Crimson Eve (32 page)
Horror surged through her. She jerked in reflex, had to force herself to stay
down
. Crazy as it was, she visualized the bullet drilling backwards into her own brain.
God, I’m not ready to die!
The man moved across the side of the kitchen, the silhouette of a gun before him. Carla knew her vision was more adjusted to the inside blackness than his, could only hope he would not veer her way. She rolled her eyes up, toward the man’s face — and saw Jilke’s aged but recognizable profile.
His head never turned. He moved toward the living room, then swerved right. Carla stayed still as he passed the long eating counter. If he looked her way, if he took the time to peer into darkness . . .
Jilke’s footsteps hit tile, then softened. He was heading down the hall.
Leslie
.
Carla lifted her head from Tanya’s, listening.
Seconds ticked by.
Jilke’s voice rolled into her ears.
A long-barreled gun pointed down at Leslie’s face.
“Don’t you know how bright that phone’s light is in the dark —even through curtains?”
Leslie’s world ground to a stop. She stared at the man’s dark figure, mind frozen.
“Who did you call?”
Was this Jilke? Thornby?
As if it mattered.
She pressed her fingers into the carpet. “I just . . . I . . .”
“
Who
did you
call
?”
“The police.”
The man seethed. She couldn’t see his face, but she could
feel
the anger. It was live and sizzling.
“What do you know about Carla Radling?” He moved closer, the weapon not two feet away.
She swallowed. What did she know? What did
that
matter? “She told me everything.”
“Who have you told?”
Understanding seeped in. The cell phone may have led this man to her, but it was also saving her life — for the moment. He needed to contain the information. As soon as he learned she’d told no one, she would be dead.
Leslie forced venom into her voice. “Five friends. In five different countries.”
He slammed her head with the side of his gun. Pain tore through her brain. Leslie’s body swayed left. She slumped against the wall, dazed.
The man leaned over her. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
Leslie couldn’t move, the smell of her own sweat-sticky fear filling her nostrils. How long since Chief Edwards radioed in the call? Two minutes? Three?
She blinked blurry eyes up toward the man — and saw him split in two. One figure in front, one behind. The one in back clutched something long and flat in both hands, raised it — and plunged it high in the first one’s back.
Carla
.
A scream gurgled from the man’s throat. He jerked up straight, both hands flying out. His fingers uncurled from the gun. It dangled . . . dropped to the floor. He staggered back two steps, then found his footing, as if fury itself drove strength into his limbs. He swiveled toward Carla. Leslie could see an outline of a huge knife protruding from beneath his left shoulder blade. It hadn’t gone in very far. Not a wound to kill, only drive him like a maddened beast.
Leslie pushed away from the wall, threw her hand around the man’s lower leg and yanked with all her might. He crashed headlong toward the floor. Carla screamed and jumped out of his way.
Where was the gun? Leslie searched the carpet in vain. The man’s foot twitched. He was already rising. As he pulled forward to kneel, the gun appeared beneath his leg. Leslie grabbed for it.
The weapon felt hard and warm in her hand.
The man lunged for Carla. Leslie raised the gun, trying to aim, but she didn’t dare pull the trigger for fear of hitting Carla. He rammed Carla’s body, shoved her against the wall, fingers circling her throat. The frantic movement of his shoulder muscles loosened the huge knife. It worked its way out a
nd fell to the carpet. He felt it with his foot, back-kicked hard. It tumbled across the floor and under the bed.
Leslie’s hand cramped around the gun. If she shot, wouldn’t the bullet go through the man into Carla?
Choking sounds spilled from Carla’s lips. Fury shot through Leslie. She pushed to her feet and launched herself across the room and into the man, hitting his back right shoulder at an angle. He stumbled to his left, away from Carla. She slipped to the floor, wheezing in air.
Leslie raised the gun and fired.
Nothing happened.
She tried to pull the trigger again.
Something was blocking it. A safety? What, where?
Her trembling right hand struggled to keep aim at the man while her left fingers explored the gun. The barrel, underneath the trigger, around the handle. What was she supposed to
do
?
The man rose up, a monster in the darkness, his shape outlined against the dim spill of streetlight through the bedroom’s curtains. Leslie backed up, still fumbling with the gun. Carla hacked and coughed, struggling to get on her knees, crawl toward Leslie and the door.
Leslie felt something on the bottom of the gun handle. A piece that moved.
Hard, running footsteps filtered from up the hall. Reflex whipped Leslie’s body around, jerked her finger on the trigger.
Phwfat.
The gun fired through empty threshold, hitting the hallway wall. Her arm recoiled.
The footsteps halted.
“No!” Carla cried.
Leslie spun around as the man and Carla collided. Carla swung madly with both fists, the man trying to pin her arms, two desperate silhouettes in a fight to the death.
Sirens in the distance.
Where was the armed man in the hall? Leslie leapt to her right, toward the wall past the dresser. Pivoted, crouched down and aimed the gun at the doorway.
One second passed. Two. Carla and her attacker continued to fight. In the struggle they’d turned around, his back now to the hallway.
The armed man leapt into the room.
Leslie fired. His body jerked like a marionette. She fired again.
He crumpled to the floor.
Carla’s attacker swiveled and dove toward the downed man.
“Jilke, stop!” Carla stumbled toward him.
Jilke.
Had she killed Thornby?
Sirens drew closer. Leslie’s arms wavered, all energy draining away. Her gun tipped toward the floor.
Jilke rose up, Thornby’s weapon in his hands.
All the sensations hit Carla at once — the
whow, whow
of police cars; the throbbing from her ankle, neck, and countless bruises on her body; the acrid smell of gunfire and bitter taste of panic. The dark shape of Thornby’s small gun now in Jilke’s hand some five feet away — pointed at Leslie.
Carla heard, felt, smelled, tasted, saw it all. Knew she and Leslie were going to die. But only one thought echoed in her head.
Rebecca.
Adrenaline surged through her body. With the cry of a raging mother, she sprang from the floor and toward Jilke — the man she hated with every sinew of her being. Jilke swiveled toward her.
Bright light flooded through the room’s curtains, hit Jilke in the face. He squinted, tilted down his head.
Carla grabbed his right arm and twisted.
“Ugh!” Jilke fired the gun, the bullet zinging into carpet. Carla twisted harder, and his fingers loosened. The weapon dropped.
“Get back, Carla, get back!” Leslie reared up on her knees, her face white in all the light, gun aimed at Jilke.
Carla pivoted and leapt away.
The sounds tumbled over each other. Leslie firing, running footfalls outside, shouts — “Police!” — heavy banging on the front door.
Jilke rebounded and fell to his knees, then went down like a sinking ship, half on top of Thornby. Groans sputtered from his mouth.
Carla screamed.
Something in her let loose, something primal and full of fury. She fell upon Jilke in the glaring light like a maniac, kicking, pummeling, seething curses. She erupted in sobs, she hit and smacked and pulled hair. She would bash the man’s head in, pull out his limbs. Kill him for all he’d done to her and Rebecca, the lies he’d told and evil he’d wreaked on behalf of Bryson Hanley, then and now. If only Bryson were here to kill too; she would do it, yes, she would — for Rebecca. Somehow then, as Carla thrashed and wailed, Jilke
became
Bryson, and her punches doubled, and her cries turned raw. The man beneath her groaned at her blows, and she hit harder, harder, shoulders aching and world blurring. She hit Bryson for betraying her trust at such a young age, for using her up and spitting her out, for stealing her daughter and leaving her to mourn. For his lies and manipulation and despicable, deadly
charm
.
Somewhere in the back of Carla’s brain she registered the sound of feet running in the kitchen, shouts, the squeak of police gear. Leslie yelling, “Carla, stop!” But she pummeled on, choked, crying — until police rushed in, and strong arms pulled her away, somebody calling her name through a crimson haze, and more shouts and more feet running and voices over radios. And some other voice from the floor — a guttural whisper from Thornby — wasn’t he dead? — saying a name over and over —“Timmy, Timmy, Tim — ”
No. Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca . . .
Gentle arms encircled her, the sound of Leslie’s voice in her ear, soothing, soothing.
Carla’s world f
aded to black.
Reparation
Carla slumped on the sofa, distracted eyes half watching TV. Her ankle hurt a little, although it was much, much better. But a twisted ankle was the least of her worries. The shades of her blue house were all drawn, flimsy barriers against the crowd of reporters staking out her property. Stupid stalkers. Just sitting in her own house, minding her own business, she could hear them out there.
“Don’t you just
love
the media?” Leslie grimaced. She sat in an armchair, blonde hair in a ponytail, wearing no makeup. Not like Leslie. Showed how tired she was.
“Oh, yeah.”
This was the first time since last Thursday they’d had a chance to see each other in private. Leslie had called to declare she was coming over even if she had to run the gauntlet of a
thousand
reporters. Hadn’t been quite that bad. Nine hundred and ninety-nine, maybe. Carla had peered through the corner of a window as Leslie got out of her car. The idiots dissolved into mass hysteria at her sighting. Leslie didn’t let it stop her. Head held high, eyes straight ahead, and arms pumping, she stormed through the yelling mouths and thrust microphones. When she reached the porch Carla threw open the door. In an instant, bodies turned, all attention switching to her. Demanding voices swelled over each other like toxic waves.
“Miss Radling, how do you feel about Hanley’s pulling out of the presidential race?”
“Have you talked to your daughter?”
“Has Scott Cambry contacted you?”
“Do you believe Hanley’s statement that he knew nothing about the switched infants?”
“When will you — ”
Leslie scurried inside. Carla slammed and bolted the door.
That was an hour ago. They’d eaten sandwiches, made coffee. Now they watched the news, flipping channel after cable channel. A nation in an uproar, talking heads expounding, law enforcement experts pontificating. Hanley’s political career was over, all agreed. But could he be charged with anything criminal?
Carla was so tired of it. She knew Leslie was too. If only they could have their lives back. Leslie faced the sobering knowledge that she had killed a man. Tony Derrat, a.k.a. David Thornby, had died of gunshot wounds in the stomach on the way to the hospital. Clearly, Leslie shot him in self-defense. Still, she had taken a man’s
life
. A man with a wife who believed he worked for the CIA. And a son. Timmy — the name on Derrat’s lips as he lay dying. The little boy who reportedly adored his father and wanted to grow up to be just like him.
The things parents did to their children.
Brandon, the car salesman, had also faced some fallout. So much for trying to be a good citizen. He was having a hard time forgiving himself, knowing he had led Jilke and Derrat to the house. Leslie had told Carla she saw Brandon when she and S-Man drove to Spokane Chrysler to retrieve Carla’s Toyota. Brandon apologized over and over, nearly in tears. Leslie gave him Carla’s message — one Leslie also believed: he’d tried to help them. None of this was his fault.
