Most Wanted (43 page)

“Aw, fuck, shut the fuck up!” Slice yelled. Just then Bigga’s stomach let out a loud rumble. “You, too, shut up with that foul shit! Between her whining and your disgusting noises, you both making me sick.”

“I need something to eat,” Bigga said calmly.

“So go get it, then. I can’t fucking concentrate with shit like this going on.”

“You want me to bring you back Chinese?” Bigga asked.

“You crazy? I ain’t eating on no fucking job.”

Bigga shrugged. “Okay, I’ll be back real fast,” he said, handing Slice the gun.

A moment later the door to the street slammed behind him, leaving Melanie alone with Slice.

SLICE PLAYED WITH HIS GAMEBOY FOR WHAT seemed like a very long time. Eventually it let loose a particularly loud series of beeps, then fell silent. The game was over.

“Hmm,” Slice said aloud. “My game all through. What I’m gonna do for some fun now?”

Melanie had stopped crying a while ago. Her eyes clear and dry, she watched Slice with heightened senses. Slowly he pulled himself up from where he sat against the wall and replaced the game in his pocket. He tucked his gun into the waistband of his baggy pants. Deliberately he walked the few steps to where Melanie sat in the swivel chair, pulling a roll of duct tape from his pocket. She knew what it was for. She hadn’t been afraid before, but she was afraid now. She began to tremble visibly, and a savage smile curled the corners of Slice’s lips.

He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “This my favorite part, bitch.”

He jerked her arms forward and taped her hands together at the wrists.

“The way I see it,” Slice said, “now we know where the blueprints is at and I sent somebody to get ’em, I don’t really need you no more. I’m free to do as I please. Don’t you agree?”

Melanie opened her mouth to speak, but only a wet, choking sound emerged.

“Cat got your tongue?” He tugged up his baggy pant leg and pulled a large knife, its curved, ten-inch blade glinting hypnotically, from a tan leather sheath strapped to his shin. He hefted the knife in his hand, testing its weight.

“You took No Joke. But I still got my knife. You know, my knife my favorite way to kill. I much prefer it to my gun. Just, like, a personal-taste issue, you feel me?”

He reached behind her and grabbed her hair, snapping her head back viciously to expose her throat. She exhaled all the air sharply from her lungs. The cold blade slithered along the skin under her chin. She felt the slightest sting.

“Yup, still real sharp,” he said, holding it before her eyes. The edge of the blade bore a tiny bit of blood. Melanie began to shake with pure terror. Slice laughed.

“WHAT THE FUCK YOU DOING, YOU FUCKING idiot?” cried Rommie from the doorway, his face contorted with rage. As Slice turned toward the sound of Rommie’s voice, brandishing the knife, Rommie swiftly closed the distance between them. Slice jabbed the knife straight at Rommie’s face.

“You psycho piece of shit!” Rommie screamed, jumping back, chest heaving. “You gonna kill her? You always have to hurt somebody for kicks, and all it does is fuck my shit up! Those blueprints weren’t where she said. You kill her, we’ll miss the stash again.”

“She saw my face. She can ID me. How I’m gonna let her live?”

“Get the fucking product first. Moron!” Rommie’s mouth was wet with spittle, his face rabid, transformed, nothing like the hail-fellow-well-met guy Melanie knew. He reached his hand inside his elegant, dark suit jacket. Anticipating shots, Melanie threw herself off the chair, rolling away from them to a sheltered spot behind Jed’s desk. Focused on each other, neither man stopped her. She nearly cried out at the sight of Sophie’s inert body on the floor; she’d almost forgotten she was back here. Melanie watched until she saw Sophie’s chest moving up and down. Thank God, alive! Then, needing to know what was happening, she inched forward on her stomach and peeked around the side of the desk.

Rommie and Slice loomed between her and the door, circling each other like boxers in a ring. By menacing Rommie with his knife, Slice managed to prevent him from drawing his gun. Rommie should have overpowered Slice easily, given his larger size. But Slice was lightning fast and armed. He danced around on the balls of his feet, his knife blade floating before him. As she watched, Rommie lunged for Slice’s wrist. Slice angled the blade just right so it slashed deeply into Rommie’s extended right hand.

“Aaaaagh!” Rommie screamed, clutching his bleeding hand against his chest and backing away.

“See what you get, fool?” Slice taunted.

Slice advanced toward Rommie, ready to stab, and Rommie went for his jacket again, with his left hand this time. Just as he managed to pull out his gun, Slice pounced, slashing. Rommie ducked aside, but not fast enough to stop the blade from making contact with his left arm. Slice couldn’t halt his forward momentum. The tip of his knife pierced the wall near the door and stuck in the decayed plaster. As he yanked it out, Rommie swung around wildly, howling with pain from his slashed arm. His gun went flying from his left hand, sliding across the floor and coming to rest near the swivel chair Melanie had just vacated, a few feet from her face. She stared right into its gleaming barrel. It was a sleek Glock nine-millimeter, and she’d fired one just like it recently on a courtesy visit to the DEA range.

Melanie thanked her lucky stars that Slice had taped her hands in
front
of her. The darkest parts of her past had prepared her for this moment: You acted. She’d learned that the hard way. You acted, or you became the victim. She lunged forward with all her strength, clasping the gun and rolling back into a sitting position, raising it in her bound hands to point straight at them.

“Drop the knife!” she shouted.

Slice whirled around and saw her holding the gun. Then he did something she hadn’t anticipated. He smiled, a condescending smile, as if the sight of her sitting there pointing a gun at him amused him considerably. His smile unnerved her for a second. But then it pissed her off.

“Drop it, or I’ll blow your fucking head off!” she shouted again.

Adrenaline pumping, breath coming in gasps, she lurched forward onto her knees, then sprang up toward Slice. She skidded to a halt less than five feet from him, pointing the gun straight at his head. Point-blank range, and she had decent aim. Assuming she was capable of pulling the trigger, she wouldn’t miss. But did she really have it in her to shoot another human being? Even this one?

Rommie, who’d been staring at his own blood dripping from his hands, looked back and forth between Slice and Melanie, dumbfounded, and did nothing.

Slowly and matter-of-factly, holding Melanie’s gaze, Slice pulled up his pant leg as if he meant to sheathe his knife. Did he think that would satisfy her?

“No, I said drop it! Drop it on the floor!”

She watched in mute horror as he slid the knife into its sheath and calmly reached for the gun stuck in his waistband. The trajectory the gun followed from his waist to pointing at her head seemed to happen in slow motion. She closed her eyes and squeezed the Glock’s trigger. A long time later, she felt the kick. Seconds seemed to last hours as she saw her daughter’s face. An enormous wave of sorrow washed over her. Far away, an earsplitting report sounded, and a fine spray of blood covered her skin and clothes.

HOW FUNNY, MELANIE THOUGHT, DYING
DOES
FEEL like you’re still alive, but there’s no white light. The next second she opened her eyes. Slice slumped to the ground, a flap opened in the top of his skull.

“Nice work,” Rommie said. “It was him or us. Motherfucker woulda bodied us for sure.”

Wearing an expression of pure disgust, Rommie flipped over Slice’s lifeless body with his shoe so it lay facedown. Melanie was shaking all over. She couldn’t believe it. She looked down at the gun clutched in her tightly bound hands, and then back at Slice. She’d just killed a man.

Seeing the state she was in, Rommie pressed his advantage. He leaned over, picked up Slice’s gun in his left hand, and leveled it at her.

“Okay, Melanie, you had your fun. Enough cops and robbers. Drop the weapon.”

Rommie looked dangerous as a stray dog in pain. Sweat poured down his forehead into his eyes. He wiped his face with his cut right hand, leaving a trail of blood. This was a side of him she’d never seen before. Unbeknownst to her, he’d already walked a mile down the path of corruption. No telling how much farther he’d go. He’d probably be willing to kill her. Dropping the gun was not a risk she could afford to take.

“No,” she said, raising it instead, to point at his chest. “You drop yours.”

The surprise in his eyes was gratifying. But then his expression changed.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “That’s my gun, isn’t it? You picked it up off the floor?”

“Yes.”

He laughed. “It’s empty!”

She studied his face, holding the gun as steady as her shaking hands would allow. Rommie didn’t look like he was lying.

“I don’t believe you. You’re bluffing,” she said, trying to sound strong despite the trembling in her legs.

“I went to the range this morning because I was due to qualify,” Rommie said. “Emptied the clip, except for one bullet, which you did me the favor of pumping into my friend’s head there.”

Holy shit, was he telling the truth?

“You would never leave your gun empty like that,” she said, definitively, as if she could will it to be so. “You would reload.” Then again, remember the fuck-up she was talking to.

“Sometimes it pays to be sloppy, kid.”

Rommie advanced on her with an evil grin, his gun pointed right at her head.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. “Get back!”

“You worried I’ll kill you, Melanie? L’il ole me? I’m flattered.”

Panting in terror, but determined, she pointed the gun at Rommie’s legs and squeezed the trigger. Right away, she knew it felt different. There was no tension. The trigger snapped back uselessly, making a hollow, clicking noise. Rommie closed the gap between them and ripped the gun from her hands. He shoved it into his waistband, then grabbed her by the throat with his blood-slicked hand, backing her straight up against Benson’s desk.

“Everything I did for you, and you try to blow me away? What kind of friendship is that? I’ll remember when the time comes to figure out what to do with you. Which is right after you tell me where those blueprints are.”

“Let go!” she choked out. “Let go, and I’ll tell you!”

He dropped his hand and backed off, and she sucked in a ragged breath. Adrenaline born of pure fear was the only thing keeping her functioning. She needed a plan. She needed more time, and a way to call the cops. But how? The blueprints were right outside. And after the wild-goose chase she’d sent him on once today, Rommie wasn’t likely to fall for another.

As if to confirm her thoughts, he raised Slice’s gun and placed it to her temple.

“
Now
—or you’re fucking dead in five seconds.”

“Outside, in the planter next to the door,” she blurted.
Shit
! She’d given up her last bargaining chip. But she had to. Rommie, like his buddy Slice, was stupid enough to kill her without getting the blueprints first. Now she’d have to come up with another way to stay alive.

His eyes narrowed. “Why there? Why should I even believe you had ’em in the first place? You fed Slice a line so he’d let you live. Who’s to say you’re not playing
me
now?”

“I had them, I swear. I got them out of the trap in Jed Benson’s Hummer.”

That registered. Rommie obviously knew about that trap.

“How?” he snarled. “When nobody else could figure out how to open that fricking thing?”

“Dan did it.”

“O’Reilly.” He nodded. “But you stashed them in a
planter
? Ohh, I get it. You want to go outside. This is all a goddamn scam, isn’t it, Melanie? I take you outside to get the plans. You make a scene on the street. Start screaming or something. And somebody calls the cops. You must think I’m pretty fucking stupid.”

He jammed the barrel of the gun hard against the side of her head, making her wince. But still, she’d heard it. She’d heard her opportunity, clear as a bell, and it gave her hope. He had the gun, but she could outwit him. She had to. There was no other choice.

With the gun pressed to her head, she managed to feign a shrug of indifference. “If you don’t believe me, make me stay here, and you go check it out.”

Rommie cast her a savage look, but her playacting had worked. He relaxed and backed off a step, keeping the gun leveled at her, albeit with visible effort. She could tell he was in pain.

“This better fucking be straight.”

“It is.”

“The upper floors are sealed off, you know. The only way out is past me,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere, Rommie.”

“I come back and a fucking hair on your head moved, you’re dead.”

“I understand.”

He backed away, keeping his gun trained on her until he reached the hallway, then turned and made rapidly for the basement door.

As his footsteps receded down the hallway, Melanie hurried over to the desk and dropped to her knees. Heart pounding, she retrieved her cell phone from under the desk where Slice had thrown it, what seemed like a lifetime ago. It
was
a lifetime ago—Slice’s lifetime. She glanced at his stiffening corpse, lying inert on the floor like some grisly piece of debris, surrounded now by a shiny, dark pool of blood. She wouldn’t let herself think about what had happened, what was still happening. Not now, or she’d fall apart. She had to get herself out of here, so she could live, so she could see her daughter again. Tiny baby girl,
nena preciosa
. Get home to Maya, then think about everything else. She’d have plenty of time later to come to terms with it all. She’d have the rest of her life.

Clutching the phone in her bound hands, she turned it on. She dialed Dan O’Reilly’s pager number as fast as her thumb would move, the whole time thinking she might just be calling another calamity down upon herself. But even if Dan was bad, wouldn’t he save her life? She just couldn’t believe that their whole relationship—everything she’d read in his eyes, the things he’d said, that kiss—was all an elaborate act. Anyway, she was running low on options. At the prompt she punched in the numbers for the town house’s address, followed by the code she and Dan had come up with. Lucky seven, he’d said. It damn well better be. Then she turned off the phone, threw it back under the desk, and hurried to the exact spot where she’d been standing when Rommie left the room.