Кей Хупер - Out of the Shadows

MacBride no longer held the pistol to Bonnie's head, but he still had the grenade.

He straightened, the gun held negligently but not so carelessly as to offer Miranda any hope. "Of course, I didn't like not knowing where the stuff was, but that kid was so sly and sneaky, I doubted he'd told anyone about it."

"A chance you were prepared to take," Bishop said. "Until Steve told you he had it."

"He didn't mean to tell me," MacBride said with a shrug. "It was an accident, really — a very fortunate accident. I ran into him in front of the drugstore, and he asked me about the knife. He knew I collected them, so he thought I could tell him who else in town did. I said I had a collectibles catalog in my car, and he went with me to see it. After that, it was easy."

"Too easy," Bishop said. "You hit him too hard."

"Well, I figured the kid would have a thick skull, as big as he was. I was wrong, worse luck." He frowned suddenly and glanced down at Bonnie, his thoughts obviously having come full circle.

"I was surprised when you found him so soon, before I wanted you to. But if she did it... that does open up new possibilities. Maybe I don't need lots of other subjects. Maybe just one will do."

Miranda felt a chill so icy that she went cold to her bones. Bonnie in the hands of this madman, the subject of his insane "research" for God only knew how long?

No.

"She can't help you," Miranda said.

"She can if she can really talk to the dead," MacBride said in a reasonable tone. He seemed undisturbed as he put the pin back in the grenade and dropped it negligently into the mulch. "That's an aspect of the human experience I haven't explored yet. I understand the death of the flesh, but not what happens to the mind and spirit." He glanced down at Bonnie. "Is there a heaven? A hell? A God?"

Very quietly, Bonnie answered, "All three."

That reply startled Miranda, but MacBride was, for the first time, visibly shaken.

"You're lying," he accused, his eyes now shifting back and forth between his captive and the pair facing him.

"No." Bonnie's voice was still quiet. She even smiled. "It's the truth. Didn't you know? Didn't you realize there'd be judgment and punishment?"

Miranda had to bite her lip to keep from saying, Be careful! Don't push him too far! Don't frighten him!

Obviously trying to recapture his earlier clinical tone and only partially succeeding, MacBride said, "Your brain must be different if you can talk to the dead. That would be interesting to study, your brain."

As if she hadn't heard him, Bonnie said, "Your victims would love to judge and punish you. They're just looking for a door so they can come back."

"Door?" MacBride was frowning, plainly uneasy.

"Between our world and theirs. Victims of murder are unhappy souls, and angry. They stay in limbo for a long time, unable to move on."

"Dead is dead." He didn't sound nearly as sure as he obviously wanted to. "I know. I've watched death again and again. It's just like flipping a switch. Alive — then dead. There's nothing after. Nothing."

Bonnie turned her head and looked up at him with an oddly serene smile. "Nothing? Then how did we know where to find Steve? You thought it was Liz, reading tea leaves. But it wasn't. It was me. And Steve. Poor dead Steve."

MacBride's throat moved convulsively.

"Shall I open the door again, Mayor? Shall I let poor dead Steve and all your other victims back in?"

Don't frighten him , Miranda thought again. MacBride was like a cornered animal when he was frightened. . . .

"Ghosts can't hurt me," MacBride scoffed, only a faint quiver betraying his apprehension.

"Are you sure about that, John?" Miranda asked, trying to draw his attention away from Bonnie. "Are you really sure?"

"Sure enough." But a white line of tension showed around his lips, and his eyes were still moving restlessly as though searching the profuse vegetation all around them for something threatening.

"They want back in," Bonnie said softly. "They want to ... talk to you, Mayor."

"There's nothing after death." The gun in his hand moved until it was pointed at Bonnie. "Nothing. No heaven. No hell. No ghosts." His voice was suddenly toneless, and dawning in his face was the look of a man confronting a nightmare he hadn't dared to imagine.

Miranda could almost hear the screams of his victims, and knew that John MacBride heard them. She saw his finger tightening on the trigger, and understood in a moment of utter clarity that he would kill Bonnie because he dared not leave her alive.

Bonnie could talk to the dead. And John MacBride couldn't bear to hear what the dead would say to him.

Miranda knew she had to act, and now. But she also knew that the extra pistol she had stuck into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back was too many long seconds away from her hand because of her heavy jacket.

She also knew there was no choice.

She went for her gun.

Seeing or sensing a threat more immediate than Bonnie, MacBride moved with lightning speed, his gun jerking around to point at Miranda. He fired, and in the same instant Bishop was there in front of her, throwing his body between her and that lethal bullet. As her fingers closed over her own gun, she heard the shot, heard the sickening wet thud as the bullet struck Bishop. Everything in her cried out in desperate, violent protest, but it was too late. With dreadful suddenness, their connection was severed, his hot agony washing over her and through her, and Miranda could barely see as she drew her gun and leveled it at MacBride.

And it was her vision. Bishop lay on the ground, momentarily out of her sight. Bonnie tied up and helpless, the gun aimed at Miranda, a shot echoing — and the agony of death.

But not hers.

She fired three times, hitting MacBride dead center in his chest, and even as he fell she was dropping her own gun and kneeling at Bishop's side.

Terrified by the deathly pallor of his face, she stared at his once white T-shirt, horribly marked by a spreading scarlet stain. She fumbled with the shirt, pulling it up so that she could see how bad it was. The wound was a small, round hole in Bishop's chest, neat, hardly bleeding now. It looked so innocent. So minor. But Miranda knew all too well the irreparable damage a bullet did to the human body. The ripped muscle and shattered bone, the internal organs torn beyond repair ...

She pressed both hands over the wound, bearing down, trying with all her might and will to hold life in his body. He couldn't leave her. He couldn't.

"Randy, you have to untie me," Bonnie said.

"I have to stop the bleeding," Miranda said, vaguely surprised that she sounded so calm.

"That won't help him now." Bonnie's voice was very thin and very steady. "Look at where the wound is, Randy. His heart's already stopped."

"No."

"Randy—"

"No!"

"Listen to me. You have to untie me. Now, before it's too late."

Miranda was trying to listen for another voice. "Noah?" She touched his cheek with bloody fingers. "Noah, please ..." She looked at her sister with blind eyes. "I can't feel him anymore, Bonnie."

"I can."

Miranda blinked, saw her sister clearly. "You can feel him? Then—"

"It's not too late. You have to come untie me, Randy. Hurry."

"I don't want to leave him," Miranda whispered. But even as she said it she was crawling across the damp, sour mulch to Bonnie, finally understanding her sister's urgency. She worked on the ropes, the task made more difficult by the bits of dirt and bark sticking to the blood that coated her fingers.

"Hurry, Randy. There isn't much time left."

"You can't," Miranda protested.

"Yes, I can."

Fiercely, Miranda said, "Do you think I could bear it if I lost both of you?"