Slowly, Victor lifted his arms and tried as best he could to lace his fingers on top of his head and keep hold of the flashlight. He whispered, his voice a croak, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time. “How? How could you possibly know I was here?”
“After Lissy’s crazy attack on Cindy Wilcox in Winslow, how can you be surprised?” It was her voice, a voice he knew as well as Savich’s. It was Agent Sherlock. She’d shot him in the ankle, tried to cripple him. He thought of Cindy in Winslow and the mistakes he’d made, that Lissy had made—no, it was his fault. He’d been a fool. He’d let Lissy down by flirting with the little waitress, even following her home. Had he expected Lissy would let him have sex with her? He didn’t know now, hadn’t known then.
Sherlock walked from behind an aisle of hair care products, Savich from the cold medicine aisle. They were here together, the two people he hated and feared most in the world.
Victor, how can they be here? Sure, there was that fiasco in Winslow, but how did they know we’d be here tonight, in the pharmacy?
Lissy hadn’t stayed in the car. She was here, hiding behind him, whispering in his ear. Victor was terrified she’d be hurt. He willed her to keep quiet. He whispered out the side of his mouth, “I don’t know. You know they’re smart.”
Sherlock said, “What did you say, Victor? I told you, we went to Winslow and spoke to Cindy. She told us you yelled she’d kicked you in the staples. We knew it wasn’t you with the staples. She kicked Lissy. We knew you’d want pain meds for her. You needed them for yourself, too, didn’t you?”
A high, manic girl’s voice screamed out of Victor’s mouth, “Victor, you puking loser, you brought them here. You should have killed that little bitch, and we’d be safe.”
Savich said, “Victor didn’t want to kill her, Lissy, only you did. And you failed. Victor’s not the puking loser, you are. The little waitress won, Lissy.”
Victor looked ready to explode with rage. Or was it Lissy? Savich needed to get Victor back. “Victor, we know you came for the meds, but you also came back for the money, didn’t you? We know you have some money, but you don’t have all of it. Where did you get your stake?”
Victor answered him. “None of your business. Lissy still hasn’t told me where her mom hid the money, so I had to come find it. But I had enough to take care of your kid before I killed Ryan.” Victor stared at Sherlock. “And you, of course. How did you know I was in his room? I didn’t make a sound. How?”
Sherlock said, “We had a plan in place if the alarm system went down. My part was to go to Sean’s room, and there you were, standing over Sean with a gun and a knife. I wanted to shoot you in the head, Victor, but unfortunately I didn’t. If I had, Octavia Ryan would be alive. A huge error in judgment on my part.”
Savich said, “Someone paid you to murder Octavia Ryan, didn’t they? And here she was one of the few people in the world who cared about you and helped you. Was it Lissy who told you to take the money to kill her? Was it Lissy who told you what to do and you did it? Tell us yourself, Lissy, tell us why he did that.”
Lissy screamed, “That bitch called him weak, a psycho! That bitch called me a Lolita! Victor always wants to please me—well, usually—but I don’t control him. No, never. Yes, that cow saved us from prison, Victor knows that. He only did what he had to do to get us out in the world again.”
Sherlock said, “Lissy, we already know Victor didn’t hate Octavia Ryan. He killed her because he was paid a lot of cash to do it. Tell us who paid you.”
They heard Victor’s voice, lower, deeper, with threads of bubbling madness. He laughed. “You’re wrong about all of it. That bitch deserved it.”
Sherlock said, “She saved you from life in state prison, and you murdered her and dumped her into Lake Massey. That’s pretty cold, Victor. How did she deserve that?”
Victor shrugged. “I only did what I had to do, and besides, I had to prove to Lissy I could do it. She even bet me I couldn’t, but she was wrong. I rowed Ryan out and told her I wasn’t the loser, she was. She was the one being manipulated, not me. She didn’t want to believe me, but then she did. She started crying, and I whacked her to shut her up.”
Then Lissy’s voice. “I wanted to shoot the cow, but Victor wouldn’t let me. See, Victor does what he wants.”
Victor’s voice again. “I really don’t like guns, Lissy, you know that.” He blinked, focused on Sherlock. “I don’t want to go back to that psycho jail. Lissy hates it, really hates it, and her staples hurt all the time. I had a hard time getting her pain meds there.”
Lissy yelled, “I won’t go back there, Victor! I won’t, I won’t. I’ll die there. The staples, they hurt so bad! Give me the pills, now!”
It was hard for Sherlock and Savich to get their brains around Lissy and Victor talking back and forth, ignoring them both.
Then Lissy screamed at Savich, “You should know, you bastard, you kicked me in my stomach, screwed me all up! It’s your fault, all your fault! You threw Riley your gun, and he killed my mama!”
Victor threw the flashlight at Savich and ran for the storeroom, pushed the door open as Savich’s bullet struck the wood six inches from his head. “Stop, Victor!”
He kicked the door shut behind him and ran out the back door to the Chrysler, jerked on the door handle.
“Victor, stop right there,” Sherlock shouted. She was standing in the mouth of the alley, her Glock aimed at him.
Victor whirled around, but it was Lissy’s high, wild voice screaming, “You bitch! You’re fast, aren’t you? Well, I’m going to shoot you right between your eyes, soak that red hair in your blood!”
Victor pulled Sala’s Glock from his pants and shot once toward her as he ducked behind the Chrysler. Sherlock hit the ground and rolled.
“Lissy, stay behind me!”
“No!”
Savich couldn’t believe it, Victor was running straight at him, firing in a frenzy, screaming in Lissy’s high, mad voice, “You killed my mama! I’m going to send you to hell where you belong! Die, you bastard!”
Savich took aim as bullets began spraying wildly around him.
There was a single shot, and Victor froze. He turned back to see Sherlock walking slowly toward him, her gun trained on center mass. His brain was cloudy. Lissy was crying. She screamed at him, “We can’t die, Victor! We can’t, we can’t!”
Victor fell against the car and began a slow slide.
“Victor, no!” But the words came out of Victor’s mouth in a gasp, then dwindled into a low whisper of sound.
The Glock fell to the ground. He grabbed the car door, but his fingers were wet with his own blood and slipped. He fell to his knees, then onto his back.
Savich came down beside him, applied pressure to his chest, but he knew it was no good. Victor looked up at him. He was wheezing, gasping for breath, his throat filling with blood. But it wasn’t Victor, it was Lissy who whispered, “I wanted to kill you first, shoot you right between your eyes. Victor should have done it, but I let him try to steal your little kid. Stupid, but sometimes I had to let him have his way.”
“Lissy, where is Victor?”
Victor felt his blood spreading over his chest, into his chest. Blood filled his throat, bubbled up to pour out of his mouth. Where did all the blood come from? He didn’t really hurt. He felt immensely tired, and he knew, he knew. “Lissy?”
I’m here, Victor, I’m here. I’ll never leave you. Her voice was soft in his ear.
“I know,” Victor said, turned his face against Savich’s blood-soaked palm, and died.
Savich slowly rose. He held Sherlock against his side. “Victor and Lissy, they died together.”
Sherlock slipped her Glock back onto her belt clip. How could Victor make his voice sound like Lissy’s? A high young girl’s? They’d heard her, and she was Lissy, she knew they’d both swear to it. She handed Savich a handkerchief. “Wipe your hands while I call our agents at the Smiley house.”
As Savich wiped Victor’s blood off his hands, he heard Sherlock say, “It’s over. Victor’s dead.”
They waited together in the alley beside Kougar’s Pharmacy beside Victor’s body.
And Lissy’s.
71
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WILLICOTT, MARYLAND