Stripped (43 page)

He took a step down, climbing backward, one-handed.

Then everything fell apart.

The atmosphere seemed to yawn, taking a deep breath and exhaling it across the notch in the roof like a tornado. The gust slapped him in the back and drove his whole body against the fragile ladder. His wrist struck the railing, and it popped his gun out of his hand, and he watched in horror as it tumbled downward toward the floor of the terrace. He lurched off balance as the wind shifted and sucked him backward. The rusting bolt that held the ladder to the wall popped, and a moment later, Stride was flying. The ladder spun in a lazy arc toward the parapet. He hung on with one hand, feeling the iron buck and swing as his weight crushed all of its pressure onto the last rusting bolt.

With an awful grinding, the bolt gave way.

The ladder began pitching forward at its middle, metal tearing and bending. Stride looked down, falling, and saw the onion domes stretched along the top of the wall, and beyond them, twenty stories of air.

Serena saw the gun fly out of Jonny’s hands. She braced her left foot against the marble and stared at Blake, waiting. When the gun clattered to the ground, Blake instinctively twisted to look behind him, and in the same instant, Serena sprang forward, shooting up from her knees. She rammed Blake with her fists clenched together and drove her arms up into his abdomen. The gun flew from his fingers and skittered away behind him. Blake tumbled backward, and the momentum carried Serena with him, both of them spilling off their feet. With her hands tied, Serena couldn’t break her fall, and the hard ground flattened her arms against her chest, knocking the wind from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.

She tried to get up and made it to her knees. Her eyes searched the shadows.

Where was the gun?

She felt air coming back slowly. Her chest swelled. Blake’s gun was only a few feet away, almost within reach. She clawed out for it and then tried to stand up, but before she could get to her feet, she felt an electric shock of light and pain through her skull. Blake’s elbow crashed against her head, knocking her over. Then Blake was climbing over her, scrambling for the gun.

The parapet zoomed up into Stride’s face. He hung on to the railing as the ladder disintegrated, swinging him over the big drop to the street. For an instant, he dangled there, his feet hanging free, and he felt his insides turn to water. The iron squealed and protested and dropped lower. His grip on the railing was slippery from sweat. Stride hunted for a foothold, feeling nothing but space, and then finally he scraped the edge of the wall with his shoe. He shifted his weight and was standing on the parapet, with half of one foot on the ledge.

For a few seconds that felt timeless, he hung on, caught between the back-and-forth swirls of the wind. Finally, a gust roared in, pushing him toward the hotel, and Stride let his hand slip from the iron. He bent and reached for one of the stone onion domes, but he was beyond that already, tumbling, falling, landing with a jolt and rolling onto the terrace.

The impact dizzied him, and he swayed as he got to his feet. He looked quickly for his gun but didn’t see it. Then he saw Blake scrabbling across the marble and saw another gun lying almost within the killer’s reach.

Stride charged, just as Blake curled his hand around the butt of the pistol.

With a flash of light and a deafening noise, Blake fired. Stride felt a searing pain streak across his leg, and he half dove, half collapsed across Blake. He heard a snap and realized it was Blake’s wrist breaking as Stride’s shoulder fell across his arm. Blake choked back a cry of pain, and the gun dropped from his hand. Stride twisted around, lunging for the gun, but Blake bucked like a bronco and threw Stride off his back. Blake picked up the gun again; he could barely hold it now. Stride rolled away and then stood up. Blake was still prone on the ground, trying to raise the gun, and Stride kicked his broken wrist hard with the side of his foot, causing a new bellow of pain from Blake and sending the gun spinning toward the pool.

Stride reached down and yanked Blake to his feet. The killer’s body was like rubber, and his face looked bruised and dazed. Stride recoiled to send a fist across Blake’s jaw, then realized he had been suckered as Blake brought a knee viciously up into Stride’s groin. As hot pain raced through his body, Stride staggered back and saw Blake’s left forearm slicing backhand toward his head. He tried to dodge the blow, but it connected hard on his cheek and sent him reeling, stumbling to his knees.

Serena saw Stride’s gun lying on the ground a few feet from the roof wall, near the twisted remnants of the ladder. As Blake spun around, he followed her eyes, and he saw it, too. They both ran. Serena didn’t have her wind back completely, and she realized that Blake was faster, that he would get there first. She turned and dove for him, trying to take him down. Blake saw her coming and swerved, then leaped to clear her body. His foot became tangled in her legs. Blake pulled free, but he lost his balance, stumbled, and fell.

She saw that Jonny was on his feet again. He was running for the gun, too.

Then Serena felt a powerful arm snake around her neck and yank her up to her knees, sealing off her windpipe in a crushing grip. She fought and couldn’t breathe. Blake had her locked in a stranglehold.

“Stride!” Blake shouted.

She saw Jonny freeze. It felt as if her eyes were bulging out of her head.

“I’ll kill her.”

She wanted to tell him to go for the gun. Fuck Blake. Put an end to this. But she couldn’t make a sound; all she could do was watch the world start to spin and darken. Her limbs felt as powerless as a marionette’s. She wondered if it had been like this for Amira, dying here.

She heard Blake’s labored breathing. His arm didn’t let loose. He was killing her, choking her second by second. The blood began roaring in her brain, and her nerve ends exploded like firecrackers, causing a headache that made her skull feel as if it would burst open.

Her eyes met Jonny’s. He floated in her vision and did somersaults.
Go for the gun, Jonny
.

Stride took a step toward the gun.

“I’ll kill her,” Blake repeated.

Serena felt his other arm slide over the top of her head and grab her hair. He was going to twist her neck and snap her spine. Then through the blackness that was falling down on her, Serena realized that Blake could barely hold her head with his other hand.
Snap
. His wrist was broken. Fragile. Vulnerable.

She hoped she could stretch her bound arms over her head. She told her limbs what to do, and somewhere between the confused impulses shooting from her brain, her arms obeyed. She reached up to the top of her head with her bound hands and took hold of Blake’s wrist and clamped down on the bone as hard as she could.

Blake screamed. Serena jerked on his wrist. For just an instant, Blake’s other arm came loose, and Serena wriggled free, gasping for air, feeling blood rush back to her head. She stumbled, unable to keep her balance.

Five feet away, Jonny ran for the gun. So did Blake.

Blake was closer to the gun, but Stride was on him before he could reach for it. He threw Blake against the parapet so hard the killer slammed into it and bounced off. Stride was waiting and threw a sledgehammer punch directly into Blake’s face that snapped his head back. Blood sprayed from his mouth. The killer staggered back into the wall, and Stride followed, hitting him again.

Stride felt a stinging, bone-deep pain in his hand. He realized he had probably broken a couple of fingers.

Blake crumpled to his knees, and his head slumped forward. He teetered and then collapsed on the ground, not moving. Stride took a deep breath and reached around behind his back to snag his handcuffs.

He looked down. Something was wrong.

Behind him, Serena saw it, too, and shouted, “
Where’s the gun
?”

Stride realized he didn’t see his gun anymore. Blake had deliberately pivoted his body to fall on top of it. Stride saw Blake’s arm moving and saw the man pushing himself off the ground, the gun in his other hand.

Blake aimed the gun, not at Stride, not at Serena, but at himself.

He pressed it to the side of his head. He could barely keep it steady.

“Drop it, Blake,” Stride told him.

Blake dragged himself to his feet. He staggered back to the wall. Stride and Serena edged closer from two sides.

“Give us the gun,” Serena said.

Blake gave them a bloody smile. He put his bad hand around one of the onion domes atop the parapet and braced himself, grimacing in pain, as he pulled a leg up onto the wall. The gun wobbled in his grip. He pulled his other leg up, too, and stood, precariously balanced on the slim stone edge of the wall. Blake swayed, the wind toying with him.

He took the gun away from his head and casually tossed it off the top of the building.

Stride took a step forward, but Blake held up his hand, stopping him. Blake shook his head. He took a long look at the ground below.

“Amira,” he said.

Blake leaned into the wind. He spread his arms wide.

“Don’t do it, brother.”

The sharp voice from the terrace stopped him in the moment before he let go. Blake looked around and steathed himself on the wall. So did Stride and Serena. Stride couldn’t believe what he saw.

It was Claire.

She was standing by the pool, with Serena’s gun in her outstretched hands. She was pointing it at Boni’s head.

Claire, what the hell are you doing?” Serena demanded.

Claire didn’t look back. She stared down the sights of the gun at her father and walked toward him step by step, slowly, until the gun was an inch from his eyes. Serena saw Claire’s whole body trembling. There was hatred in her face and a world of hurt gushing out like oil from a well.

Boni didn’t even seem to notice the gun. His blue eyes and her blue eyes were locked in a duel. Claire was crying, and she struggled to keep the gun level.

“Now you know what it felt like for me,” she said. “Powerless.”

“What do you want, Claire?”

“Tell Blake the truth,” she said. “You owe him that.”

“I don’t owe him anything,” Boni snapped.

Claire shook her head. “You murdered Amira, didn’t you? Because she had the fucking gall to try to get out from under your thumb. Because she didn’t want to be owned and controlled anymore.”

“I loved Amira,” Boni told her.

“Everything you love gets hurt,” Claire retorted.

“I can’t talk about it.”

“It was forty years ago,” she insisted. “No one can touch you now.”

“You may as well kill me, Claire, if that’s what you want. I’m not going to say anything about Amira.”

“Is that what you want? You want me to pull the trigger?”

‘For God’s sake, stop this,” Serena pleaded with her. She started to move toward them, and Boni held up one hand to stop her.

“It’s all right, Detective,” Boni said. He focused on Claire. “Kill me if you want, sweetheart. I just wish you wouldn’t throw away your own life to do it.”

“Does my life mean more to you?” Claire asked. She tilted her head back and shoved the barrel of the gun under her own chin. “How about now?”

“Claire! No!” Serena shouted.

Boni looked at his daughter. Serena thought his eyes were filling up with tears. “You’re so beautiful. Just like your mother.”

“Do you think that kind of shit will work on me now?” Claire asked. “What’s next? You’ll tell me how much you love me? That doesn’t mean a thing.”

“I do love you”

‘’Do you think I won’t do it?” Claire demanded, pushing the gun harder against her skin. “Is that it? I’m
your
child. You know I will.”

“If you thought it would give me enough pain, yes, I know you would.”

“Look at us!” Claire said. “This is the family you’ve built. Look at your son on the wall. That’s what you did to him. And you know damn well what you did to me.”

Boni recoiled as if he had been struck. “Please, Claire, don’t go there.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I airing our dirty laundry in public? Am I embarrassing you?”

“Claire,” Boni begged her. “No.”

It was as if Claire smelled a wound and steered for it like a shark. “You
knew
what that bastard did to me.”

Serena didn’t know who Claire was talking about, but Boni obviously did. He was visibly shaken.

“It was a terrible misunderstanding,” Boni said.

“Misunderstanding? You accused me of being drunk. You said I led him on. You knew that was a lie.”

“I didn’t want to believe what he had done to you.”

Boni raised his arms, reaching out to her, trying to touch her. Claire stepped back and flung the gun into the pool, where it splashed into the opaque water. She screamed, “
He raped me
!”

“Claire, we can’t talk about this. Not here.”

“Oh, no, no, of course not. It might endanger the empire. It might hurt
him
. My God, he raped your own daughter, and
you covered it up”

“I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”

“You had a choice. Me or him. But that was never a choice, was it? It’s always been him. Everything you’ve ever done, it’s been to protect him.”

Who
? Serena wanted to shout.

“We talked about this,” Boni said. “You told me you understood.”

“Of course I understood. I was asking you to expose a lifetime of lies. You would have lost everything. Gone to prison. So I was the good girl, and I shut up. I shut up, even though I had nightmares for years. I shut up, even though I was sick and scared every time I saw his face. I shut up, and I saved you.”

“It was more than ten years ago, Claire,” Boni said. “What can I do? How can I finally make this right?”

“You can never make it right. But just once in your life, you can tell the truth. You can face up to something you’ve done. What happened to Amira?”

Boni looked stricken. “I can’t talk about that.”