head to pull her closer. Her hair was stiff and brittle, not soft the way it looked. My arm began to quiver when I touched her hair. It shook up to my shoulder as I twisted my fingers in it and pulled it taut. Her head slammed back, presenting her throat to me. I flashed on the image of Robin and that pale stretch of undamaged skin, the only part of her that still looked like her. The difference was the artery. Angel’s was pumping as hard as it could, especially after I kicked her in the knee.

  She screeched, thrust the poker at my chest, and missed. She tried to twist out of my grip but had no leverage on a broken leg and fell instead into my chest. I held her head all the way back, took the heavy glass shard from the couch, and, with my strong hand, shoved it into that throbbing vein.

  Someone floated over me. I heard a voice. I tried to open my eyes, but my lids were too heavy, and it just didn’t seem worth it. I was moving, or being moved. I didn’t have the strength to do anything. I was in a car. Something tight around my arm. It hurt. It was too tight. I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. I managed to get my eyes barely open and saw the big face under the car’s dome light. This time, he was wearing a mint green sport coat, and my blood was all over it. I put my head back down and went to sleep.

  Chapter Forty-five

  I closed my eyes and tried to feel the stillness in the early-morning air, to pull it inside of me and hold it there. Each time I breathed out, I tried to let go of a little more tension in my shoulders and my neck and my back. I let my arms hang at my sides. And then I tried to do the same with my mind, to let it relax and open up to whatever impulse I wanted to send its way. I wanted to empty it of all the events of the past few weeks, all the emotions save one. I held on to the anger. I let my mind go blank except for a bright, burning red stain that drew my complete focus. I took that stain and projected it out, across the distance from me to the target, and onto the bull’s-eye. The rest of the target fell away.

  I picked up the gun. It felt comfortable in my hand. My fingers found their place around the grip, my index finger extended to the trigger. Everything felt right, and all I could see was the bright red target in front of me. As I raised my arm, the target grew larger. They say athletes who get in a zone see the basket or the cup or the baseball grow so big they can’t miss it. That’s how I felt. I was locked in on a target that looked to me as big as the entire wall. I knew I couldn’t miss it. I knew I wouldn’t.

  I went through the checklist in my mind, the one Tristan and I had worked on. Arms raised, elbows slightly bent. Feet shoulder-width apart. Headgear and protective glasses in place. I adjusted my sleeve so that it didn’t make the stitches on my arm so uncomfortable. My wounds were almost completely healed.

  The legal issues would take longer to sort out, but it looked as though self-defense would hold up. The cops had found enough in the cabin to support my story. What they hadn’t found was the archive. Bo had taken it. He had replaced it in the floorboard hideout with the brick that had killed Robin Sevitch. He had pulled it from the desk, exactly where Monica had told him it would be. The police had considered that a most interesting discovery.

  Jamie was working through his issues. When he asked me if I thought he should tell Gina, I remembered the way I had felt the first moment I had seen his face on the screen. I told him I didn’t think she should pay the price for something he had done. We had done. I would keep his secret. I knew he would keep my secrets, too, if ever I had the courage to tell them to him. To anyone. I needed someone to tell my secrets to.

  Harvey had come to visit in the hospital, and I had been glad to see him. We had decided to leave things on hold for a while. He was not, I was happy to hear, working for OrangeAir. With the exception of Monica, who had cut a nice deal for herself, neither were thirty hookers from Angel’s ring.

  “Fire whenever you’re ready.”

  I squeezed off the first round, and the target flinched. I didn’t even need to look to see where the bullet had passed through it. I fired again and again until the .38 was empty. I felt steady. I felt sure. I felt that I was in the right place at the right time, doing what I needed to be doing, and I didn’t even think about whether I would pass or fail. There are worse things in life than flunking a firearms test. I had seen some of them. Seeing them had changed the shape of my life, added corners and edges where there had been none before, and made the path clear.

  I knew what I wanted. I knew what I was.

  When I finished shooting, I set the gun down. I took off my earphones and my glasses. When I did look up, it wasn’t at the target but at the face of the officer monitoring the test. He looked at the target and back at me, and I knew that I had passed. It felt good.

  The Pandora Key

  An Alex Shanahan Thriller

  Lynne Heitman

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion
Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2006 by Lynne Heitman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

  First Diversion Books edition February 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-664-0

  Prologue

  My assignment is to kill the hostages. I have grown to like some of them over our ten days together, but my duty is clear. The army is gathering outside the airplane.

  It is time to execute the plan. We all know our places. We all go to our duties. I dig an extra clip out of the bag. I do not know how many rounds it will take.

  I stop at the front of the airplane, in the section that we have reserved for ourselves to pray. Then I go back through the curtains, and when they look at me, they know. By the way I hold the Kalashnikov or by the way I stand or by the way I look at them. Something tells them I am there to finish it.

  But I’ve never killed anyone before. I’ve dreamed of it. I lied about it to be part of this operation, but I have never done it before. I level the rifle. The first one gets down on the floor between the seats and curls into a ball.