Nicolette screams, “You said I was next—are you kidding me? How could you say that? Hey, Nicolette, I love you, just kidding, now I want you DEAD! How could you hire someone to kill me?”
“What are you talking about?” Mendes is getting unhappier by the minute.
“He wasn’t stalking me for fun!” Nicolette nods in my direction. “Somebody made him. Someone has to pay.”
Mendes is moving almost infinitesimally toward her, saying, “Nicky, come over here and stand behind me,” as if he missed what she just said, missed her face when she said it, and missed the fact that there’s already a chickenshit bozo right behind him.
I tell Nicolette, “Don’t!” with a lot of conviction.
Nicolette gives me a withering look. “Right, I’m an idiot. I want to be a human shield.”
Mendes keeps coming. “He’s lying. I wanted to find you and bring you home. I sent people to find you.”
I say, “Nobody said anything about bringing her home.”
“You look exactly like Art Manx. You’re Art’s boy,” Mendes says. “Do you think he’d be proud of you, menacing a sixteen-year-old girl?” Mendes fixes his gaze on Nicolette. “Nicky, I love you. I didn’t hire this boy.”
But the fact that he has one guy slumped over his kitchen table and his second guy trailing him like a puppy, and the smooth way he’s trying to deal with me, snuffs out hope that he’s just an accountant with a couple of rough clients, in over his head. He’s way too comfortable with this.
Nicolette puts her hands over her ears. “I heard you! How could you say those things about me?”
“What do you think you heard?”
She starts to sob, leaning against the chair that holds the comatose guy, who hasn’t budged since she beaned him.
Mendes keeps inching toward her, his minion behind him like a mime playing a shadow. The minion’s a good-looking guy, his mouth hanging open, a little confused. I’m not that worried about him, but Mendes is another story.
I bark, “Stay back!”
My arm is extended; the gun is extended.
Nicolette yells, “Don’t!”
At first, I think she’s yelling at Mendes.
“Jack, don’t! This is a mistake! Don’t hurt my dad!”
My grip tightens, and my finger is tense around the trigger. The younger guy has started creeping closer too, reaching for a kitchen drawer on his way, sliding it open, and I don’t like it.
Mendes keeps coming. He’s so close, I could get him through the eye with a peashooter.
Then Nicolette screams, “Knife! He’s got a knife!”
It’s the younger guy pulling a long kitchen knife out of a drawer as Mendes moves toward Nicolette.
“Knife! Knife! Knife!”
Nicolette has all but jumped on my right arm with all her weight, forcing the barrel of the gun away from Mendes; Mendes is reaching for it; and this muscular guy with the knife—who’s no use guarding Mendes, if that’s what he’s supposed to be doing—is coming at her, or me, or both of us, blade first.
Screw Mendes, I have to stop the guy with the knife. Assess your target: he’s it.
I’m pulling back, taking aim, not giving up the gun, when Mendes tackles Nicolette from the side. A chair pitches toward me. The bodyguard—or whoever he is with the knife—charges. And there’s a blast like we just broke the sound barrier.
Blast after blast after blast.
Everything explodes. There’s a spatter of blood.
It could be anyone’s.
It could be mine.
79
Nicolette
Blood everywhere.
Steve’s blood and Alex Yeager’s blood.
Jack’s pressing on Steve’s arm with a dish towel.
There’s no point in trying to help Alex Yeager. He’s gone.
Nobody is saying anything.
Gertie is cuddled next to me, wagging her tail. Licking me with a dripping, bloodred snout.
I’m calling 9-1-1 over and over, but they keep putting me on hold.
Then men start racing in, weapons unholstered.
Jack says, “Crap, he has an army.”
But it’s the Cotter’s Mill–Kerwin Township P.D. All these men I recognize in flak jackets, tracking through blood to get to Steve.
Someone’s on his phone confirming that the caller who said he heard a bunch of shots fired heard shots fired and they need three ambulances. Yes, three.
Jack keeps pressing down on the shattered arm, two-handed, kneeling across Steve’s chest.
Steve is turning white, and then kind of gray.
I’m chanting, “I’m sorry,” as if it could make him open his eyes and believe me.
I can’t even think about Alex, lying on the kitchen floor in more blood than you’d think a person could lose that fast.
He’s done hurting people.
I’m home. It’s like I’ve returned to some form of sanity, where Steve spurting blood like a human fountain is just wrong.
Please, please, don’t let anything happen to Steve.
Steve’s touching my leg. He says, “No matter what, you go with the police.”
Then everything gets fast and loud.
Steve and the guy I bashed on the head are on stretchers, paramedics shining lights into their eyes. Racing them through the house toward the sirens outside.
Jack’s gun is in an evidence box. Jack is under arrest.