Catherine Coulter: Split Second

Lucy said, “Miranda, stop now! You can’t hurt your mother!”

Miranda whirled around. “Lucy, go away, I don’t want you here. What? Are you going to shoot me, Lucy? And her? Will she shoot me, too?”

Lucy said very calmly, “No, I’m not going to shoot you, Miranda, and neither is Ruth. I want all of this to stop. Drop the gun, Miranda, and all of this can be over.”

“No, it’s not over. She destroyed everything that should have been mine; she made me into nothing, do you hear me, Lucy? I’m nothing!”

“You’re much more than nothing, Miranda; we all are. Listen, it’s only a ring, a stupid ring that shouldn’t even exist. You lived without the ring a very long time. You did fine. You don’t need it. Drop the gun and we’ll talk about this as much as you want.”

Miranda said in a dead voice, “Alan Silverman is not my father. I asked mother, and she told me the truth. She slept with some kind of artist she met in a coffeehouse—can you believe that? She said she was lonely then because my father—Alan—was working so much she hardly ever saw him. She said she wanted to protect me from knowing that, but she was protecting herself.

“And that’s why the ring wouldn’t work for me—I’m not a Silverman. Don’t you think it’s funny that I fell for an artist in a café myself? A real loser, like my own real father, I’ll bet. Like me. I know that now. And look at you, all grown up, an FBI agent, and you have the ring, and it works for you, doesn’t it? I would have sworn I hit you outside that motel, but then you weren’t where I thought you’d be. Not that you deserve to die; you really don’t. You’re the one who has everything now.”

She laughed. “And still you come back after me, Lucy? You think you’re going to arrest me?” She laughed again, and then she fired the pistol.

The little girl pulled and jerked at Kirsten’s arm when she raised her gun to shoot again at her mother, and Kirsten clouted her. Savich’s bullet caught her in her right shoulder. She staggered, screamed, and fell to the ground, taking the little girl with her.

“Sherlock, see to the mother!”

Sherlock ran to the woman, who had fallen, as Savich and Coop ran toward Kirsten, listening to the little girl’s screams. She knelt beside the woman. There was a thin line of blood along her hairline. The woman looked up at her, confused and frantic. Sherlock said,

“It’s okay. I’m FBI. We’ve got Amanda. She’s all right, too.”

“But Taylor, Taylor? My little boy?”

Sherlock shouted, “The little boy—is he okay?”

Coop called back, “Yes, the highway patrolman said he’s fine. Everyone’s good.”

“Taylor’s all right. Let me get you cleaned up. Thank goodness, it’s only a graze, you’ll be fine.”

“When I saw that woman dragging Amanda toward me, and no sign of Taylor, I’ll tell you—” The words fell into a hiccuping sob. Sherlock pressed a handkerchief to the bloody line on her head. “I know,” she said. “You all did great.”

The little girl had managed to wriggle away from Kirsten as soon as they fell. She’d stumbled away, then had fallen to her side, gulping in big breaths of air, rubbing her throat and sobbing quietly.

Savich saw Coop pull the little girl up into his arms. He rocked her, saying, “It’s okay, your mama’s going to be fine; so is your little brother. Taylor’s his name?” At her jerky nod, he continued, “Yep, Taylor’s all right.” She clutched at him, and Coop kissed her forehead and kept rocking her. He saw Savich run past them to come down beside Kirsten. Blood snaked out of the wound, high on her shoulder, but she wasn’t unconscious, she was moaning, her head twisting from side to side, her eyes closed. He picked up her gun, an old Smith & Wesson.

Coop kissed Amanda’s forehead, gave her a last hug, and handed her off to one of the highway patrolmen. He walked to Kirsten, went down on his knees beside Savich, and leaned in close. “Kirsten, can you hear me?”

Kirsten opened her eyes, stared up at Coop, then over at Savich. “You,” she whispered at Savich. “You freaking murderer. You killed me.”

“Nah, you aren’t going to die,” Savich said. He tore off his shirt and pressed it hard against her shoulder.

She tried to spit at him. “You killed Bruce. It isn’t right, it just isn’t right. And you, I hope you’re hurting bad.”

Savich looked over at him. “What is she talking about? Coop?”

“She shot me in the side. No, don’t worry, I’m okay.”

Savich studied his face for a moment, nodded, then lifted his shirt off Kirsten’s shoulder wound enough to see the bleeding had slowed.

Kirsten licked her lips. She was deathly pale, no more lipstick, no more of her powder. Savich knew she had to be in bad pain, but she wasn’t making a sound. Finally she whispered, “What will Daddy say?”

They looked up at the sound of sirens. Two ambulances were whipping through the tobacco field toward them, behind them a half dozen squad cars.

Lucy and Ruth both dropped and rolled. Miranda’s shot went through a window, shattering the glass. Miranda had shot nowhere near them or her mother. Lucy shouted as Ruth pulled her SIG, “No, Ruth, don’t shoot her!”

Lucy slowly rose to her feet. Miranda stood ten feet from her, motionless, staring at Lucy and back to her father, who really wasn’t her father at all, and finally, she looked at her mother. She said quietly, “I know Dad loves you, and you’re my mother, and that’s why I can’t kill you. I wish I could, but I can’t.” She looked at her father again, great sadness in her eyes, and gave a small nod. She slowly raised the gun to her mouth—

“No! Miranda! No!”

“This is what I want, Lucy—my choice, not yours. Don’t you dare use that ring.”

The shot was obscenely loud in the still room.

Lucy ran to Miranda as she collapsed to the floor, Ruth at her heels. Jennifer screamed, tore away from her husband, and rushed to Miranda, who now lay on her side, the gun still in her hand. Neither her uncle Alan nor Court moved, as if they couldn’t, as if the world they knew had ended, and in this horrible new world neither of them had any idea what to do.

Lucy reached for the ring, paused, then left the ring in her pocket. She stared down at Miranda’s ruined face, at her hair streaked red with blood, at the blood splattered everywhere, even the wall behind her, all the way up to the crown moldings. Jennifer was rocking back and forth over her daughter, her limp hand clasped between hers, keening, not understanding, Lucy knew, why all this had happened, knowing only that if she hadn’t slept with that man long ago, if Miranda hadn’t been his seed, Miranda would still be alive. But Lucy couldn’t ever tell her about the ring.

She heard Court say, “She came running in here, waving Dad’s Kel Tec and demanding to see mother—‘that whore,’ she called her. Mom finally had to tell her she’d cheated on Dad before she had Miranda. Mom begged for her forgiveness for not telling her, but Miranda was over the edge. She screamed Mom had ruined her life, stealing what was hers, making the ring useless to her, and then she shot Dad’s Kel Tec into the ceiling. And then she laughed, a horrible sound, not funny at all, that laugh. I think I’ll hear it the rest of my life. What did she mean? What has that idiot ring got to do with anything?”

Uncle Alan hadn’t moved. He stood statue-still, staring at his dead daughter and his wife rocking over her, her deep tearing cries filling the silent room.

Lucy said, “I’m very sorry, Uncle Alan.”

Alan Silverman shook his son’s hand off his shoulder and looked toward Lucy. “This is your fault; you brought all this death and pain to us, you and that godforsaken ring.” He walked to his wife, knelt beside her, and cradled her in his arms. Jennifer turned into him and wept.