Lisa Gardner: Touch & Go

“That’s right, fight, fight, fight !”

I wasn’t going to win. He was too strong, too big, too well-trained. My best efforts, he found funny.

He suddenly reached up, caught my right wrist in a bone-crushing grip. I cried out. My cast-iron skillet fell to the floor.

And that was that.

He rose to his feet, grabbing my shoulders and dragging me to standing. This close, I could see that his brown eyes were just as crazy as his blue eyes had been. He was enjoying this. Relishing every second as his face lit up with the possibilities.

Behind him, the door to the basement stairs suddenly opened, a shadowy maw that revealed a second impressively large male, stepping soundlessly into my kitchen, while pressing a single finger to his lips. Z. Sans the green cobra tattoo and black commando gear.

I didn’t move. I didn’t make a sound. I stood there, totally bewildered, my wrist aching, my shoulders bruising, as Z walked smoothly forward, leveled a .22 caliber pistol and shot Mick at point-blank range through the side of the head.

Mick collapsed sideways.

Z stood over his man and fired twice more.

Then, at long last, my house fell quiet.

Z HANDED ME THE GUN, wrapping my right hand around the grip.

“Neighbors will call in gunfire,” he announced crisply. “Police will arrive momentarily.”

He reached behind me, dragging a throw off the sofa and draping it around my bare shoulders.

“I was never here. You fought him off. Well done.”

“You killed him.”

“He accepted the terms of the assignment: You and Ashlyn were off-limits. He broke the rules twice. In our line of work, failure has consequences.”

“You…you knew he’d come back?”

“I suspected.”

“I don’t understand. It was okay to kill Justin, but not Ashlyn and me?”

“The terms of the assignment,” Z repeated. He had a crumpled piece of paper. Now he pressed it into my hand. “Radar asked me to give you this. You won’t want to share it with anyone. And it’s probably only good for the next twelve hours.”

He turned, heading for the basement door.

“Wait.”

He didn’t break stride.

“I want to know the override code,” I blurted out. “The code you’re all using to get into my house!”

He didn’t break stride.

He was leaving. Just like that. Arrive, survey, conquer. My frustration bubbled up. As well as my loathing at always feeling so powerless. At the last second, it occurred to me that I wasn’t in the prison anymore, and that I was hardly helpless.

I raised the .22, the pistol Z himself had handed to me, and leveled it at the back of his head. “Wait. I said wait!”

Z finally paused, turning slightly. “Your daughter probably requires medical attention,” he commented.

“I’m tired of being a pawn!”

His voice, as calm as ever. “Then pull the trigger.”

My arms were shaking. My whole body, now that I noticed. And all of a sudden, I wasn’t exhausted anymore. I was enraged. At this man, for violating my home, my family. At myself, because heaven help me, I was already going to pop that first pill. But also, mostly, perversely, at Justin, because he’d gone and gotten himself killed and I still loved him and I still hated him and what in the world was I going to do with all those conflicting emotions? How would I ever get closure?

Z staring at me patiently, his expression almost testing. I wasn’t the one who would give him any trouble. His research said so.

I pulled the trigger.

And the chamber clicked hollowly. Of course, Z, the omnipotent, always one step ahead. He’d loaded his pistol with exactly three bullets, discharged all three rounds into Mick’s head, then handed me a useless weapon. I expected him to smile mockingly.

Instead, he said simply, “Good for you. Welcome to the first step of taking your life back.”

Then he was gone.

I checked my daughter first, who was slowly regaining consciousness. Next I found the phone, calling 911 and requesting the police as well as an ambulance. Finally, I went upstairs and retrieved a bathrobe, still gripping the gun with my right hand as I slipped the piece of paper from Radar beneath my pillow and prepared for whatever was going to happen next.

Chapter 43

IT TOOK WYATT THREE TRIES to reach Tessa Leoni. By then, it was 4:00 A.M., but it hardly mattered. Buzzed on adrenaline and the knowledge of who, what, when, where, why and how, he was already in his cruiser, over state lines, heading for Boston.

“Chris Lopez didn’t do it,” he stated without preamble, when Tessa finally answered her cell.

“No shit. I put a gun to the man’s head—hang on, you never heard that from me—and he still pled innocent.”

“I never heard anything, and he didn’t do it.”

“He was sleeping with Ashlyn,” Tessa supplied. “Though he wants the record to show she was using him—”

“Is this the part where you don’t tell me that you shot him?”

“Please, bullets are much too expensive to waste on the likes of him.”

“Good point.”

“However, we had an interesting conversation on who would have enough access to Justin Denbe, to plot against him and his family.”

“Funny, Kevin and I just had the same conversation.”

“For the record, while you and Kevin and me and Lopez were all conversing, someone else was doing. One of the kidnappers returned, broke into the Denbes’ home and attacked Libby and Ashlyn, apparently intent on finishing some unfinished business.”

Wyatt was just taking the exit onto 93 southbound. He pulled his steering wheel sharply right. “What?”

“Exactly. Libby identified him as Mick; the Boston PD are running his prints now to get his real identity. Apparently, he’d taken a special interest in her during incarceration, but had been held off by the ringleader, Z. Well, assignment over, Z gone, Mick decided to make good on some earlier promises. He used a special override code to access the home—having timed the Boston patrol cars, FYI—then surprised Libby in the master bath. She took evasive maneuvers, Ashlyn entered the fray and the two women managed to lead him on a pretty good chase through the home until Libby finally grabbed a loaded twenty-two she’d left next to the sofa—”

“She had a loaded gun in her family room?” Wyatt wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or impressed. He remembered the accounts of the Denbes’ shooting prowess. Still, to leave a loaded gun lying around a family home was a fairly aggressive act.

“Considering what they had been through,” Tessa supplied, “not to mention Special Agent Adams’ multiple lectures on how the three men were still out there…”

“Fair enough.”

“Libby shot Mick dead. Three times, left temple, up close and personal. Professional-grade work.”

The way Tessa said it struck Wyatt as odd.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning her fingerprints are all over the gun, but interestingly enough, no GSR is on her fingers.”

“She fired a gun three times without getting any gunshot residue on her hands?”

“She claims she washed her hands before calling the police.”

“You can’t remove all traces that easily.”

“You’re singing to the choir. But she’s not budging from her story.”

“Did they check Ashlyn’s hands? Maybe she’s covering for her daughter.”

“Her daughter was slammed into a granite countertop and is still recovering from a concussion. But, yes, Boston PD swabbed Ashlyn’s hands. Nada.”

“There were just the two women in the house?” Wyatt asked.

“Exactly.”

The tone of Tessa’s voice said it all. Odds were, Libby had not shot commando Mick. But she felt a need to cover for whoever did. Which, if it wasn’t her daughter…