“My flowers,” she heard him murmur incredulously. “You lying—! You got rid of my damn flowers.”
Suddenly he gathered a fistful of her hair and jerked her back onto her feet. When she cried out in surprise, he pressed the muzzle of his gun against her cheek and whispered hideously into her ear, “Now I’m going to have to go to Plan B. I hate Plan B.”
Once more, his right arm snaked around her waist and he was walking her out into the hall, the barrel of the gun held firmly to her rib cage.
She was cold. She was numb with the cold and trying not to shiver. In this nightmare, her limbs were turning to wood, and they obeyed him, not her. He told her fingers to push the elevator down button and she watched helplessly as they did his bidding.
“All right, freeze, Storm, or whoever the hell you are!”
Mr. Vanish spun her around. Sandy’s eyes widened as another terror was revealed: she was staring down the barrel of a police revolver.
“Drop the gun and let the girl go,” commanded Sergeant Michaels.
She felt something cold and hard touch her left temple.
“Drop your gun, Michaels, or she dies.”
Stiff with apprehension, Sandy held her breath. The police officer hesitated, and finally crouched down to put his revolver on the floor. And then, as though it were happening in slow motion, she saw the barrel of the officer’s gun bounce back up and spit flame, and Mr. Vanish’s pistol floating in front of her face, firing once with a roar like a cannon. And suddenly the officer was writhing on the floor, groaning and bleeding, and Sandy was being dragged backward into the elevator, and Mr. Vanish was issuing a tight, angry warning over her shoulder to a crowd of horror-stricken onlookers, not to try to stop him.
And as the elevator door closed in front of her shocked face, Sandy thought for a moment that she saw Ted Gaine lying there, his limbs twitching as though to ward off death, a dark red stain spreading across the front of his shirt. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision and sliding hotly down her cheeks. And deep within her, a spark of anger ignited.
“Push P-1,” Mr. Vanish rasped in her ear.
The sedative was still in her system, thickening her tongue, making her muscles sluggish. Somehow she managed to say in a voice that sounded as though it were coming from the next room, “Push it yourself.”
He was going to kill her whatever she did. Why should she make it easy for him?
Spitting out an annoyed syllable, he thrust her against the far wall of the car. As her legs folded beneath her and she slid slowly to the floor, she was able to look at him for the first time.
He’d been hit. Blood was streaming out of a wound in his left leg and pooling on the floor around his shoe. He’d clenched his jaw against the pain, and now pointed his gun at her and hissed through gritted teeth, “Once this thing hits bottom, you’re history.”
He needed her alive in case the elevator stopped at one of the intervening floors. He needed someone to threaten so people would be frightened and keep their distance. With that knowledge, her fear parted like a curtain, and she found herself able to see and think more clearly.
When nobody had known where to look for him, Mr. Vanish had loomed larger than life. Seen up close, however, he was just a man, shorter and slighter than Ted Gaine, and hiding behind a mask. He’d been clever in the past, but not this time. This time he’d taken a bullet from a policeman’s gun and was struggling just to stay on his feet. Sandy saw the sheen of sweat on his pain-pinched face, outlining the parts he’d added in order to become Allen Storm. When he shook his head to clear it, her heart leapt hopefully in her chest.
He was probably in worse shape than she was right now. His only advantage was that gun. Maybe she had a chance to survive after all—if she could just get closer to him without arousing suspicion.
The lighted panel over the door indicated that they were passing the sixth floor. “I don’t understand,” she sobbed, eyeing the angle of his good leg.
His face was so tight with pain that it resembled a death mask. “It’s very simple, really,” he said with a ghastly smile. “Dooley I had to get rid of because he wit…witnessed the Parmentier hit. And also because he tried to blame me…for the job behind the arcade. I can’t let every…two-bit punk who wants to do away with someone frame me for his slipshod work. I have…a professional reputation…to think of,” he gasped, cocking his pistol with effort as they passed the third floor.
Sandy forced herself to ignore the sound of the gun. She could do it, she told herself grimly. She had nothing to lose anymore, and everything to gain. Wincing at the strain it put on her broken arm, she dragged herself across the floor of the elevator, sobbing and groveling as though in mortal terror, but moving ever closer to his good leg.
“Blass and Vermeyer,” he went on, “were strictly business. I don’t take the money…without making the hit. She paid in advance…for both of them…”
They were passing the ground floor. She could almost touch him…
“But you…and Waldron…just got too damned nosy…I’m afraid…”
Just as the elevator bumped to a stop, Sandy reached out her good hand, wrapped it around the back of Mr. Vanish’s right heel, and yanked as hard as she could, breathing a silent prayer.
His only support gone, the hit man fell backward with a crash, stunning himself momentarily as his head contacted the safety rail on the wall, and firing his gun harmlessly into the ceiling of the elevator compartment.
In that second, the door slid open, revealing the dim interior of a steel-and-concrete parking garage. Sandy drew a steadying breath, gathered her legs beneath her again, and forced them to carry her out of the car.
The elevators sat on a riser in the middle of the parking area. Made clumsy by the sedative still in her system, Sandy stumbled through the facing row of cars and glanced desperately around. There had to be an exit ramp somewhere, a way to get to the street. Her eyes searched the walls, finding shadows everywhere, the umbrae and penumbrae of a platoon of concrete posts, but nothing she could immediately identify as a way out. And all around her, in every direction, she saw cars perfectly set between the straight lines of parking spots, their ends aligned in opposing rows like the teeth of several lengths of open zippers.
Ping! A bullet ricocheted off the post beside her, spraying her with stinging concrete dust. Gasping, Sandy dodged left, feverishly urging her sluggish legs to move faster, faster! Suddenly she was facing a blank wall, and cars were pointing at her like fingers, and the limping ka-thunk, ka-thunk of her pursuer’s footsteps was getting closer.
With an effort, she managed to wrestle down her fear and rein in her scattering thoughts. If Ted had received her message, he was on his way, and she needed to stay alive until he got there. Sandy fought the drug, blinking hard to keep her eyes focusing, visualizing all the strength in her body flowing into her legs.
She glanced left and right, then finally crouched beside a maroon Buick and tried the passenger-door handle. It was locked.
She bobbed quickly up and down, risking a glance over the hood of the Buick, but couldn’t spot Mr. Vanish between her and the elevator. Suddenly Sandy realized she couldn’t hear his footfalls, either. He’d stopped. Had he lost her—or found her?
Sandy froze, afraid even to breathe. Slowly she turned her head, her eyes widening in horror as she saw him through the Buick’s rear window, leaning against the trunk of a gray Mercedes parked three cars down the line, and staring right at her!
Sandy’s heart leapt up and lodged in her throat as he raised the gun, took unsteady aim and fired.
She flinched and grimaced as the bullet creased the Buick’s roof. Then, before he could cock the gun and shoot again, Sandy was on her feet and staggering away from him as fast as she could go.
Her body was screaming for rest, but she had to keep going, had to force Mr. Vanish to keep walking on a wound
ed leg. It was her only chance now—keep moving and hope that leg slowed him down. It was already affecting his marksmanship, but his aim would still be deadly at point-blank range.
She hurried past rows of cars, dodged through them, crept between them, stopping every while to listen breathlessly for the hollow sound of limping footsteps, then swallowing her heart and taking off again, away from them. And as she zigged and zagged, she cast her eye along the outer wall of the garage, searching for the gap in a row of cars that would indicate the entrance to a ramp up or down—either direction would put an additional strain on Mr. Vanish’s wounded leg.
At last, she spotted it—the back of a closed garage door, probably triggered from inside by an automatic eye. And beside it was the pedestrians’ exit to the street—a long, diagonal run across the open space between rows of cars. And if Mr. Vanish was close enough to draw a bead on her…!
Sandy dropped wearily beside a white station wagon to catch her breath and consider her situation.
Suddenly it occurred to her that the garage was unusually quiet. She hadn’t seen Mr. Vanish in several long minutes. Only the nearness of his footsteps had repeatedly flushed her out of hiding. And now those footsteps had halted, and she had no idea where he might be.
Her skin prickling icily, Sandy crept forward along the fender of the station wagon until she could see the full length of the row of parked cars in both directions. Empty. Then she crawled backward and scanned the row behind her. Not a sign of him. With difficulty, Sandy lay down on her stomach, wincing as the cast got in the way. The cold of the concrete easily penetrated her thin cotton robe and hospital nightgown as she placed her eyes at ground level and searched vainly beneath the cars for a telltale pair of feet. Puzzled, she resumed her crouching position.
Where could he be? Still not risking a full breath, she mentally counted off sixty seconds, straining her ears to catch the slightest sound, the shuffling of a foot, the rustle of a pants leg… All at once she heard a sharp clicking sound, from somewhere ahead of her. A gun was being cocked.
He had to be hiding in the shadows between the cars and the wall, waiting for her to find the exit and make a run for it right past him at point-blank range. Tensely, she crouched, knowing that if she tried to get out that door she would surely be shot. The elevators? Too far behind her now, and Mr. Vanish was too close to outrun. Whichever way she moved, she was lost.
Suddenly there was a round metallic boom, then a widening slit of daylight as the huge automatic door began to open. Startled, Sandy froze for a moment. A dark green sedan was entering the garage. Was it Ted Gaine’s? Her vision chose that moment to blur, and she couldn’t identify the driver.
Dio, he’d seen her! Stopping just inside the entrance, the driver got out, staring in her direction, completely unaware of the gunman hidden in the shadows. It was Gaine.
Sandy’s heart dropped. He was a perfect target.
“Ted, take cover!” she screamed, then fell to the ground, trying to shield her head with her good arm, as a bullet whizzed past her, ricocheting off the side mirror of the car just behind her.
More shots were fired. She would have to find a safer hiding place. But before Sandy could gather her legs beneath her, she felt a hand tangle in her hair and yank her head backwards, pulling a short, startled scream from her lips as she was hauled to her feet. She felt something hot and hard against the curve of her left jaw. And she knew, as emptiness twisted slowly inside her, that Mr. Vanish had won, in spite of Ted Gaine’s arriving to skew his plans.
Just like Sergeant Michaels, upstairs.
Gaine was crouched behind the opened door of his car, his revolver drawn and ready to fire. Behind him, someone else was aiming a second weapon over the roof of the car.
“Drop your gun and let her go,” called Gaine, his face a granite mask.
“Drop yours or she dies right here,” retorted Mr. Vanish in a hideous, raspy voice.
Sandy’s thoughts began whirling frantically. Dio, it was happening again. Almost the same players, the same script, the same terrifying ending. Ted Gaine would pretend to put his gun down, bring it up firing at the last moment, and Mr. Vanish would put a bullet into him and leave him writhing on the ground, his limbs twitching in shock, his lifeblood draining out of him…!
Her heart was frozen and her mind was screaming in agony, but all that escaped her lips was a quiet sob. Oh, Ted… Oh, no, Ted!
But Sergeant Gaine made no move to put down his weapon. “Give it up, Joe,” he said sadly. “It’s all over now. I figured everything out while driving here and got Nielsen on the radio; and Ragusz and Andover know too. And even if you got past the two of us, how far do you think you could travel on that leg?”
Behind her, Sandy felt Mr. Vanish stiffen. She cried out involuntarily as he yanked her head back again, pulling his human shield closer to his body.
“Far enough, Ted,” he said.
Horrified, she saw the barrel of Mr. Vanish’s gun floating beside her left cheek, aimed directly at Ted Gaine. And in that instant, the anger that had been smoldering inside her burst into searing flame. Sandy hadn’t fought this long to survive, only to be a helpless witness to the murder of the man she loved.
Without warning, she grabbed for the gun with her right hand, twisting it downward with all her strength. She’d taken the hit man by surprise. Uttering an astonished expletive, he nearly lost his grip on the weapon. But not quite. All at once they were struggling for it, and his right hand was snaking over her shoulder, trying to pry her fingers away.
“No!” screamed Sandy, lashing out reflexively, not even aware until her cast connected with a sickening thud and an astonishing burst of pain that she had swung her left arm.
As Mr. Vanish dropped to the ground behind her, Sandy felt her own knees give way. Sobbing, she sank onto the concrete, cradling her broken arm.
Then the garage was teeming with voices and bodies, most of them in brown uniforms.
“Is that him? He doesn’t look dangerous now.”
“I’ll go get a gurney.”
“Better make that two.”
“Alessandra, are you all right?”
She could tell from the edge on Ted’s voice that this wasn’t the first time he’d asked the question. Tears of relief streaming down her cheeks, she looked up and found him kneeling beside her on the ground, a frown on his face and a pleading expression in his soft gray eyes.
Suddenly his arms were around her in a gentle embrace and he was murmuring reassurances as the Hospital Security people darted back and forth. It was all over now. Everything was going to be all right. Even the ache in her arm was subsiding. But…
“You called him Joe,” she said, dazed.
“Joe Wegner. Here, take a look at the elusive Mr. Vanish.”
Carefully, he lifted her to her feet and turned her around. And as they stood staring at the motionless body on the garage floor, Sandy could see that her cast had displaced some of his disguise, revealing the detective’s familiar features.
Sandy shivered. “He was the psychopathic child in the article?”
“In public, a charming pretender,” Gaine quoted grimly. “He had us all pegged. Knowing how police detectives were trained to think, he was able to get away with murder…until an amateur got into the act.” He tightened his embrace momentarily.
Suddenly one of the brown uniforms stopped beside them. Sandy glanced up and saw that its wearer was holding a walkie-talkie.
“There’s a gurney on its way for her, Sergeant,” said the security man. “You ever play pro hockey, ma’am? You’ve got a vicious left elbow there.”
“Hey, what’s this in his pocket?” demanded another security officer.
“Don’t touch that!” cried the second detective. “My God, Ted, it looks like a remote detonator!”
The security man with the walkie-talkie nearly dropped
it. “You mean that clown planted a bomb? We’ll have to evacuate the hospital right away—”
All at once, things clicked together in Sandy’s mind. “No, I know what it looks like,” she exclaimed. “He brought me a vase of flowers. A blue crystal vase. He begged me not to get rid of it. When he saw that it wasn’t in my room anymore, he was angry. He said something about having to go to Plan B now.”
“That has to be it, Ted. A bomb inside the vase.”
“But she said it isn’t in her room anymore,” pointed out the security man.
“Miss Foote knows where it is,” said Sandy. “She’s the one who took it away.”
The security man thanked her and rushed off.
“When the gurney gets here, I’ll have to leave you for a while,” said Gaine gently. “But I’ll be back to take your statement. And then you and I have a future to discuss, lady.”
Sandy gazed into his face. A future with Ted Gaine? With a stubborn, overbearing, classic textbook chauvinist who would probably never be cured of interfering with her life? He wasn’t at all what she had imagined her Mr. Right would be—but there he was, protecting her, holding her, caring about her, smiling at her…kissing her.
Suddenly Sandy couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than a future with tough, smart Sergeant Ted Gaine.
Chapter Thirteen
Wednesday, June 20
Styling long hair with one hand had to be the toughest job in the world, Sandy decided. She was sitting on the edge of her hospital bed, struggling to tame her rebellious dark tresses with only a brush and five hairpins, when Ted Gaine walked in wearing a broad smile.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said, bending to plant a kiss on her lips that made her forget all about her hair, her itchy new cast, everything.
“Mmm, now it is,” she purred happily.
“I passed your family downstairs, and they looked pretty grim. Have you told them yet what happened yesterday?”
“I didn’t have the heart. Mama is still trying to get over the fact that someone broke into my apartment and shot me in the arm. And Uncle Hugo has high blood pressure and is supposed to avoid stress. And Tommy hasn’t quite recovered from the scare you put into him last Friday night. He’d be a basket case right now if Hugo hadn’t stood up for him when it counted. So I guess I’ll have to break it to them gently—over the next six months or so.”
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