“Really? You have to ask?”
“Kumar and Patel were in it up to their elbows, noses in the trough. But not me.”
The pain in his hands was white hot and searing, and yet he had the feeling it was merely an aperitif.
“How? Tell me how Kumar and Patel were corrupt?”
“You know!” screeched Roy. “You already know! Isn’t that why you killed them?”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Because Kumar helped fund Surgiquip and awarded them contracts in return for a backhander. He and Patel were in it together. Like I say, noses in the trough.”
“And ResQ?”
“ResQ and Surgiquip are in bed together. But it’s them, not me. I had nothing to do with it.”
The intruder crouched. He placed something on the floor that when Roy twisted his head to look he saw was a field roll. Nimble fingers untied and spread open the fabric. Scalpels glittered beneath. Roy whimpered.
“You had nothing to do with what?” asked the man in black.
“You know.”
“Say it.”
“I’m in too much pain. I can’t think straight.”
“Say it.”
“Will you let me go if—”
“Say it.” The man in black placed the heel of his palm to where the nail pierced Roy’s right hand and applied pressure. The searing pain intensified.
“All right, all right, I’ll say it! Organ harvesting. Illegal transplants. Whatever you want to call it. Patients having their organs removed then sold on. You know that. You know that. But I promise you, I had nothing to do with it.”
“You had nothing to do with it, yet you knew it went on. You did nothing to stop it.”
“Nothing yet!” squealed Roy. “I was biding my time. Change can only come from within.”
The man in black chuckled drily. “I can’t believe you’re honestly telling me you would have tried to change things.”
“I could have. I would have. Let me go and I’ll prove it. We’ll join forces.”
“Oh yes? Just as soon as you do something about this pesky child-abuse allegation, eh? I don’t think so. If not for that then for two other reasons: one, because they are greater in number and way, way more powerful than you could ever hope to be. And two—and given what I’ve just walked into, I think this is probably the most important—because you are a deviant more interested in serving the perverted pleasures of your own flesh than helping the city you are appointed to serve. Each man on my list deserves to die, Amit Roy, but none of them deserves to die more than you.”
Roy’s eyes were wide as a gloved hand reached to select a long-handled scalpel. The hand was out of sight and he heard the cutting before he felt the pain, the scalpel piercing the flesh of his back as the man in black diligently began to peel the skin away, exposing the scarlet, fatty tissue beneath.
The pain exploded in stars in front of his eyes. Pain so fierce and intense it was all-consuming, so white and blinding it was almost perfect. Then, as the man in black went to work on his upper thighs and Roy understood that his death—from blood loss, or bodily trauma, or whatever else his attacker had in store for him—was just moments away, he accepted that this celestial pain was in fact his ascendancy in action.
And so, as the man in black pulled off his balaclava so that Roy might recognize the face of his killer, he embraced his death and went to it willingly, knowing that ultimately, and agonizing though it was, the pain of his death was preferable to the pain of his life.
Chapter 76
BLACK WROUGHT-IRON GATES at the entrance to Roy’s home brought Nisha to a skidding halt, and she scrambled out of the Toyota, looking for another way in.
Nothing. Just a keycode panel, intercom. Sensor.
Fuck it. She dived back into the Toyota and reversed twenty yards or so, offering up a silent apology to Neel as she revved the vehicle, making herself low in the driving seat, before jamming her boot on the accelerator.
The Toyota shot forward and hit the gate. The hood crumpled; the airbags deployed. She looked up from her low position in the driving seat, pawing the airbag out of her way to see that the gates were a twisted mess—not exactly open but wide enough apart for her to get through.
She squeezed through and ran along the approach road toward his driveway. Tasteful lights glowing from within the borders lit the way. On his drive she saw Roy’s car, engine running, doors open. Now the gun was in her hand as she hit the front door, found it open, dropped to one knee, and held the .38 two-handed.
“Roy, you in there?” she called. “Maya?”
To her left was the kitchen. Through that Nisha had sight of what looked like a front room and in there was a body.
A body and an awful lot of blood.
But an adult body.
Slowly she rose, keeping her center of gravity low and staying balanced as she took two quick but careful steps into the entrance hall. The gun barrel moved with the quick darting of her head as she covered her angles and checked blindspots.
“Maya!” she called, hearing the desperation in her own voice.
There came a noise. From her right.
“Mama, it’s me”—and Maya appeared from a side room, a tiny, shaking, frightened thing, but alive and unharmed.
“Oh my God, baby, are you all right?” Nisha rushed for her and gathered her up, tears of relief streaming down her cheeks.
“Yes, Mama, I’m all right. The good man came and saved me from the bad man.”
Instantly Nisha was alert again, gun up. “What good man? Where?”
“He’s in there.” Pointing back toward the room she’d just left.
“Stay there, honey, stay there,” said Nisha then hit the door, rolling into a study and coming up once again with the .38 in two hands. The window was open and in the distance she could see a man in black running back down along the drive toward the gates.
In a second she was out of the door, down the entrance hall, and out of the front door, scrunching on the gravel, finding the fleeing man in her sights as she took a wide-legged, two-handed stance and shouted, “Freeze! You in the black! Freeze or I’m putting you down!”
From behind, Maya screeched, “No, Mama, don’t hurt him!” and Nisha found herself with a split-second decision to make as the running man veered off the approach road and into the undergrowth: should she fire on the man who’d saved her daughter? Hurt him? Risk killing him, even?
Or let him go?
“Freeze!” she shouted again, uselessly. The moment was gone.
She had let the killer go.
Nisha lowered her gun, trying to tell herself the only thing that mattered was Maya, trying to convince herself that she hadn’t just allowed a serial killer to escape.
Chapter 77
THE NURSES ASSURED Jack and Neel that it would take up to twenty-four hours before they would know whether Santosh would pull through.