Innocent Bystander (23 page)

Even the idea of eliminating Burnett and Emma himself seemed possible now. He dared hope Ryder would fail to find them or choose not to carry out his assignment. If so, the two of them would surely come to him. The thought of orchestrating their deaths to appear a murder-suicide electrified him. He yearned to do the job himself, and trusted fate would grant him the opportunity.

* * *

Ryder climbed the carpeted staircase of the Stone residence. His Beretta, the ceiling its target, lingered beside his left ear. Perched on the top step, he glanced left and right. Five doors awaited him. Lowering the Beretta, he approached the first one on his left, elbowed it open, and silently entered the room.

A tall, big-boned man, Ryder somehow moved like quicksilver. He virtually glided over to the bed. For several seconds he observed Stone and his wife asleep in their king-sized bed. Unless he failed to find Mr. Burnett, he had no need to disturb their dreams.

He crossed the hall and peeked into another bedroom. A ten-year-old girl lay sleeping in a canopy bed. In the third bedroom a fourteen-year-old boy snored. All four walls were adorned with posters of baseball and music stars, men destined for halls of fame in Cooperstown and Cleveland.

The final bedroom turned out to be an office. He flicked on the light. After a cursory peek behind the desk, he opened the closet door. Boxes of clothes and a stack of spare blankets were all he found.

He had methodically searched downstairs, as well as the basement and garage, and found no one. Now there didn’t appear to be anyone upstairs; at least not anyone he’d been paid to execute.

He debated whether or not to follow through on his threat to Desmond. For him it had never been about the money. The sport of hunting down another human being, and snuffing out his existence, made it worthwhile. Of course it was a power trip. He’d admitted that to himself on more than one occasion. But each of us enters and exits this world only once, and he had the power to determine the precise time and place of that exit. Few people, aside from incompetent physicians, wielded such power.

Not that he minded the money, but as a former commodities and financial services agent, who still successfully worked the market—thanks to a strict adherence to the advice of Warren Buffett—cash wasn’t a priority.

He decided Desmond wouldn’t have sent him unless he’d been damn sure of Burnett’s location. The time had come to ask some questions.

A second flick of the light switch restored darkness to the room. He took a step and, for the first time in as long as he could remember, hesitated. Never before had he been indecisive about anything. This foreign sensation troubled him, but as he exited the office he had to confess that in recent months he’d lost his appetite for killing. The once orgasmic pleasure of sending a man to a meet-and-greet with his maker had faded. It remained satisfying, yes, but never had he been a man content with mere satisfaction.

Perhaps the time had come to retire from this particular profession. At fifty-one, nearly half a lifetime of adventure still awaited. No doubt he could find something else that offered a comparable level of fulfillment.

But first there was a job to do.

Burnett leaned against the sodden mound of dirt beneath Dr. Stone’s deck, his mind a log-jam of worry and uncertainty. An image of the mushroom cloud soaring skyward, Henri’s equation conspicuous within its shadows, appeared in his mind’s eye.

At that instant the truth hit him. He tried to rationalize it away, but it would not leave. He tried to hide from it, but where could he run? The equation was the key. And the cursed thing had to be stamped out of existence. Not only would he have to eliminate the equation, and probably the entire paper, but he would have to eliminate anyone who had knowledge of it who might try to publish it.

He didn’t know if he could do it. He didn’t know how to do it. Never before had he even considered the possibility of taking another person’s life. The very idea repulsed him.

The age-old dilemma confronted him: Would you kill one person to save a million? On the surface the answer seemed obvious, a simple question of mathematics, but now that he actually had to make that choice, and follow through on it, the answer became less clear-cut. Whether or not to take the life of another human being, a man he once considered a father figure, was a decision he could not make lightly.

In addition he would effectively be ending his own life. He would be guilty of first-degree murder. However, he knew it had to be done. No one else must know about the equation; not until mankind is ready for its astounding potential.

It’s just a nightmare
. He made a half-hearted attempt to convince himself it really was nothing more than that.
People have them every night.

He knew he couldn’t fool himself, and quit almost before he’d started. From the very first night he’d known this was anything but an ordinary dream.

The gloom that now overtook him couldn’t be fended off. His body felt as if it would sink into the soggy earth. He sought solace in the fact that his sacrifice would save countless lives.

He prayed Mayweather had not found the computer. If he had, it would further complicate the situation. Emma’s revelation that Henri’s paper might be on a memory stick had now become an additional hurdle. He would have to destroy it before anyone found it.

This attempt at Henri’s computer would prove far riskier than his first. Both Desmond and the police would expect it.

Or would they?

No one might anticipate so bold a move.

However, since Desmond had no doubt hidden the computer, and hidden it well, he acknowledged his job would still be far more difficult. Not only would he have to once again enter Desmond’s home, he’d have to persuade the professor to retrieve the computer from its hiding spot.

“Detective Mayweather didn’t find it, did he?” Emma whispered in the darkness.

Her voice, so melodic, so exquisite, edged him closer to despondency. This time he fought off the emotion. A job needed to be done. And what could be more effective at fighting off despondency than a suicide mission?

He tried to muster some enthusiasm for the new series of lies he would throw her way. “We’re going to have to get it ourselves.”

She let out a sarcastic laugh. He felt her body rock side to side, and assumed she was shaking her head.

“Mayweather was right,” she said. “We had our shot.”

“We take another.”

Again she laughed. This one contained less sarcasm.

Burnett heard her sniffle several times, but couldn’t determine if it was the result of tears or the damp cold. He leaned to his left and embraced her in the blackness. “We’ll get it.”

After a brief silence Emma said, “Did Henri ever tell you about my
dreams of the future?”

He didn’t know what to make of her confession. “You’ve had dreams of the future, too?”

“My goals.”

“Oh,” he said. “Almost everyone at SUNY knows you want to single-handedly save the planet.”

“For myself, I mean.”

“He never mentioned them.” His voice sounded wooden and flat. There was little he could do about it.

“I’m a woman. Can you guess?”

“A career? A family of your own?”

“A happy family of my own,” she said. “Not like the one I grew up in.”

An opportunity to push her away had arisen. The time had come to break his promise. “Turn yourself in. You still have a chance. You said your father knows some of the best lawyers. Use them. Before it’s too late.”

He sensed her head drop and shake side to side in long, sweeping motions.

“I need to do this on my own,” he said. “Go.”

Sarcasm once again laced her soft chuckle. “Don’t you get it?” she said, her voice cracking on the final word. “I don’t want to go. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

His mind struggled to grasp the full implication of her words.
I had no idea
, his brain repeated over and over.
No idea.

That the realization he would have to throw his life away should be followed by Emma’s declaration that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him was more than any man could handle. The numbness he’d experienced the night Audrey’s body had been lifted from his Camry returned.

There must be another way
.

There wasn’t. Desmond had to die, and he had to be the one to do it. It was the only way to ensure the equation would never find its way into print or onto a computer screen.

I could hire someone to kill him
.

But what if the guy didn’t follow through, or tried to kill Desmond but only winged him? What if he turned out to be an undercover cop? Too much uncertainty accompanied hiring someone to do the job.

The rage bubbling beneath the numbness mushroomed like that goddamn cloud in that goddamn nightmare. Though in truth, rage didn’t even begin to convey what he felt. He searched for the perfect word to describe what lurked below the numbness, but nothing did it justice.

Whatever churned deep inside him could not be allowed to surface. Should it breach the mental barrier he’d erected, it would surely consume him, and he would cease to exist, at least as the person he now knew.

His S6 vibrated. Reflex had conditioned him to reach for it, but neither his mind nor body cooperated. His brain, navigating a minefield of madness no psychic could have predicted, had locked. On the fourth vibration he jerked his arm down. He checked the number; Detective Mayweather’s cell phone.
Not Henri’s computer, please.

“Mayweather,” he mumbled to Emma.

“Maybe he found it,” she said, the hope and expectation in her voice a welcome, though now misguided, replacement to the doom.

He lifted the phone to his ear. “Yes.”

“Mr. Burnett, this is Detective Mayweather.”

The detective sounded all business. “What is it, Detective?” Burnett asked.

“I’m calling to urge you to turn yourself in.”

Mayweather’s unemotional delivery concerned him. Though he’d voiced the same request last night, his flat tone transformed the words into something far more menacing.

Burnett closed his eyes and bit his lip. “You didn’t find Henri’s computer?” The question felt odd and jostled his suppressed rage.

“Professor Desmond is not in possession of Mr. Laroche’s computer,” Mayweather said.

Thank God
.

“Nor is he a person of interest in this case,” Mayweather added.

Something was wrong. While Mayweather had done everything possible to arrest him earlier, Burnett hadn’t expected a call unless he’d recovered the computer.

“I urge you again to turn yourself in,” Mayweather said.

What the hell’s he doing?

“If not for your sake,” the detective continued, “for Ms. Blankenship’s. She’s the innocent one here. Don’t drag her down any further.”

Suddenly the clues converged, and it felt like someone whacked him in the gut with a lead pipe. He clicked off the smartphone.

“What happened?” Emma asked. “Did they search the whole house?”

“That’s not the problem.”

“What is?”

He stared into the glow of his phone. The bombshells were exploding too fast. He had no time to respond to one before the next one fell. “I think they found a way to trace the call.”

* * *

Mayweather paced across the cramped computer room. Crowhurst sat at the terminal, Farrow slanted over his shoulder.

Mayweather refused to give in to guilt. He’d given Burnett a chance, risked his career to aid him. It didn’t help. The man would be caught if he didn’t leave town immediately.

“What have you got?” Farrow demanded.

“I gotta meet this guy,” Crowhurst said. “Whatever he did to the phone is damned impressive.” His fingers danced across the computer keyboard like a concert pianist. Half-a-dozen rings glinted in the bright room. “But not as impressive as me,” he added, almost as though talking to Burnett.

“Well?” Farrow asked.

Crowhurst rubbed his hands together and bounced in his seat, a thirty-five-year-old kid unable to keep still. He fingered his beard, then tapped a key. His bounce rate slowed. After his head dropped he turned sheepishly to Mayweather. “I don’t suppose you could call him back.”

“Where is he?” Farrow demanded.

Crowhurst directed their attention to a map on the forty-six-inch computer monitor. “Got it down to about three square miles.” He motioned to the map.

“Best you can do?”

“I don’t know what the hell he did to that phone,” Crowhurst said, “but I had trouble just getting a tower.”

Farrow squinted at the screen, making no attempt to mask his frustration. “I want the names of everyone who lives in that area. And I want to know any relationship they might have to Mr. Burnett or Ms. Blankenship.”

A chilly wind freshened as Burnett clasped Emma’s hand and pulled her up beside Dr. Stone’s deck. After he’d massaged cramps from both his legs—his body felt like it had been jammed beneath that deck for a week—he steered her around the side of Stone’s colonial. A light from the front corner bedroom surprised him. It was nearly midnight, and to his knowledge Stone had never been a night owl.

Voices emanated from the room. He couldn’t determine who’d spoken or what they’d said, but the tone, angry and argumentative, at least on one side of the exchange, stopped him. Attempting to see more, he retreated two steps. Shadows flitting across the ceiling were all he could glimpse.

A muffled thud, as though someone or something had crashed to the floor, followed by a scream, drove Emma closer to him. The discussion inside turned heated.

Torn between his new mission and his desire to help the man who’d given them shelter, he leaned away from the house.

“They need our help,” Emma said.

“I … can’t.”

She stared at him, her features falling in the dim light. “Maybe I was wrong about you.”

Before he could fabricate a reply, she raced across the lawn. Like a man moving in slow motion he reached for her, but by the time his palms met she’d stopped on the front porch. She flung open the door and disappeared inside.

All that matters now is the suicide mission
. Not a literal suicide, perhaps, but the death of any meaningful future that might have awaited him.

A woman’s agonized cry burst through the front corner window.
Emma? Stone’s wife?

He turned to the street, but some invisible force—not indecision, he’d swear to that—barred his first step.

Countless people will die if you don’t kill Desmond.

Burnett ignored his mind’s warning and plodded to the front door.

Millions of innocent people
.

The heavy wooden door groaned in the breeze. With his left hand he silenced it.

It would be an incalculable mistake to enter the house, he knew that, yet he could not stop himself. He also knew what was going on inside. How Desmond had discovered their location, however, he couldn’t fathom. That question required an answer.

Besides, Emma and Dr. Stone’s family dying at the hands of this killer was not a part of his new plan. He reasoned that whatever force had not permitted him to leave knew something he didn’t. Perhaps Stone or Emma had a vital role to play in the future.

All this rationalization only served to shroud the obvious truth—it was an unconscious response to her revelation.

He peered inside, but saw no one in the dark foyer. “Emma?” he whispered. No reply. He entered the house. A creak at the top of the stairs froze him.
Emma? Desmond’s hit man?

When he saw no movement at the crest of the staircase, he placed his shoe on the first step and began a slow, upward creep. His trepidation rose with each step.

Without a sound he arrived at the top. His left hand clenching the bannister, he leaned forward and spotted Stone’s wife and daughter balled up and shaking on the corner of the master bed.

“Let me call an ambulance,” Stone said from inside the room.

Burnett firmed his grip on the handrail and stretched farther around the corner. Stone’s son kneeled beside the master bed. Blood streamed from his mouth, and it appeared his jaw had been dislocated. Emma was nowhere in sight.

“Tell me where,” Ryder said.

No reply came.

Burnett strained to distinguish anything in the dark hallway. He twisted left, but saw only blackness. When he turned back to the master bedroom, the cold steel of a Beretta greeted his forehead.

“Get in here,” Ryder said. “Where is she?”

“We got separated.” He stepped into the bedroom.

“You’re not a good liar, are you?”

Burnett didn’t reply. He was busy attempting the impossible—to assess the magnitude of his blunder.

“You’re gonna make this more difficult than it needs to be, aren’t you?” Ryder aimed the Beretta at Burnett’s chest. He faced Stone. “You and your family stay here ’til I come for you.” He nodded, as if indicating he wanted Stone to respond in kind.

“What about an ambulance for my son?” Stone asked.

“When he gets the jaw set, he’ll be fine,” Ryder said. “He might talk funny for a while.”

A soft creak from the attic elevated six chins. An edgy silence rolled through the room.

“Separated?” Ryder said.

Burnett couldn’t gauge how much the sound had distracted him. The hit man glanced up at the ceiling twice, but kept his gun level.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing up there?” Ryder asked, momentarily raising the Beretta.

Burnett’s eyes scanned the room.

“Looking for an alarm to hit?” Ryder said. “Not this time, son.” He waved Burnett over. “C’mere.”

Burnett hesitated, then strode over. Ryder shoved the Beretta into his back.

“Get down here or I kill him right now,” Ryder said pleasantly, his head tilted back. “Then I shoot these nice people in front of their children. And it’ll be on your conscience.”

Ryder rammed the Beretta hard into Burnett’s spine.

“Tell her to get her ass down here,” Ryder said.

Burnett said nothing.

Ryder’s gaze bounced from Stone to Stone’s wife to their daughter.

“No,” Stone’s wife screamed.

Not a sound came from the attic.

“If you’re up there,” Ryder said with a quick glance upward, “you are one crazy bitch. I’ll be back for you.”

Stone’s son climbed onto the master bed, cupped his ear with his left hand, and whimpered.

“I only take out targets I’m paid to,” Ryder said. He appeared to be addressing Stone’s wife. “But you say one word about me or what happened here tonight, I’ll find you. Understand?”

Ryder didn’t wait for a reply. He thrust the Beretta into Burnett’s back again, harder this time. “My car’s outside.”

The attic floorboards creaked a second time.

Stone’s son fell off the bed, struck the floor with a thud, and thrashed about.

The Beretta retracted from Burnett’s back. He spun and grabbed Ryder’s gun-hand. The weapon discharged as he shoved it away. The window behind him shattered. A sharp pain stung his left shoulder.

Stone scrambled across the bed and tackled Ryder.

Burnett reached for the Beretta, tried to tear it from Ryder’s hand. A searing pain shot down his arm. He released the weapon and clutched his shoulder. Blood trickled through his fingers.

“Get out of here,” Stone yelled to his wife and kids. “Call the police. Get an ambulance.”

Mrs. Stone wrapped an arm around her son and hurried him into the hallway. Her daughter followed on her heels.

Burnett removed his hand. Blood oozed through the tiny hole in his shirt.

Stone wrestled Ryder to the floor. Burnett yanked the Beretta from the hit man’s grip with his right hand. It spun across the carpet and disappeared into the hallway.

Burnett raced into the hall and retrieved the weapon. When he returned, Ryder had risen to his feet with Stone in a headlock.

“Toss it over or I snap his neck,” Ryder said.

Burnett applied pressure to his shoulder and grimaced. Emma materialized beside him.

“Where were you?” he asked.

“Just went to call an ambulance.”

He answered her matter-of-fact look with a quizzical one.

“You’re hurt,” she said, and touched his shoulder.

“Just nicked it. I’ll be all right.”

She caressed the area around his wound. His forehead wrinkled as her fingers found a tender spot.

“Uh, the gun,” Ryder said.

“I’ll bring it over,” Emma said.

“What?” Burnett asked.

“I’ll take the gun to him.” She lifted the Beretta from his open palm and took two steps toward Ryder.

“Stop,” Ryder said.

Emma complied. She offered the weapon in her outstretched hands.

“Just slide it over,” Ryder said.

“Or?” she asked.

“I told you, I’ll break his neck.”

She studied the hold Ryder had on Stone, then tossed the Beretta back to Burnett.

“You crazy?” Ryder asked.

“You can’t break someone’s neck with that hold,” she said.

Ryder stared at her like she’d lost her mind.

“You could probably cause unconsciousness,” she said, “but that’s it.” Less than six feet separated them.

Ryder shook his head with near comic disbelief. “You really are one crazy bitch.”

“Who was the girl who showed up at Henri Laroche’s apartment?” Emma asked.

“No idea,” Ryder said.

“Did you put her up to it or Professor Desmond?”

“No idea.”

“You killed her and put her in the trunk of his car?”

He replied by shoving Stone at her. Caught off guard, she crashed to the floor.

Ryder leapt at Burnett. He knocked the Beretta from Burnett’s hand. Both men hit the floor. The gun kicked off the wall and tumbled down the stairs. As they clambered to their feet, Emma rushed up behind Ryder. She wrapped her right arm around his neck.

“This is how you hold someone if you want to snap their neck,” she said.

Ryder struggled in vain to free himself. Each time he reached back to grab her, she tightened her grip and his body went limp.

Burnett raced down the stairs and returned, Beretta in hand. “Now what?”

“Before the police arrive,” she said, “he’ll tell us exactly what’s going on.”

When Ryder scoffed at the suggestion, Emma tightened her grip.

* * *

Mayweather squirmed in the passenger seat as Farrow guided the sedan down a winding but well-lit street. Five minutes earlier they’d left the parking lot and now patrolled the area highlighted by the computer.

Mayweather had changed his tone and altered his speech in hope Burnett would realize their attempt to trace the call. If he had not gotten the message, his run would soon end.

A female voice crackled through the sedan’s radio. Mayweather grabbed the microphone. “Go ahead.”

“Got a 911 from—”

“Give it to someone else,” Farrow barked.

“Thirty-three Ardsley,” the woman continued. “Shots fired. A Dr. Thaddeus Stone lives there. According to Crowhurst, he’s a professor at SUNY.”

Farrow’s eyes sparkled.

“An ambulance is responding as well,” the woman said.

“Tell them lights, no sirens,” Farrow said.

Shots fired
? Perhaps Dr. Stone had no interest in Burnett’s company.

Mayweather glanced at the map on the screen. They were six blocks away. Soon he would have answers.

* * *

Ryder sat on the edge of Dr. Stone’s bed, his ankles and wrists bound with packing tape.

“He’s not gonna tell us anything,” Burnett said. He knew the police couldn’t be far.

Emma kneeled beside Ryder and wrapped her arm strategically around his neck. “Last chance to clear your conscience.”

The man didn’t speak.

“The ambulance will be here soon,” Burnett said. “The cops sooner.”

Emma tightened her grip and Ryder slumped to the floor. Burnett draped his good arm over her shoulder, led her across the room and to the staircase. Before they could take a step, the front door flung open. They scurried back into Stone’s bedroom.

Burnett steered her to the nearest window. He noted the fifteen- to twenty-foot drop. The next window, beside the bed, opened to the garage roof. He raised the screen, stepped through, then guided Emma out.

The roof’s thirty-degree slope tested their balance. He clutched her hand, and they stutter-stepped to the edge. A ten-foot plunge to the lawn awaited them.

He kneeled and, fingers clenched around a metal gutter, heaved his body over the side. His momentum ripped the gutter from the house. He let go and smacked the lawn, driving his left elbow into the grass. With a muffled, agonized yell, he vaulted to his feet.

For an instant he considered leaving her, but he had a task for her, one he might not be able to accomplish himself.

She squatted at the edge of the roof. After a brief hesitation she leapt off. She landed in Burnett’s arms. He grimaced as they slammed into the ground.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said as they both popped up. She wiped a patch of dirt from her sleeve.

A black sedan sat in front of Stone’s house. He took her hand and they charged across the street.