A long, shuddering breath came out of me. I’d been holding on to it without realizing it. If I didn’t do what Stark said, he would torture Samantha. If I did, he would bring her here, and then torture her, forcing me to watch. He needed me to watch . . .
“Give her the gun,” Stark said. “Do it now, Champion, or I’ll get started.”
I licked my dry lips. I did not know if I could do what I needed to do. I did not know if I was cold enough.
I shook my head. “You’re right about one thing,” I said.
“Give her the gun, Champion. Now,” Stark said.
“We’ve all got a weakness. No one’s exempt.”
“Do it.”
“You know what your weakness is, Stark?”
“Hand over your gun.”
“Your weakness is that you need me to suffer.”
“You’ll suffer, Champion.”
“You promised your brother. You can’t just torture Samantha. You want me to watch. You need me to watch.”
“You’ll watch,” said Stark, grinning. “You won’t be able to stop watching.”
I grinned back at him, feeling like Death myself. I lifted my Glock.
For once, I saw the skull’s smile falter. I saw uncertainty in Stark’s glowing eyes.
I pulled the trigger. In that small room, the explosion was so loud it sent a stabbing ache through my ears. It drowned out the Fat Woman’s startled scream—but I saw her scream, saw her scarred mouth opening in a black O.
The computer tablet flipped out of her hand, shattering in mid- air before dropping with a crash to the floor.
I turned to the Fat Woman. Her mouth was still wide open. She was staring at me in shocked surprise.
“What . . . ? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she said. They were the first words she’d spoken since I’d walked into the room. They came out in a deep, dull croak, but I could hear the tone of outrage in them. Outrage.
“Did you think I’d bargain with him?” I asked her. “Did you think I’d plead for mercy like the children do? You taught me better than that.”
I stepped toward her. She recoiled in her chair. “You stay away from me!”
I came stalking around the desk. She panicked, went for the drawer. Scrabbled the drawer open with her fat hand and reached inside.
I used the butt of the Glock to hammer the drawer shut on her fingers. She bellowed like a cow at a slaughterhouse.
“Ow! Stop it! What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“I’m the little boy who got away.”
I knocked her chair back so that her hand pulled the drawer open. I found the Colt .32 in there, a delicate lady’s handgun. How would she even have gotten her fat fingers through the trigger guard? I pulled the gun out. Tossed it aside. It fell behind one of the stacks of ledgers in the far corner.
Then I yanked the power cord out of her laptop, pulled the long, narrow extension cord out of the wall. I grabbed her by the wrist, twisted her arm around.
“Let go of me!” she shouted.
“I’d like to kill you. I ought to kill you. But I’m not what you are. I’m still not what you are.”
I wound the extension cord around the thick flesh of her wrist.
“Ow!” she shouted. “You’re hurting me. Are you insane?”
She tried to punch me in the head with her free hand. I caught the blow on my raised arm. Wrenched her other hand back and tied that too.
“I’ll think of you when you’re on death row, though,” I told her. “A decade of waiting, and then the needle. I’ll think of you every day.”
I started to tie the cord to the chair.
“Ow!” she snarled. “I mean it. You’re hurting me, you asshole!”
I tied her to the chair, her arms behind her.
“You gorilla! You piece of shit!” she shouted, bouncing her fat ass up and down as she struggled. “You have no right!”
That did it. The fury exploded through the center of me. With a growl, I jammed my Glock into her eye, hard. She gasped and gagged on her own fear and shut up. I felt my finger tighten on the trigger. I wanted to put a bullet in her so badly it felt like a kind of lust.
“No right,” I heard myself whisper. Pressing the gun into her eye, I leaned down to put my lips against what was left of her ear. “You think I have no right?”
“Don’t . . .” she said. She was panting with fear—fear of the gun. “You can’t. It’s stupid. It’s crazy. You kill me like this—in cold blood? You’ll go to prison.”
“Will I? Maybe. Maybe I don’t care.”
“For Christ’s sake . . .”
“Maybe it would be worth it.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she croaked.
“Why don’t you bargain with me?” I said. “Why don’t you plead for mercy like the children do?”
“This is crazy! It’s crazy! What’re you so all-fired angry about?”
I laughed wildly, still pushing the gun into her. I did sound crazy. But it was such a nutty thing for her to ask, I thought she must be babbling in terror. But no, she meant it. She didn’t understand.
“You and that girl,” she went on, in her deep, dead voice. “Hounding me like this. Tormenting me. Why? What for? You’re both all right, aren’t you? You got away. Didn’t you? Obviously. You’re fine. So what’re you complaining about? I’m the one who should be doing all the screaming and yelling here. Look at me. Look what you did to me. You set fire to me. Look at my face! I almost died. Now you come into my house like the hound of hell or something. Shooting and threatening people . . . Why? You’re fine. You’re fine.”
I stared at her. I drew the gun away from her a little but kept it trained on her face. “It’s a limited view of human life,” I said hoarsely.
She stared at me. “You’re a madman, if you ask me,” she said. “I had to hire a very expensive security agency just to keep myself safe from you. And you come in here, shooting and threatening like I don’t even know what.”
I could only go on staring, shaking my head.
“And all the while, you’re fine,” she blithered on. “I’m the one who got burned. Look at me. You’re just fine and you nearly killed me.”
“What about Alexander?” I don’t know why I said it. What was the point? But the words just came out of me.
“Who?”
At once, the rage exploded in me again. “Alexander!” I shouted. And before I could stop myself, I drew my free hand back and slapped her. The blow cracked against her cheek, knocking her head to the side. A line of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth and trailed down the side of her chin.
She gaped at me, licking at the blood. “You’re insane,” she said. “Alexander? I don’t even know who that is?”
“What about
all
the others?” I growled at her, my voice scraping in my throat, my gun hand trembling. “The ones you sold to Emory. All the others all these years.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Shaking my head. “Good God.”
“What others? What do you mean?” she said. “Oh, wait. You mean the other
kids
? Jesus. What business is that of yours?” She stared back at me, uncomprehending. “I mean, what the hell do you expect? This is what I do, for Christ’s sake. People want what I sell. They have their rights, don’t they? What are you, the judge over them suddenly? You’re the judge over me suddenly? Jesus! Is
that
what you’re here about? The
other
ones? You come in here, shooting guns, hitting a woman . . . a disabled woman . . . after you’re the one who burned me . . . and it’s all about
that
? The other ones? What do they even have to do with you? You got away. You’re all right. You’re fine. I’m the one who got burned in the whole business. God! You are a seriously disturbed person!”
I laughed again—or made a sound like laughter—backing away from her, shaking my head. I had no answer. What answer was there? It was as if we were speaking two different languages.
“Well, go ahead,” she said then, turning to look at me. She was frowning with her mouth open and I could see her teeth were stained with blood. “Go ahead and shoot me if that’s what you want. Go to prison. Die in prison for all I care. Your big revenge. For what? You can’t bring any of those children back. No one can. What’s the point? What’s the point of any of it?”
I still had the gun on her. It was aimed at her heart. I still had my finger on the trigger. I still yearned to send her to hell. Maybe I would have.
But just then, the glow of headlights passed across the dark window behind her and I knew that Stark had arrived.
Still, I stood there another moment. I could hear the tires of Stark’s car outside on the dirt road coming out of the forest. I knew I had to go, had to move fast. But still . . . I couldn’t take my eyes away from her.
All these years,
I kept thinking.
All these years
. . .
Then, with a breath, I came to myself. I turned my back on her. Walked to the door.
“Hey! You can’t just leave me here like this!” the Fat Woman shouted angrily behind me. “Take this goddamned cord off me, you maniac! Let me go!”
I pulled the door open. I saw the hallway ahead of me, lit by the light from the room, receding into shadow, then into darkness.
“Don’t you dare!” the Fat Woman shouted. “Don’t you dare just leave me here, you bastard! How could you?”
I stepped out and pulled the door shut behind me.
I walked down the corridor, gun in hand. The Fat Woman was still ranting behind me. I could hear her voice, her curses coming through the door. I didn’t pause. I just went on down the hall. I didn’t worry about the open rooms now, the dark rooms. I wasn’t afraid some gunman was waiting for me. The place was empty, I could feel it. The Fat Woman had no one left now. Only Stark and whoever was with him in his car.
I reached the stairs. I started down. The room below came into view. I saw the headlights of Stark’s car glaring on one of the ground-floor windowpanes. I heard the car pulling to a stop, the tires crunching on the drive. The headlights went out.
I stepped off the last stair into the living room. There wasn’t much light here, just the moon glow coming through the windows. I could make out the shapes of furniture. A sofa right in front of me, chairs here and there, a low table, and so on. I maneuvered through the gaps, crossing the room.
I reached the window where I’d seen the headlights. I pressed close to the wall, curled my head around the frame, and looked out.
Stark’s car, a long, broad black machine, had stopped at the base of the lawn. It stood there another second, motionless beneath the moon. Out of range. No shot from where I was.
The doors came open. The front door opened first and a rifleman got out, a man in an overcoat. The other thug from the cabin probably. He lifted his weapon and propped it on his hip.
The back door opened. Stark got out. He was dressed in black. It made his white skull face look even whiter, especially with the moon shining on it. The moon made his eyes glint as he surveyed the house and the grounds. I saw him stop as he spotted the dead watchman by the sedan in the carport. When he turned back to face me, he was grinning as if the sight of the dead man amused him. His teeth shone in the moonlight too.
He bent down and reached into the car and dragged out Samantha.
With her hands bound behind her, she stumbled as she came to her feet. Stark jerked her arm roughly to hold her upright. I could see him speaking to her but I couldn’t hear his voice.
He yanked her body close to his. He wrapped his arm around her throat. He lifted a pistol and pressed it against the side of her head.
He spoke again and the rifleman started walking over the grass toward the house, toward me. Holding Samantha around the throat, holding her in front of him all the while, Stark followed after.
I moved, shifting from one window to another so I could watch them cross the lawn to the front door. I thought if they got close enough, I might get a shot at the rifleman before they came into the house. But as I was considering it, I saw Stark speak again—I heard the rasp of his voice this time, though I couldn’t make out the words
Then, he lifted his head, and he shouted in his hoarse rasp—one word: “Champion!”
At first I didn’t understand—but now the rifleman lowered his weapon from his hip and I realized: The shout had been a warning.
I started running. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough for me to see my way. I reached the sofa at the base of the stairs and hurled myself down behind it, even as the rifleman opened fire.
The gun had the steady chiggering roar of a jackhammer. There wasn’t a break in the noise. The windows shattered and the walls splintered as the bullets came through. The whole house felt like it was trembling, like it was about to shiver to pieces and collapse.
I lay on the floor behind the sofa. There was nowhere to go. The barrage felt like it went on for hours, but it must have been less than half a minute. Then a pause—the rifle was empty. I heard the rifleman pop the magazine. I knew it would take him only a second to reload.