Shoot him. Shoot him! SHOOT HIM!
Val raised her gun a half second before he raised his. She pulled the trigger and let fly one of her two bullets. It whizzed half an inch past his head and blew a hole in the cement wall behind him.
Shit.
She dove for cover behind a pallet as Barrister let loose a volley of his own bullets while ducking back behind the corner. The echo of gunfire hung in the air after the firing stopped. Val panted where she crouched against the wall. Where the hell had he come from? Maybe the other person like her, the one on his team who could see the future, told him she’d be here. Thank the Lord none of the bullets had connected. Well, maybe one had—she touched her upper arm and saw blood on her fingertips. A scratch compared to what could have been.
“You’re like a bitch with a bone, Sergeant.” Barrister’s voice reached Val from where he stayed out of sight around the corner. “You’re just gonna keep chewing until you choke on it.”
They were both Army-trained, both in defensive positions, waiting for the other to make a move. Val glanced behind her. She’d never make it back the way she’d come without drawing his fire; it was too far, and there wasn’t enough cover. She looked to her left; an alcove with a door at its terminus marked “Wing C” was about a twenty-five-foot sprint away. A wide-open chasm in his line of fire separated her from the alcove. If she could distract him, she might make it.
She tried to steady her voice, eliminate the breathiness that gave away her fear. “At least I’m willing to admit that I like bones.” Val searched the cracks between the pallets for a view of him. “How does it feel to be the worst kind of hypocrite, Colonel? To hate gay people while being gay yourself, to lecture everyone who will listen about integrity while committing murder and theft for your campaign?”
“You’ve got some strange ideas,” he said, his voice dark and steady. “You’re the one who’s snapped and come after me. You couldn’t hack it in the Army, and now you blame me for your pathetic wreck of a life. Your sister killed herself because she couldn’t stand being a slut, right?”
Val’s grip tightened on the revolver. Goddamn him. She almost threw back an insult about what a wife-beating bastard he was, but stopped when she realized, if he ended up killing her, he’d know his wife had turned on him. He might then go back and kill Delilah over the betrayal. If Val had to die today, she wouldn’t take innocent people down with her.
She finally spotted him through a sliver of space in the pallets. He peeked around the corner for a fraction of a second, then disappeared again.
“I guess you’ve got no problem sleeping your way up the economic ladder. Spreading your legs for Maxwell Carressa’s money must have been easy, with a face like his. You know how many cunts offered themselves to me to secure a promotion or get out of a deployment? Whores, all of them.”
Barrister poked his head out to survey Val’s position again, then withdrew it. Through the sliver, she trained her gun on that spot.
“Max is going to the media with everything we know,” she said. “He’s telling them right now how you framed him for murder, how you and Dean stole his father’s money to fund your campaign. How you murdered Chet and Robby to keep them from exposing you.”
He scoffed. “If that’s true, then what are you doing here?”
“I’m offering you a chance to come clean, to salvage whatever human dignity is left in you. It’s over.”
He laughed. “You do know Maxwell Carressa is guilty, right? No one’s going to take his word on anything.”
“We’ve got the accountant who helped you.” God, she hoped that was true.
Barrister was silent. He didn’t move.
This isn’t working, she realized. He wasn’t going to back off, and there was no way Val could get to Delilah without a fight.
He’s going to kill me, or die trying. And I’m going to do the same to him.
With a laser-like focus, she summoned all her concentration on the spot she knew Barrister would emerge from, her gun steady as a compass needle pointing north. One bullet left—it had to count.
“Why did you kill Robby, huh? Why not kill Chet before he met with Robby? Pretty stupid move on your part.” Come get me, you son of a bitch. “My only awareness of you would’ve been as the most overrated commander I’d ever had—and as a failed candidate for mayor. Now I won’t leave you alone until everyone knows what a piece of human waste you really are.”
She saw his black sleeve edge up to the corner, then his foot.
Come on, come on…
The crags of his face appeared. Val pulled the trigger—
An arm like a steel rod hooked around her neck and yanked her backward at the moment the bullet left the chamber. The plastic-wrapped merchandise exploded in front of her as her final bullet shot upward and hit the far wall to the left of Barrister.
Well, that’s that, then, she thought as she and her attacker stumbled backward. Now all she had were her bare hands.
She slammed her elbow into her attacker’s chest. His grip around her neck slackened and she shoved him away. She spun to face him and recognized her potential rapist and murderer from the storeroom, a thin, Italian-looking guy with oily hair and a shiny suit. Val spotted a Glock in his hand as they faced each other down. She dropped her own gun and lunged for his before he could lift his weapon. Her body crashed into his skeletal frame, her hands latching on to the forearm holding his Glock, keeping it pointed away from her. They spun in a circle like two hawks joined in a death spiral, his liquor-soaked breath heavy in her face as he grunted with effort. Val tried to twist his arm into a submission lock as they struggled chest-to-chest, but the agility with which he’d been able to sneak up on her also allowed him to slip out of her grasp. With a final snarl he shoved her away and backed into the hallway. She stopped short and stayed behind the pallet, unwilling to step into Barrister’s line of fire.
The Italian looked from her to the abandoned revolver at her feet. He smirked and flexed the fingers still wrapped around his Glock while Val stared him down. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of cowering or pleading for her life. She only hoped Max would succeed where she had failed.
“Well, look at this,” the Italian said. He raised his gun at her. “Norm, she’s out of—”
Two bullets ripped through the Italian’s chest. He collapsed, flailing his arms and legs as he gawked at the new holes in his dress shirt leaking crimson gore. Still clutching his gun, he coughed up blood.
“You… idiot…” he gasped in Barrister’s direction.
His startled eyes drifted to Val. With nowhere to run, she recoiled as he lifted his gun off the floor with a shaking hand, desperate to take someone else’s life as his slipped away. His finger twitched against the trigger, but the life drained from his eyes before he could fire. The Italian’s arm fell back to the ground, and he was still as a pool of blood grew around him.
Val sucked in breath for the first time in what felt like an eternity. She huddled in the corner made by the wall and the pallet, totally defenseless.
“One problem solved,” she heard Barrister say, “one more to go.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Max drove the silver SUV as fast as possible without attracting the attention of the police. He wiped his sweating palms against his pant legs and ordered himself to stay calm. They were almost at the Pacific Science Center. If he could get there before the fire Val saw in her vision started, and before she was spotted by someone on her way to Delilah, and if he could force Georgie to confess in front of an audience, then…he didn’t know.
The plan was crazy. It wasn’t as much a plan as a desperate attempt by two desperate people to reclaim their futures from a fate that’d so far been worse than cruel. If he could finally be free of the invisible strings that had controlled him his entire life, and be with Val without the specter of Robby’s unresolved death hanging over them, then the recklessness they’d been forced to embrace would be worth it.
His heart stopped when a police cruiser with its lights flashing screamed up behind them, but it flew past. He glanced in the rearview mirror but didn’t spot any other cops or pursuers, thank God. Georgie wept in the passenger’s seat, his fat cheeks jiggling with his sobs. Max frowned as pity for the pathetic accountant tempered his anger. He didn’t like to see a grown man cry.
“You’re going to be okay,” Max said to Georgie, aware it was probably a lie. “Once everyone knows the truth, the people who’ve been chasing you will have no reason to come after you anymore.”
“Bing,” Georgie cried. “I just left him.”
“Who?”
“My cat. I just left him behind in my car. What kind of monster have I become?”
Max repressed an eye roll. “Everyone deserves a second chance, if they’re committed to making amends.” Max certainly hoped that was true—he wanted a second chance. “How much money did you embezzle away from Carressa Industries for my father anyway?”
Georgie hiccupped, then swallowed hard. “About, uh, a little less than, um, forty million, I think.”
“Forty million dollars?” Max’s anger surged back. “What the hell was he planning to do with that kind of money?”
“I don’t know. I never—”
“Yeah, I know, you never asked.” He could guess why his father would hoard that much money—it was Lester’s escape fund in case Max ever wised up and turned on him, so he could sip daiquiris in the Bahamas instead of facing the consequences of molesting his own son for years to pad his bank account.
Too late, Dad.
Georgie wiped tears from his eyes and looked at Max. “Do you think someone found Bing and—”
“Your goddamn cat is fine. Shut up, please.”
Five minutes later the Space Needle dominated the sky directly above them, the Pacific Science Center nestled at its base. A stream of people heading to the event cut across the road at more frequent points as he got closer. Within a block, he saw folks running, talking excitedly with one another, pointing toward the Center. Flashing lights emerged in the distance, around the glow of fire.
Max squeezed the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He was too late to reach Val before the fire. Now she was somewhere inside the Center, either fighting for her life, or…He didn’t want to think about the other possibilities her first vision had proffered. He needed to ditch Georgie and get in there and help her as soon as possible.
Traffic in front of him stopped as other drivers noticed the disturbance on the far side of the Center and craned their necks to look. Ahead of him, a local news van—probably in the area to cover the science outreach event—sat crooked in the grass where it had rushed to pull over. The camera crew spilled out of the back, untangling wires and snapping pieces of equipment together in a mad scramble to capture the surprise story. A platinum blond news reporter yelled at her colleagues to pick up the pace while she hunched in front of the van’s side mirror and applied powder to her face. Her butt partly obscured the logo of the TV station familiar to every Seattle local: KIRO 7 News.
The number 7 is important…
Max hit the gas, dodged the car in front of him, and cut onto the lawn. Georgie yelped and braced himself against the dashboard as they bounced across the grass and slammed to a halt three feet from the news crew. Max jumped out, ran to the passenger’s side, and dragged Georgie from the SUV while the crew stared in stunned silence.
“Want a real story?” Max said to the wide-eyed reporter while he held a struggling Georgie in place. “Today’s your lucky day.”
“Are you Maxwell Carressa?” the reporter asked like Santa Claus had appeared.
“Yes, and this is the accountant who was colluding with my defense lawyer to steal my company’s money.”
The blonde—Bridget Pearson, Max recalled from the handful of news broadcasts he’d seen her in—looked back and forth between him and Georgie. “Oh my God. Oh my God! Carl, get over here now!”
A young man with a giant camera perched on his shoulder rushed forward. Bridget fluffed her hair, snatched a microphone from Carl’s hand, and shoved it in Max’s face.
“Mr. Carressa, are you saying that your lawyer, Dean Price, who you and your girlfriend killed yesterday, was framing you for your father’s murder so that he could steal your money?”
Max eyed the camera, saw the red light that meant it was recording. He frowned; he hated the media. Even before his father’s death made national news, the paparazzi harassed him constantly. They’d lurk in the bushes to snap pictures of “Seattle’s most reclusive millionaire bachelor” getting into his car or some other banal action that would pop up on the Internet a few hours later. Slow news days often featured an update on his love life. Why anybody cared, he’d never know, though the ever-present nuisance meant he spent a lot of energy avoiding them, in case they stumbled upon one of his real secrets. At least now he finally had a use for the vultures.
“We didn’t kill Dean Price,” Max said to the camera, “Dean Price killed himself. And for the record, Valentine Shepherd isn’t my accomplice. She’s innocent of any wrongdoing. People were trying to kill her, and—”
He stopped himself, glanced at the Center. He was wasting time with the cameras when he needed to get in there to help Val. Besides, he should talk to a lawyer—one who wasn’t plotting against him ideally—before saying anything more. He’d already delivered Georgie to the media. Mission accomplished. Time to get the hell out of there.
Max shoved Georgie toward Bridget. The accountant stumbled forward and fell to his knees, eyes wide and lips trembling.
“Talk to him,” Max said. “His name is George McOwen, and he can tell you all about how he and Dean Price embezzled my company’s money.”
Georgie shook his head. “They made me do it!” he cried. “I was afraid. I wanted to keep my job and—”
Max didn’t stick around for any more of Georgie’s blubbering. He turned away and trotted toward the Pacific Science Center’s entrance. A mob of cops and firefighters grew each second as waves of emergency vehicles appeared on the scene. If he kept his head down, he could ride the crowd of confused and excited civilians into the Center before the area was locked down.
“Wait!” Bridget called after him. “Everyone still thinks you’re a murderer. Don’t you want to tell your side of the story?”
“No,” he said, and disappeared into the chaos.
Chapter Thirty-two
Val breathed hard where she crouched against the pallet in the service hallway, trapped. Ten feet away, the Italian’s body continued to leak blood onto the white-tiled floor, his gun still cupped in his slack hand. She balled her hands into fists and forced herself to rally. There was a way out of this. There was always a way. If she could get to the dead man’s gun, she could fight back—
Pallet merchandise ten inches from Val’s chest exploded when Barrister shot through her cover. She gasped and hit the floor. Chunks of a destroyed plastic toy dug into her forearms. She needed to move, or die. Her escape was just twenty-five feet away, across the hallway through the door marked “Wing C”—
Another bullet blew through the pallet. It left a divot in the tile where it ricocheted off the ground to her left. He was shooting downward. He knew she was lying on the ground to minimize her profile. He knew all these tactics. Any second he’d realize she was out of bullets rather than panicked. Then he’d just walk up and kill her. But since he hadn’t stepped out of his cover, he didn’t yet realize she had no ammo…
Val grabbed the discarded revolver from behind her as another bullet ripped through the pallet and took out a chunk of her thigh. She cried out as pain shot up her leg, though thankfully the leg still worked. The pain fueled her anger and fortified her resolve. If he thought she’d roll over without a fight, he was dead wrong. Fuck that bastard. She leaned around the corner with a careless rage, pointed her gun straight at Barrister’s exposed torso, and pulled the trigger.
The gambit worked. Barrist
er ducked behind cover as the revolver’s hammer clicked into an empty chamber. She flung the gun down the hallway at his position to buy herself an extra second of confusion. As it sailed through the air, she lunged for the Italian. She heard the revolver hit the floor and slide as her fingers scooped up the dead man’s gun. Slipping a little on his blood, she sprinted for the alcove. A bullet whizzed past her head and crashed into the wall behind her just as she crossed the alcove’s threshold. She threw open the door to Wing C and rushed inside.
Val pressed her back against the wall next to the door and gasped for breath, her heart pounding like a Tomahawk war drum. He wouldn’t follow her, not now that he knew she had a fully loaded gun to ambush him with. He’d try to waylay her at some other point up ahead. Her eyes cast about for any sense of where she was, for an exit sign. The room was dark, illuminated only by emergency lights sparsely dispersed along the periphery. In the corner she saw the silhouette of a giant globe hanging from the ceiling, the rings of Saturn extending from it.
“No!”
She’d stumbled into the closed space exhibit, probably from the opposite side this time. At least she had a weapon now, the Italian’s Glock—which just happened to be the same make as her own gun, like in her vision…son of a bitch. Despite all the things she had changed, events were still playing out toward the same conclusion.
A more calculating man would’ve retreated back to the Center’s main hall, found the police, claimed a mad gunwoman was stalking him, and pinned the Italian man’s murder on her.
That’s what a rational person would’ve done—not Norman. He was coming to kill her.
She’d be damned if she let that bastard choke her to death. He wouldn’t get away with what he’d done, so help her God.
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