That’s when I saw it. Peter’s gun was where he’d left it, on the couch next to the tape. It was my only chance. I spun, my feet sending fallen books flying, as I dove for the couch.
The gun bounced with a double thud off the carpet. I grabbed it, my finger curling around the trigger as I swung around. But I wasn’t in time.
Peter slammed into me, knocking the gun out of my hand as he pile-drived the back of my skull into the hardwood.
I felt as if my head had been split open, as if I’d been hit with a hatchet. I forgot the pain as Peter wrapped his hands around my neck.
I made an involuntary gurgling sound as he started squeezing. More books went flying as I kicked and flailed my arms. My vision dimmed as my oxygen was cut off.
Peter interlaced his fingers around the back of my neck and dug his thumbs into my windpipe, as if he were trying to pry it open.
I’d lost all hope for myself when the tightening at my throat eased up suddenly.
“Don’t go yet, Jeanine. Time for one last round of truth or dare,” Peter whispered in my ear. “I go first. Truth. Remember Ramón Peña? That night on the beach? Yeah, well, you didn’t actually kill him.”
He licked my earlobe and gave it a playful bite.
“That was all me,” he said.
Chapter 116
GASPING, my throat on fire, I stared at Peter’s smile.
“That’s right,” he said with a nod. “Peña was an informant who was going to rat us out to the Feds. I was actually chasing him over the beach, planning to kill him, when I heard you drag-racing down the beach road. As he ran to the sidewalk to wave you down, I shot him three times with a suppressed gun. Next thing I know, he falls into the street in front of your spinning car. There was no way you could have avoided him.”
I shook my head, my eyes slits of disbelief and pain.
Peter nodded. “At first, I thought I was going to have to kill you, too, until I smelled alcohol on your breath and came up with a quick plan. I never got a chance to thank you for giving him a lift back to my house. Great job, Jeanine.”
As Peter’s hands went around my throat again, something happened. A cold ball of pure hatred formed behind my eyes. It traveled down my left arm into my hand, where it formed itself into a claw.
I swung up stiff-armed and buried my sharp nails into the pink, fleshless wound on the side of Peter’s head where his ear used to be. Then I raked them down.
Peter flung himself off me, shrieking. I turned over and lifted myself to my knees, flailing through the pile of fallen books, looking for the gun. I spotted black metal under the couch and dove for it. I pulled the heavy gun up off the floor, in toward my stomach, and slipped my finger over the trigger.
Swinging it around at Peter, I squeezed. Nothing happened. The trigger wouldn’t move. I pushed the safety in with my thumb and then raised the gun again. It still wouldn’t fire.
I screamed as Peter booted me in the side of the head. The gun went flying out of my hands. It spun as it sailed over the hardwood, down the hallway, and toward the bedroom.
“It’s called a double-action pistol, you dumb bitch. You need to squeeze the trigger really hard in the beginning to get off the first round,” Peter said, stepping toward it. “Allow me to demonstrate.”
I jumped up and ran in the opposite direction. I was going to run out the front door screaming for help, but I knew what Peter would do to Emma.
I turned at the last second and ran into the kitchen. I grabbed at the knife block beside the stove. The big eight-inch Henckels slid easily into my grip. I raised it over my head and ran back into the living room.
Peter, standing by the bedroom doorway, now had the gun trained at my face. He actually laughed as he watched me coming.
Still chuckling, he tried to pull the trigger.
Nothing happened. Instead of disengaging the safety, I must have put it on!
I kept coming and swinging as I dove forward. The barrel of the gun hit me in my mouth, knocking two of my teeth loose. I still kept coming.
My knuckles brushed the smooth underside of Peter’s freshly shaven chin as I came down with all my might.
I opened his throat and buried the knife to the hilt in his collarbone.
He fell back into my bedroom, making a wet, gagging sound. I remember warm blood in my eyes and on my cheeks as I turned and ran for Emma. Kicking books away, I found Emma’s hand and dragged her to the door before she groggily got to her feet. We hobbled out of the apartment and down the stairwell, clutching each other.
A woman with a bad face-lift, walking her Labradoodle, screamed and took off sprinting when she saw me come out of the building’s service entrance onto the sidewalk in my bloody bathrobe. When we got to the Korean grocery store on the corner of Third Avenue, I stopped by the florist sink beside the racks of cheap roses. I was still hosing the glass out of Emma’s eyes when the first cop car jumped the curb.
Epilogue. ONE YEAR LATER
Chapter 117
“JEANINA! Get in here!” Charlie screamed from the office at ten to seven on Saturday morning.
I lifted my head off the pillow and sighed at the pet name Charlie had invented on the way back from our honeymoon the month before.
Charlie’s was the first face I saw when I woke up in the hospital a day after Peter’s attack and the last one I’d seen every night since. Not only had he forgiven me, but he’d done the impossible: helped me to forgive myself.
I’d also underestimated the response from my boss and firm. Tom couldn’t have been more supportive or understanding once everything came out. I even got a postcard from Justin Harris. It was from Antigua, where he’d relocated after he was finally cleared. He’d given me a standing offer to visit anytime.
He was going to be waiting awhile. I didn’t think I’d be heading back down to the Caribbean any time soon.
“Jeanina!” Charlie called again.
I crawled out of bed and stepped into the hall.
“What’s he hollering about?” Emma said with a groggy smile as she poked her head out of our new Upper West Side apartment’s second bedroom.
“No idea,” I said, happily noting the lack of bags under Emma’s eyes. She’d been having fewer and fewer nightmares. She was definitely moving on and so was I. We’d just about wiped the last of Peter off our shoes.
“Jeanina!” Charlie screamed again as I walked into his office. “Oh, there you are.”
“What is it?” I said.
“We need to celebrate,” Charlie said, springing up from his office chair.
He clicked a button on his laptop. The printer turned on with a long beep before pages start spitting out.
“I’m done!” he said triumphantly. “My book is finally done.”
“You’re done? Congratulations! Oh, Papa Charlie,” I said, giving him a kiss. “But wait a second. What’s your story about, anyway?” I said coyly, as if I hadn’t been editing the damn thing for the last year.
It was actually a really good lyrical detective story set in Dallas, where Charlie had grown up. Charlie had talent. Tons of it, in fact. Grisham had to watch his back.
“OK, here’s the pitch for Spielberg,” he said, his bathrobe billowing as he raised his hands. “It starts out with this young, very attractive girl on spring break in South Florida.”
He was joking, of course. I decided to go along. I’d go along with Charlie anywhere from here on out.
“A young Gisele Bündchen type?” I said, leaning in and kissing him.
“Exactly,” Charlie said with an intense nod. “She falls in love with this unbelievably handsome, muscular lawyer.”
I grabbed his biceps. “So it’s a romance with a sexy lawyer? I’m liking this already. Is there a trial?”
“Better,” Charlie said. “They get a guy off death row.”
I smiled at him, started laughing. “Does everyone live happily ever after?”
Charlie stopped. He grabbed his stubbled chin, thinking it over, a
s he looked up at the ceiling.
“You’ll just have to wait for the sequel,” he finally said with a grin.
AN INNOCENT ART STUDENT FINDS $13 MILLION IN DIAMONDS. LET THE MANHUNT BEGIN.
FOR AN EXCERPT, TURN THE PAGE.
One
SOME PEOPLE are harder to kill than others. The Ghost was thinking about this as he huddled in the deep, dark shadows of Grand Central Station. A man named Walter Zelvas would have to die tonight. But it wouldn’t be easy. Nobody hired the Ghost for the easy jobs.
It was almost eleven p.m. The evening rush was long over and the crush of commuters was now only a thin stream of weary travelers.
The Ghost was wearing an efficient killing disguise. His face was lost under a tangle of matted silver and white hair and a shaggy beard, and his arsenal was hidden under a wine-stained gray poncho. To anyone who even bothered to take notice, he was just another heap of homeless humanity seeking refuge on a quiet bench near Track 109.
He eyed his target. Walter Zelvas. A great hulk of a man with the nerves and reflexes of a snake and a soul to match. Zelvas was a contract killer himself, but unlike the Ghost, Zelvas took pleasure in watching his victims suffer before they died. For years the ruthless Russian had been an enforcer for the diamond syndicate, but apparently he had outlived his usefulness to his employer, and the Ghost had been hired to terminate him.
If he doesn’t kill me first, the Ghost thought. With Zelvas it was definitely a matter of kill or be killed. And this would surely be a duel to the death.
So the Ghost watched his opponent closely. The screen on the Departures monitor refreshed, and Zelvas cursed under his breath. His train was delayed another thirty minutes.
He drained his second cup of Starbucks cappuccino, stood up, crumpled his empty cup, and deposited it in the trash.
No littering, the Ghost thought. That might attract attention, and the last thing Zelvas wanted was attention.
That’s why he was leaving town by train. Train stations aren’t like airports. There’s no baggage check, no metal detectors, no security.
Zelvas looked toward the men’s room.
All that coffee will be the death of you, the Ghost thought, as Zelvas walked across the marble floor to the bathroom.
A half-comatose porter, mop in hand, was sloshing water on the terminal floor like a zombie tarring a roof. He didn’t see Zelvas coming.
A puddle of brown water came within inches of the big man’s right foot. Zelvas stopped. “You slop any of that scum on my shoes and you’ll be shitting teeth,” he said.
The porter froze. “Sorry. Sorry, sir. Sorry.”
The Ghost watched it all. Another time, another place, and Zelvas might have drowned the man in his own mop water. But tonight, he was on his best behavior.
Zelvas continued toward the bathroom.
The Ghost had watched the traffic in and out of the men’s room for the past half hour. It was currently empty. Moment of truth, the Ghost told himself.
Zelvas got to the doorway, stopped, and turned around sharply.
He made me, the Ghost thought.
Zelvas looked straight at him. Then left, then right.
He’s a pro. He’s just watching his back.
Satisfied he wasn’t being followed, Zelvas entered the bathroom.
The Ghost stood up and surveyed the terminal. The only uniformed cop in the area was busy giving directions to a young couple fifty feet away.
The men’s room had no door—just an L-shaped entryway that allowed the Ghost to walk in and still remain out of sight.
From his vantage point he could see the mirrored wall over the sinks. And there was Zelvas, standing in front of a urinal, his back to the mirror.
The Ghost silently reached under his poncho and removed his equally silent Glock from its holster.
The Ghost had a mantra. Three words he said to himself just before every kill. He waited until he heard Zelvas breathe that first sigh of relief as he began to empty his bladder.
I am invincible, the Ghost said in silence.
Then, in a single fluid motion, he entered the bathroom, silently slid up behind Zelvas, aimed the Glock at the base of his skull, and squeezed the trigger.
And missed.
Some people are harder to kill than others.
Two
WALTER ZELVAS never stepped up to a urinal unless the top flush pipe was made of polished chrome.
It’s not a perfect mirror, but it’s enough. Even in a distorted image, he could see all he needed to see.
Man. Hand. Gun.
Zelvas whirled on the ball of his right foot and dealt a swift knifehand strike to the Ghost’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger.
The bullet went wide, shattering the mirror behind him. Yet its now-webbed surface remained miraculously intact.
Zelvas followed by driving a cinderblock fist into the Ghost’s midsection, sending him crashing through a stall door.
The Glock went skittering across the tile floor.
The Ghost looked up at the enraged colossus who was now reaching for his own gun.
Damn, the Ghost thought. The bastard is still pissing. Glad I wore the poncho.
He rolled under the next stall just as Zelvas’s first bullet drilled a hole through the stained tile where his head had just been.
Zelvas darted to the second stall to get off another shot. Still on his back, the Ghost kicked the stall door with both feet.
It flew off its hinges and hit Zelvas square on, sending him crashing into the sinks. But he held on to his gun.
The Ghost lunged and slammed Zelvas’s gun hand down on the hard porcelain. He was hoping to hear the sound of bone snapping, but all he heard was glass breaking as the mirror behind Zelvas fell to the floor in huge fractured pieces.
Instinctively, the Ghost snatched an eight-inch shard of broken mirror as it fell. Zelvas head-butted him with his full force, and as their skulls collided the Ghost jammed the razor-sharp glass into Zelvas’s bovine neck.
Zelvas let out a violent scream, pushed the Ghost off him, and then made one fatal mistake. He yanked the jagged mirror from his neck.
Blood sprayed like a renegade fire hose. Now I’m really glad I wore the poncho, the Ghost thought.
Zelvas ran screaming from the bloody bathroom, one hand pressed to his spurting neck and the other firing wildly behind him. The Ghost dove to the floor under a hail of ricocheting bullets and raining plaster dust. A few deft rolls, and he managed to retrieve his Glock.
Jumping to his feet, the Ghost sprinted to the doorway to see Zelvas running across the terminal, a steady stream of arterial blood pumping out of him. He would bleed out in a minute, but the Ghost didn’t have time to stick around and confirm the kill. He raised the Glock, aimed, and then…
“Police. Drop it.”
The Ghost turned. A uniformed cop, overweight, out of shape, and fumbling to get his own gun, was running toward him. One squeeze of the trigger, and the cop would be dead.
There’s a cleaner way to handle this, the Ghost thought. The guy with the mop and every passenger within hearing distance of the gunshots had taken off. The bucket of soapy mop water was still there.
The Ghost put his foot on the bucket and kicked, sending it rolling across the terminal floor right at the oncoming cop.
Direct hit.
The fat cop went flying, ass over tin badge, and slid across the slimy wet marble.
But this is New York: one cop meant dozens, and by now a platoon was heading his way.
I don’t kill cops, the Ghost thought, and I’m out of buckets. He reached under his poncho and pulled out two smoke grenades. He yanked the pins and screamed, “Bomb!”
The grenade fuses burst with a terrifying bang, and the sound waves bounced off the terminal’s marble surfaces like so many billiard balls. Within seconds the entire area for a hundred feet was covered with a thick red cloud that had billowed up from the grenade casings.
The chaos that had erupted
with the first gunshot kicked into high gear as people who had dived for cover from the bullets now lurched blindly through the bloodred smoke in search of a way out.
Half a dozen cops stumbled through the haze to where they’d last seen the bomb thrower.
But the Ghost was gone.
Disappeared into thin air.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 67f3eb80-0ad6-4f99-9169-893e3d897979
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 20.9.2011
Created using: calibre 0.8.19, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
Document authors :
alaskin
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Now You See Her Page 22