Leaning forward, Bryce had managed to pick up one of the paint cans Angie had knocked over, and with the grunt of a shot putter, hurled it at Walter’s head. The throw was perfectly on target, and Walter used his forearm in a reflexive countermeasure to deflect what would have been a direct hit. The paint can bounced off his arm and fell to the floor with a clang. The top came off and a thick pool of turquoise spilled onto the cement.
Angie used the distraction to her advantage. What had worked before could work again.
Ignoring the pain of her injuries, fueled only by adrenaline, she fell to her right and leaned her body into the crawlspace, emerging a moment later with the CZ 75 in her hand. She had stashed the backup gun there before surrendering to Raynor. She had expected a trained professional would search her person for a second weapon, but had counted on him not searching the crawlspace.
Unlike Walter, Angie didn’t hesitate to shoot. Four bullets spit out the barrel of her gun, and three punctured Walter’s chest. A grunt, and he collapsed to the floor, falling onto his back, his gaze fixed to the ceiling. The Remington tumbled from his grasp and fell safely out of reach.
Angie turned her attention to Bryce. He was slumped forward, using his hand to apply pressure to the gunshot wound to his chest.
“Bryce, talk to me. How bad is it?”
Angie’s own wounds continued to throb and the loss of blood made her feel lightheaded.
Bryce grunted through the pain, but managed to get out his cell phone. “I’ll call 911.”
Angie felt the room spinning. “What can I do to help?”
“Get . . . the . . . truth. . . .” Bryce struggled through every word. A new resolve came to him. “I’m going to be okay. I can breathe. It just hurts like a bastard. But he’s not going to be here long.” Bryce pointed a bloodstained finger at Walter, whose chest rose and fell with the fast action of fireplace bellows.
“No,” Angie said. “I’ll stay with you.”
Bryce punched 911 into the phone. “I got this. You get that.”
With a nod, Angie crawled over Walter, who was still breathing hard. She put her gun to his head, but took it away when he spit out a gob of blood. Instead of the barrel of her gun, she put her hand on Walter’s face and gave his cheek a gentle caress.
“Tell me,” she whispered in his ear. “Tell me what you and my father did. Tell me the truth before you’re gone, Walter. Let it go. Give that to me, please. If you love me like you said, you’ll do that one thing for me. You owe me the truth.”
Tears pricked the corners of Angie’s eyes. Her father was involved. His last words to her had made it clear.
“I killed people,” Walter managed.
“Who?” Angie asked. “Who did you kill?”
Walter licked away some of the blood from his lips. “People—going into witness protection. . . .”
A stab of pain took away Angie’s breath. She tried not to look at her bleeding, tried to center herself and her focus on the precious moment. Help would be there soon enough.
“We replaced people who were going to disappear with different people. Then we buried the records, made it . . . made it so there were no links between the old identity . . . and the new ones.”
A horrible feeling came over Angie.
May God forgive me.
Walter’s earlier words came back to her. This isn’t the first time I killed for you.
“You killed the Conti family, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” The word seeped out of Walter’s throat in a hiss.
“So that we could take over their identities.”
“Yes.”
“And there needed to be a little girl who I could become.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t a baby when Isabella Conti died, was I?”
“You . . . and Isabella were the same . . . age. I took the picture of Isabella. . . . Your mother . . . asked me . . . for it.”
Angie’s father had lied when he told her she went into witness protection as an infant. He knew Angie would have made some connection to Isabella Conti if he had told the truth.
Walter was struggling even more. His breath sounds were completely erratic. Behind her, Angie could hear Bryce talking to a 911 operator, but she couldn’t focus on what he was saying. She couldn’t feel her gunshot wounds anymore, either.
“My mom,” Angie said. “She knew.”
“She did,” Walter said, his voice barely a fading echo.
“Why wasn’t my father’s Ponzi scheme reported? Why wasn’t there a trial?”
“No trial,” Walter said, “because he stole money only from the Mob. Dirty money. The Mob couldn’t go to the police—but they could kill him, and all of you. I”—Walter coughed up another glob of blood—“I knew there was a hit on him because I put a lot of connected guys into the program. They . . . they were still plugged into the life . . . still had their sources. One guy told me about your dad . . . I figured your dad had a lot of money . . . and he needed to disappear.”