KnockOut

by Catherine Coulter

  Savich didn’t think he’d moved. What had he done to spook them? He said, calm and easy, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lissy.”

  “Your eyes went all funny, then you stared at Victor and me and you looked like some weirdo freak, like you were looking through us. What did you do?”

  Savich smiled. “Well, the thing is, and this is the absolute truth, there’s this little girl who was looking at you guys through my eyes.”

  Victor whirled around, shouting, “What little girl? Where is she? There isn’t a little girl! What are you talking about?”

  Whatever the two of them had seen on his face, he’d shaken them up. He said, “Her name is Autumn, and she’s in Georgia, I think.”

  Lissy screamed at him, “You lying piece of—”

  Victor grabbed her arm, shook it. “Lissy, no, he’s doing this on purpose, trying to rattle us, get us to make a mistake. Look, he’s not moving, it’s all right. Whatever he does, whatever he says, it doesn’t mean anything. He’s just trying to creep us out. We’ve got to decide what to do, use him as a hostage or shoot his head off. Thing is, they can’t shoot us if we’ve got him in front of us as a shield.”

  She screamed, “No! He’ll do something; he’ll kill us. He won’t let us use him, he won’t! I want him dead, Victor, now! You said you could do it if you wanted to. Well, it’s time to step up.” She traded guns with him. “Use mine. The silencer’s on it, so no one will hear the shots. Shoot both of them, Victor. Prove to me you can do it.”

  Victor held the gun straight out in front of him, aimed it at Savich. His face was pale, his whole body rigid. He looked deathly afraid. Of killing them?

  “Come on, Victor, drill both of them, right between the eyes!”

  Savich heard Autumn scream No! and Victor staggered and went flying to the rocky ground, twisting and turning as if someone were physically pummeling him. Just as suddenly he stopped, and he sat up, terrified, and looked at Savich. He yelled, “Run, Lissy,” and he took off into the trees.

  Autumn, you did this?

  “Hold it, Lissy!”

  Lissy’s eyes went wide with shock. Savich knew she thought Autumn was here now, but it wasn’t Autumn. It was Sherlock, her SIG pointed directly at Lissy’s back. Cully came running out from behind her and fired five fast rounds after Victor. They heard the cry of pain when one of the bullets struck him. Then Cully took off after Victor.

  Sherlock said, “Turn around, Lissy. Very slowly, I don’t want to kill you. Toss your gun to the ground right this minute.”

  Lissy looked over her shoulder, stared at the woman with the wild red hair. “Nice hair,” she said. And she ran, firing wildly in Sherlock’s direction.

  Sherlock stumbled back and fell, got back up on her knees, and returned fire. She got her, heard the cry of pain, but she didn’t know how badly the girl was hurt.

  More shots came toward them.

  “Stay down, Sherlock,” Savich yelled. He stumbled over to her, half fell to his knees, and pulled her up against him. “You’d better be okay, you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I’m good. Dillon, your leg!”

  “It’s not so bad. I can use it. Get Bernie free, then the two of you go after Victor. You’ll probably have to split up to find him. Sherlock, Lissy took my gun.”

  Without a word, Sherlock handed him hers. He willed his leg to move, and it did, awkwardly but well enough, and he took off at a trot after her. Sherlock whispered after him, “You’d better be careful.”

  Savich soon saw Lissy weaving through the trees ahead of him. Sherlock’s bullet was slowing her down. She jerked around, saw him, and fired. The bullet ripped past his head as he dove behind a tree. His leg screamed at him, and he waited a beat.

  He heard gunfire, prayed they’d finally brought Victor down. He saw a flash of Lissy’s white blouse and fired. She yelled. He turned and ran toward her, his left leg dragging now. He yelled, “Lissy! It’s over, stop now, you hear me?”

  He heard her laugh, her manic laugh, loaded with pain. He knew she was on the move again, despite having two bullets in her. Lissy yelled, “You’ll never catch me, you bastard. I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to kill every single cop you brought here with you!”

  He stumbled after her. Another bullet struck a tree a foot from his left shoulder.

  Come on, you damned leg, keep going. Move!

  His leg must have heard him because he sprinted, moving quickly through the trees. She had to be bleeding; she had to slow down soon.

  He saw her leaning against an oak tree, panting, hunched over. Blood covered her white shirt and flowed down her side over her jeans. She held his SIG in one hand and pressed her other hand to her chest. He saw blood seeping out between her fingers.

  “Lissy, it’s over. Drop the gun. You’re hurt, we’ve got to get you help.”

  She looked toward where he was hidden and fired. The shot went wide, sliced a small branch off an oak tree to his left. She fired again and again even when he knew she couldn’t see him.

  He remained quiet, solidly behind a tree, out of her line of fire.

  She cursed him, and through her rage he heard the pain. A bullet took the bark off right by his face, sliced his cheek. Another damned scar. How many more rounds could she have in his SIG?

  Savich knew she wouldn’t stop.

  It was enough, he thought; it was too much. He came out from behind the tree.

  “Drop the gun, Lissy!”

  She didn’t. She yelled at him, “I hate you! I’m going to kill you!” She ran straight at him, screaming curses, her blood dripping from her arm, and she aimed her gun at his chest.

  Savich pulled the trigger. The bullet struck her between the eyes. The force of it lifted her off her feet and flung her backward. Lissy was dead before she hit the ground.

  He limped to her and stared down at the pretty eyes that no longer looked mad, at the pretty eyes that no longer saw him, no longer saw anything. Her fingers were still curled around his SIG. He pulled it free, shoved it into his waistband.

  He had to get back to Sherlock. He turned on his heel and stumbled back as fast as he could.

  72

  SHERLOCK STOOD OVER Victor Nesser, panting, very aware of the tugging ache where her spleen had once resided, the heel of her boot against his chest. She’d shot at him with the Lady Colt she carried in her ankle holster a good four or five times, missed because her Colt was good only at short range. Then she shot at his feet and hit him in the ankle. He’d stumbled, kept hurtling forward, and she’d tackled him from four feet back, her adrenaline pumping hard. Now he lay on his back, breathing heavy but not moving. His ankle had to hurt. She said, trying to catch her breath, “All over now, Victor. Don’t you think of twitching. Hey, we got you on both ends, head and toe.”

  Victor didn’t move, just lay there and moaned. Sherlock yelled over her shoulder, “Cully, Bernie, I’ve got him. We’re good here. Victor isn’t going anywhere.”

  Victor closed his eyes tight. He heard the woman’s voice, felt the weight of her foot against his chest and the god-awful pain in his shattered ankle, shooting up to his belly. He felt a sharp pain on the side of his head, licked his lips, and tasted blood. He was afraid to touch his ankle, afraid of what he’d feel. He’d rather walk around with half his head blown away than never be able to walk again. And there was nothing he could do about it. What was worse, he knew he couldn’t help Lissy.

  Where was Lissy? Had she killed Savich? He didn’t think so; he didn’t think the guy could be killed. And this redheaded agent who’d shot him was his partner.

  Who was Autumn? What had she done to him? He remembered rolling around on the ground, helpless, his body twitching and heaving. Autumn was a little girl? No, that wasn’t possible, there’d been no one there. It was all a lie, it was something Savich did, but what did he do, and how? He felt himself growing cold, felt fear nibble at the edges of his brain.

  If only he’d shot Savich right away when he was
stretched out and helpless beside Bernie, shot both of them, it would have been done, over with. And Lissy would know she could always count on him. Of course Lissy could have killed them herself, but she’d wanted to toy with them, toy with him too. It was a huge mistake, the biggest mistake they’d ever made. Their last mistake.

  Victor remembered how it was before all of this, his years with his parents, his father knocking the crap out of his mother whenever the mood struck him, and then she’d gone back to Jordan with him to be knocked around some more. Was she even still alive? And Aunt Jennifer, the years that insane woman told him when to eat, when to brush his teeth, who he could speak to, and how she was going to kill him if he ever touched her precious thirteen-year-old daughter, the only human being he’d ever loved, spawned by that insane woman. He could still feel the edge of the butcher knife she’d held against his neck while she was screaming at him. Aunt Jennifer thought he was molesting Lissy. What a joke that was, but he hadn’t defended himself, hadn’t told her how it was Lissy with her newly budding breasts who came to his tiny bedroom under the eaves. Lissy had stopped her mother, grabbed away the knife, but still, not an hour later, Aunt Jennifer had struck him with a hammer even though she’d known it was Lissy—oh, yes, she’d known. He thought he was going to die then, but he didn’t.

  Victor knew there was no future for him. He guessed he’d known that from the moment Lissy got in his bed. And now Lissy could be dead. There was no way she was going to walk away from the cops this time. It was over, all of it.

  Tears streamed down through the rivulets of blood on his face, not from the horrible pain of his shattered ankle but because he’d never see Lissy again. He didn’t think he wanted a future. He opened his eyes and looked up at the agent standing over him, holding a small gun in her hand, aimed right at his bloody face.

  Cully came up behind her, slowly lowered his weapon, and looked down at him. He said, his voice emotionless, “You remember me, Victor? I’m the guy you trussed up on your bedroom floor, the guy you wanted to blow to pieces? Do you even remember that mother and father you and Lissy shot down in their kitchen in Alexandria? You shot two people for a damned car. How many other people have you and Lissy shot for no good reason? You’re both rabid, Victor. You’re both crazy.”

  Victor said, “I’m not crazy.”

  “Yeah, right,” Cully said. “You going to blame it all on that teenager you’ve been screwing since she was thirteen?”

  Sherlock lightly laid her palm against Cully’s shoulder, felt him shaking with rage.

  “I never screwed Lissy! Do you hear me, it wasn’t ever like that. She needed me, only me. She always said she knew me, from the moment I came, she said she knew me to my soul. You’re trying to kill her! You want to see her dead!”

  Cully kicked Victor in the side, but Victor didn’t even appear to notice. He shouted down at him, “Time for you to listen, punk. You’re lucky you didn’t kill Bernie or I’d kill you myself.”

  Sherlock saw that Cully was still shaking with rage and she said calmly, “But since you didn’t kill Bernie or kill Agent Savich, Cully and I are going to take you to a hospital. We’ll even help you, since your ankle’s shot to pieces. You want a handkerchief to wipe the blood off your face? Ah, here’s Bernie. We’ve got him, Bernie, no problem.”

  Bernie opened his mouth, but Cully overrode him. “I just wish I’d been the one to find you first,” Cully said, and kicked Victor again. “I bet Bernie wishes the same thing. Then you wouldn’t have gotten off with this puny foot wound.”

  Victor looked at them through pain-dead eyes. “You should be dead. All of you would be dead if it wasn’t for that girl Autumn. Who is Autumn? There wasn’t any little girl up there.”

  “You’re right, Autumn wasn’t nearby,” Sherlock said. “But it doesn’t really concern you now, Victor.”

  Victor tried to rise, hissed in pain, and fell on his side. They heard him whisper, “Lissy wanted to go to Montana. I guess that’s not going to happen now.”

  Cully and Bernie lifted him, each of them with a shoulder under his arms. He was crying and moaning, and he left a trail of blood on the rocky ground. Sherlock didn’t care what he said; she was too worried about Dillon. Lissy could still be out there, and it was Sherlock’s fault. She could have taken her down, should have, but she couldn’t bring herself to shoot that young girl in the back. She’d let her focus slip for that instant of time, and Lissy had been so fast, moved in a blur, all of it unexpected, and then Sherlock had fired at her, but only a wound, maybe not even a bad one. Dillon could be dead because—Sherlock shook her head. No excuses. She’d screwed up royally, put all of them in danger. She hadn’t done her job.

  If it hadn’t been for Autumn, Victor would have killed Dillon. “Autumn,” she whispered, vaguely aware that Victor was cursing and crying, both together, “thank you for our lives.”

  “Sherlock, you guys all right?”

  Savich came limping through the trees. He was almost whole. Good enough. She gave him a huge smile.

  Victor stopped cold. He yelled, “Where’s Lissy? What did you do to Lissy?”

  Savich looked at the young man’s ravaged face, at the soul-eating fear in his eyes. He said, “She’s gone, Victor.”

  Victor raised his face to the darkening sky. “Lissy! Oh, God, Lissy, you can’t die, you can’t!” He wept like a lost soul from hell.

  73

  PEAS RIDGE, GEORGIA

  Whistler looked down at her, and Ethan took his chance. He threw himself at Whistler, hurled him against the wall. His gun went skidding across the floor.

  “Autumn, untie me!”

  Autumn fell to her knees beside her mother and began to work at the knots. Joanna had to watch Ethan and Whistler trade blows until finally she pulled free. Joanna staggered to her feet and pushed Autumn behind her. She wanted to help Ethan, but she’d seen him fight. He didn’t need her.

  Whistler was stronger than Ethan had thought, but he had no real chance. Ethan had rage on his side, rage so deep it resounded in the most primitive part of him. He wanted blood. He staggered Whistler with a kick to his chest and managed to grab his head between his hands. He pounded his head against the white wall. He didn’t stop even when he saw smudges of red against the stark white, heard Whistler moaning.

  “No!” Theodore Backman stumbled off the high dais, fell to his knees. “No!” he yelled again and pointed a long finger toward the two men. He turned to look at his granddaughter, that precious little girl he had waited for to be the future of his family. He felt a searing pain in his chest, slowly fell onto his side. He sucked in air, trying to breathe.

  Ethan smashed Whistler’s head a final time against the wall and released him. Whistler slid down the wall, leaving his blood to streak in bizarre patterns, as if painted on by smudged fingers.

  Ethan stood over him, sucked in air, and tried to quiet his rage. He turned to see the old man lying on the beautiful rug, his legs drawn up. He was awake and staring at Ethan. “You killed Caldicot?”

  “I doubt it.” He did not say whether he’d tried. Ethan turned to Autumn and Joanna. “Are you all right?”

  Autumn nodded as Joanna hugged her close, smoothed her hand over her daughter’s hair. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay now. We’re all right, Ethan. You?”

  Theodore Backman called out, sitting up on the floor now, his hands outstretched to Autumn. “Autumn! My precious grandchild, you will reach the stars with me, you will conquer the heavens. Come here, child, come to your grandfather.” He turned his head slowly toward the door. They stared at it, watched it open slowly.

  There stood Blessed, his dark eyes burning bright with anger.

  Theodore yelled, “Blessed, my son. Quickly, the sheriff and Joanna!”

  But Ethan didn’t look at him. He kept his head down and bulled ahead at Blessed, throwing himself as hard as he could into his stomach, sending Blessed back through the open door and hard against the hallway wall. Blessed moaned with pai
n as the dressing on his shoulder turned red with blood. But he slammed his elbow into the back of Ethan’s head, sending him staggering to his knees.

  Joanna flew at Blessed, knocked her own head into his chest just as Ethan had done. Blessed grabbed her neck and jerked her upright, but Joanna wouldn’t look at him. “It doesn’t matter.” Blessed struck her hard in the jaw. Joanna went down.

  “No!”

  Blessed came running back into the room just as Autumn landed against him. She screamed at him and pummeled her fists into his stomach. Blessed grabbed her, shook her.

  Autumn looked up and stared at him. He whimpered, deep in his throat, and fell backward. He hit the wall behind him and slowly slipped to the floor, unmoving.

  “Mama!” Autumn ran into the hall, fell to her knees, and shook her mother’s shoulders, lightly tapped her face, crying, begging her to wake up.

  Ethan was at their side in an instant. He gathered Joanna up in his arms and rocked her. They turned as one to see Theodore Backman stagger toward them. He yelled, and his voice echoed in the small space, like Moses calling out from the mountaintop, “You have failed me, Autumn. You are not worthy to carry on my name. You are like your common mother, of no use at all. I disavow you as I disavowed your father!”

  He raised his gun and fired.

  The bullet struck Autumn in the chest.

  74

  PALMERTON COMMUNITY HOSPITAL

  TWENTY MILES EAST OF PEAS RIDGE

  It was a miracle she’d survived the transport, Joanna told Savich, but she had. She’d survived two hours of surgery and was still alive when Savich and Sherlock got to the hospital the next morning, Savich on crutches. He ignored the pull of the newly sewn stitches on his thigh, and he ignored the constant hurt too, now, in the face of Autumn’s dying.

  Ethan had told the hospital staff he and Joanna were married, he’d explained to Savich on his cell when their FBI helicopter landed at Ricketts Field, only five miles from the hospital, so there would be no question he and Joanna could remain with Autumn in the ICU.