Maplecroft blinked again.
Jane didn’t scream like the first time, because the more this kept happening, the more it felt normal. That’s how Nick had gotten them. The drills and the rehearsals and the constant state of paranoia had all hypnotized them into believing that what they were doing was not just reasonable, but necessary.
Paula broke the silence this time. “We have to finish it.”
Jane could only stare at her.
Paula said, “Put the pillow over her head, or just use your hands to cover her mouth and pinch her nose closed. Unless you want to try to stab her in the heart? Drown her in that bucket of piss?”
Jane felt bile stream up her throat. She turned, but not quickly enough. Vomit spewed onto the floor. She pressed her hands against the wall. She opened her mouth and tried not to wail.
How could she bring a child into this terrible, violent world?
“Christ,” Paula said. “You can watch your own daddy being shot, but a gal bumps her head—”
“Penny,” Andrew cautioned.
“Jinx,” Nick tried to put his hand on Jane’s back, but she shrugged him off. “I didn’t mean to do it. I just—I wasn’t thinking. She hurt you. She was still trying to hurt you.”
“It’s moot.” Quarter was pressing two fingers to the woman’s neck. “She doesn’t have a pulse.”
“Well, fuck,” Paula mumbled. “What a surprise.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Andrew said. “What’s done is done.” He, too, was looking at Jane. “It’s all right. I mean, no, of course it’s not all right, but it was an accident, and we have to get past it because there are more important things at play here.”
“He’s right,” Quarter said. “We still have Stanford, Chicago, New York.”
Paula said, “You know I’m still in. I’m not like little Miss Princess here. You should’ve stuck to your volunteer work with the other rich ladies. I knew you’d wimp out the second things got messy.”
Jane finally allowed herself to look at Nick. His chest was heaving. His fists were still clenched. The skin along the back of his knuckles was torn where he’d punched Alexandra Maplecroft in the face.
Who was this man?
“I can’t—” Jane started, but she could not say the words.
“You can’t what?” Nick wiped the back of his hand on his pants. Blood smeared across like dirty fingerprints. There was more blood on the sleeve of his shirt. Jane looked down at her trousers. Red slashes crossed her legs. Speckles dotted her blouse.
“I can’t—” she tried again.
“Can’t what?” Nick asked. “Jinx, talk to me. What can’t you do?”
Do this, be a part of this, hurt more people, live with the secrets, live with the guilt, give life to your child because I will never, ever be able to explain to her that you are her father.
“Jinxie?” Nick had recovered from his shock. He was giving her his half grin. He wrapped his hands around her arms. He pressed his lips to her forehead.
She wanted to resist. She told herself to resist. But her body moved toward his and then he was holding her and she was letting herself take comfort from the warmth of his embrace.
The yo-yo flipping back on itself.
Andrew said, “Let’s go downstairs and—”
Suddenly, Quarter made a gulping sound.
His entire body jerked, his arms flying into the air. Blood burst from his chest.
A millisecond later, Jane heard the loud crack of a rifle firing, the sound of glass breaking in the window pane.
She was already lying flat on the floor when she realized what was happening.
Someone was shooting at them.
Jane could see the crazy red dots from rifle scopes slipping along the walls as if they were in an action movie. The police had found them. They had tracked Jasper’s car or someone in the neighborhood had reported them or they had followed Andrew and Jane and none of that mattered now because Quarter was dead. Maplecroft was dead. They were all going to die in this horrible room with the bucket of shit and piss and Jane’s vomit on the floor.
Another bullet broke out the rest of the glass. Then another zinged around the room. Then another. Then they were suddenly completely swallowed by the sharp percussion of gunfire.
“Move!” Nick yelled, upending the mattress to block the front window. “Let’s go, troops! Let’s go!”
They had trained for this. It had seemed preposterous at the time, but Nick had made them drill for this exact scenario.
Andrew ran in a crouch toward the open door at the top of the stairs. Paula crawled on her hands and knees toward the back window. Jane started to follow, but a bullet pinged past her head. She flattened back to the floor. The vase of flowers shattered. Holes pierced the flimsy walls, lines of sunlight creating a disco effect.
“Over here!” Paula was already at the window.
Jane started to crawl again, but she stopped, screaming as Quarter’s body bucked into the air. They were shooting him. She heard the sickening suck of bullets punching into his dead flesh. Maplecroft’s head cracked open. Blood splattered everywhere. Bone. Brain. Tissue.
Another explosion downstairs; the front door blowing open.
“FBI! FBI!” The agents screamed over each other like a crescendo building. Jane heard their boots stomping through the lower floor, fists banging on the walls, looking for the stairs.
“Don’t wait for me!” Andrew had already closed the door. Jane watched him heft up the heavy post that fit into the brackets on either side of the jamb.
“Jane, hurry!” Nick shouted. He was helping Paula guide the extension ladder out the back window. It was too heavy for just one person to manage. They knew this from the training exercise. Two people on the ladder. One person barring the door. Mattress against the window.
Duck and run, move fast, don’t stop for anything.
Paula was first out the window. The rickety ladder clanged as she crawled on hands and knees to the house on the other side of the alley. The distance between the two windows was fifteen feet. Below was a pile of rotting garbage filled with needles and broken glass. No one would willingly go into the pit. Not unless the ladder broke and they plummeted twenty feet down.
“Go-go-go!” Nick yelled. The pounding downstairs was getting louder. The agents were still looking for the stairs. Wood started to splinter as they used the butts of their shotguns on the walls.
“Fuck!” a man yelled. “Get the fucking sledgehammer!”
Jane went on the ladder next. Her hands were wet with sweat. The cold metal rungs dug into her knees. There was a vibration in the ladder from a sledgehammer pounding into the walls below.
“Hurry!” Paula kept looking down at the pile of garbage. Jane chanced a peek and saw that there were three FBI agents in blue jackets swarming around the pile, trying to find a way in.
A gunshot rang out—not from the agents, but from Nick. He was leaning out the window, giving Andrew cover as he made his way across the ladder. The going was slower for her brother. The metal box was clutched under his arm. He could only use one hand. Jane couldn’t even remember him bringing the box up the stairs.
“Fuckers!” Paula screeched as she shook her fist at the agents on the ground. She was drawing a sick sort of excitement from the carnage. “Fascist fucking pig cunts!”
Andrew slipped on the ladder. Jane gasped. She heard him curse. He’d almost dropped the box.
“Please,” she whispered, begged, pleaded.
Forget the box. Forget the plan. Just get us out of this. Make us sane again.
“Nickel!” Paula yelled. “Throw it to me!”
She meant the gun. Nick tossed it across the fifteen-foot span. Paula caught it with both hands just as Andrew was coming off the ladder.
Jane had her arms around him before his feet hit the floor.
“Fuckers!” Paula started shooting at the FBI agents. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was open. She was yelling like a madwoman because of course she was mad. They were all deranged, and if they died here today that was exactly what they deserved.