Across the room, Elena was crying.
Jimmy lifted the duffel, and kicked the thirty-eight into the far corner of the barn. A smile lit his face. Account numbers were great and all, but there was something about cash—and he could see large, green bundles of it. “You never cared enough about money.” He stood with the bag, waved the pistol. “That was always your problem, Michael. Priorities. The scale of your ambition. I could never get you to see past Otto Kaitlin, to see the things you could be.”
“We had the same job, Jimmy, did the same things.”
“But I was never content. That’s the difference between big men and small. You’d have been Otto’s whipping boy for the rest of your life.”
“Otto was a great man.”
“Otto fed you scraps.” He shook his head, disgusted. “But you took it, didn’t you? You were all about family this and family that. Otto never loved you like you think he did.”
“And yet he left his money to me.”
“But it’s not all about money, is it? It’s about being more. About seeing and taking and making the world
feel
you. That’s where my true disappointment lies.” He stabbed the gun at Michael. “We could have run the city, you and me, done things Otto never dreamed in all his years. Jesus, Michael. I’d have made you a fucking prince.”
“With you as king?”
“Who’s more your father than me? Otto may have found you, but I made you.” He gestured at Elena. “She understands. She gets it. That’s why this is such a disappointment. You used to care about family.”
“Family? Are you serious?”
“It’s not too late. You can have the girl. We can still do great things.”
“Don’t screw with me, Jimmy. I know you better than that.”
“Well, okay. She’d have to die. But you and me…” He grinned. “No one would stand against us.”
“I just want us all to walk out of here alive.”
“That’s your answer?” His voice hardened. “That’s your sole ambition?”
“Take the money, Jimmy.”
“You really think that’s all I care about, don’t you?” He stepped toward Stevan, spread on the tractor. “You’re the one who made this personal. You’re the one who left. And for what? A woman?”
“It’s a lot of money.” Michael spread his fingers. “Just let us go.”
“You never change, do you? Always in control.”
“Just like you taught me.”
“Always chilly.” Jimmy kept the gun trained on Michael as he heaved the bag up and dropped it squarely on Stevan’s bloody stomach. “This guy, though…” Jimmy patted Stevan’s ruined face, smiled. “Finally good for something.”
He looked back at the cash, and Stevan—tortured, skinless and half-dead—turned his head and sank perfect, white teeth into the meat of Jimmy’s hand.
Abigail watched it all as if she was falling down a smooth, dark shaft. She saw Jimmy’s back arch, and then his scream grew faint as light constricted.
Her fingers closed on something sharp.
Pain behind her eyes.
Michael moved as Jimmy howled, as Jimmy’s gun came around to meet the curve of Stevan’s skull. A shot crashed out and Jimmy’s hand came free, a ragged chunk missing between the thumb and first finger. Another step and Michael dove for the forty-five, right hand on the grip, shoulder rolling to take the fall. He felt dust in his teeth, movement as he came up on one knee and slid in the dirt. Jimmy fired first, two rounds that should not have missed, but did. Michael snapped off a shot, hit Jimmy high in the chest. Staggered him. But Jimmy’s finger was still on the trigger, still pulling as shots crashed through the barn, and Michael took one in the leg. The shot knocked him down, pain enough to star his vision, but not nearly enough to take him out. Michael fired half-blind, buying seconds. He got a hand down, steadied himself as Jimmy lunged left, going for the dowel that hung four feet away. Maybe he knew he was done; maybe he thought he’d use it to get Michael under control. Michael fired again, took a piece out of Jimmy’s neck. He stumbled, hand out and grasping. Michael fired another round, hit an inch right of the spine. It drove Jimmy forward, all but dead on his feet. But his hand was out and close.
Inches.
Spread fingers coming down.
Michael moved for a head shot, but knew he’d be too late. Three and half pounds of pressure. Jimmy’s fingers almost there.
Then Abigail Vane came out of nowhere, small and fast and lightning sure. Michael hadn’t even seen her get up, but there she was, a crescent of rusty metal in her hand—a twenty-inch sickle that rose in a blurred, brown arc and took Jimmy’s hand off at the wrist. The stump of his arm hit the dowel, made it swing.
Michael put the next one in his skull.
Abigail drove them out. She looked small behind the wheel of the Mercedes, shoulders rolled, head tucked down as if to dodge a blow. In the back, fingers twined, wet and slick. Blood pooled in the seats as Michael cradled Elena and fought the pain in his leg. They kept their heads down, and no one spoke until Abigail pulled into the lot of a dump motel two towns over. She found an empty spot under the limbs of a tree. Traffic flickered beyond a chain-link fence. “You alive back there?”
“We’re still here.”
“Stay in the car.”
She didn’t look at them as she got out.
Air blew warm from the vents. A coppery smell. Gun smoke and clean leather. Michael kissed Elena’s hair, and her hand tightened on his arm. She was in shock, he thought, her skin cold to the touch, lips dusted blue. He gentled bits of tape from her skin, her hair. An acorn hit the roof, and she jerked in his arms. “It’s okay, baby.”
There was silence and breath and dark eyes staring.
“You keep saying that.”
It came as a whisper, her first words since he’d carried her out. Michael kissed her forehead, and when she turned her cheek into his chest, she said, “You came for me.”
“Of course I did.”
“You came…”
Her fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt. Her voice fell off, and Michael smeared tears from his face with the back of his hand.
When Abigail returned, she said, “I got you a room in the back.”
“We need a doctor.”
“Is it bad?”
Michael ground his teeth. “Pretty bad.”
She moved the car, opened the room and got them out when no one was around. They were a pitiful sight, all broken and cut and gunshot. Michael’s leg worked, but barely. No bones broken, no arteries hit.
Elena cried out when he put her on the bed.
Michael got her water, while Abigail brought things in from the car. She put a first-aid kit on the table. “From the trunk,” she said, then laid out Michael’s pistols and Jessup’s thirty-eight. She brought in the duffel bag, which held the Hemingway and the cash. She looked at Elena, at the sodden cloth tied around Michael’s leg. “I should hurry.”
Michael caught her at the door. His face was ashen, the pain a devil in his leg. “I need to thank you.” She stammered something, and for the first time since it went down, Michael really looked at her face. She was shell-shocked, her eyes bruised-looking and scared.
She shook her head, seemed for the first time to be doubt-filled and old. “Don’t—”
“I would have lost her without you.” He took her hand, felt bones that were light and small. “Do you understand what that means to me?”
“I mean it, Michael. Don’t.”
“Look at me, Abigail.”
“I don’t remember.”
That stopped him. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes darted to Elena, the guns, the door: everywhere but Michael’s face. “I remember being kicked and being hurt.” She touched her temple, which was wine-dark and swollen. “I remember the feel of sharp metal in my fingers.”
“The sickle—”
“I remember rage, and I remember driving.”
Michael took her head gently in his hands and tilted it so light touched on the place she’d been kicked. Jimmy had struck her in the right temple. The swelling was considerable, skin dark and stretched. “Painful?”
“Extremely.”
“Is your vision blurred?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
“Can you drive?”
“I feel okay to drive.”
He released her, but put one hand on the door. “You saved Elena’s life,” he said. “That means you saved mine. Things like that matter to me. I won’t forget it.”
“That’s funny.”
“What?”
She managed a decent smile. “It seems I already have.”
The mood lightened as much as it could, but Michael kept his hand on the door. “Listen, I know a thing or two about situations like this. Don’t let people see blood in the car. Don’t tell anyone what happened.”
“I won’t.”
“Not Jessup or the senator.”
“Okay.”
“Doctors are required by law to report gunshot wounds—”
“I’m not an idiot.”
He grimaced, desperate to lie down. “I’ll take care of Elena, and then I’ll take care of the bodies. Don’t go back there. Okay? It has to be done right. This can still come back on us.”
“I understand.”
He took his hand off the door, swayed a little and caught himself. “Abigail…”
She reached for the handle, looked up.
“You did good.”
Michael collapsed on the bed and felt the world gray out. When color returned, he dug Tylenol from the first-aid kit, got three down Elena’s throat and then swallowed three himself. His eyes moved to her ankle. It was mottled and swollen, still at a painful angle. “I need to look at your foot.”
She stared at the ceiling, lungs filling shallow and fast. “It hurts.”
“I don’t know how long the doctor will be…”
“Just do it.”
She was crying when she said it, head turned against the pillow. He lifted her leg, touched the foot gently; she screamed so loudly he had to smother the sound with his palm. Her face was hard and hot. She fought him. When she finally settled, he removed his hand.
“I’m sorry.” She was crying. “I’m sorry…”
“Shhh…”
“It hurts, it hurts…”
“Okay. I’m sorry.” He lowered her leg gently. Tending to the ankle would require massive painkillers, so he draped it with a towel and left it alone. Same thing with the broken toes, the finger. The rest of her injuries were superficial lacerations, and he handled them as if she were an injured child.
She took his hand once, held it to her chest and squeezed tightly. “I’ve never been so happy to see you as when you came through that barn door.” Her eyes were filling up again. “I thought I was going to die. I thought the baby…”
Her voice broke.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not now.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“But you came.” She squeezed harder.
“That’s not enough, I know.”
“It is for now,” she said.
And that was all the talking they did. There was too much, and it was too fresh. The doctor came two hours later, and both, by that time, had reached whole new levels of agony. Cloverdale put his medical bag on the bed, frowned. Michael said, “Do her first.”
He examined her foot, and then lifted the sopping bandage on Michael’s leg. “Your injury is more severe.”
“Ladies first.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
Cloverdale waited for the punch line, then shrugged and got to work with a swab and needle. When the leg was numbed and Elena barely there, Cloverdale lifted the towel and got to work. “I’ll set this as best I can, but it’ll be a temporary fix. There’s tendon damage. Nerve damage, probably. Bones that need to be pinned. She’ll need surgery soon. Wait too long and she’ll never walk right.”
“Can she go a few days?”
“No longer than that.”
“Just get her so she can travel.”
The doctor did Michael next. He sewed up damaged vessels, sutured muscle and skin. When he finished, everything looked fine under a bandage that had not yet stained. “You’re a very lucky man. An inch to the right and the bullet would have shattered the bone.” Cloverdale pulled an orange pill bottle from his bag. “The pain will get worse before it gets better. These are very strong. Don’t kill yourself with them.”
He held out the bottle and Michael caught his wrist. “No one can know about this.”
The doctor looked at Michael’s hand until the fingers let go. “Mrs. Vane has already stressed that point.”
“I fear she’s not stressed it enough.”
Cloverdale frowned and packed instruments into his bag. When he turned around, Michael was holding twenty thousand dollars in cash. “Not the senator. Not anybody.” Michael held out the money. “This is for you.”
Cloverdale looked at Abigail, who shrugged. He shrugged, too, and took the money.
“That’s the carrot.” Michael waited for the doctor to meet his eyes. “Don’t make me bring the stick.”
“Are you serious?”
Michael let some killer show. “Don’t ask me that question again.”
The doctor left with an angry step. Elena was out, her breath a light rattle. Michael wanted to join her, needed blackness and stillness and drugs in his veins. But he couldn’t do it yet.
“I need one more thing,” he said to Abigail.
“What?”
He told her.
“Are you sure?”
“Just do it, please.”
When Abigail came back, she had the key to another room. “Is this really necessary?” She gestured at Elena. “Look at her. Jesus, look at yourself.”
Michael swung his legs off the bed, hissed in pain. “Where’s the room?”
“Across the way.” She gestured through the window. The motel was U-shaped, the parking lot in the center. “Number twenty-seven.”
Michael stood. “Help me get her up.”
Elena endured it, half-conscious. It took five minutes, and by the time they had her in the other room, Michael’s bandage was soaked through.
“Cloverdale won’t tell anybody,” Abigail said. Michael gave her a look. “Even if he did, it would just be the senator. My husband may be amoral and self-serving, but he’s neither stupid nor shortsighted. I’m implicated in this. I’m involved.” Michael stretched out beside Elena; Abigail lifted his leg. “Jesus. Look what you’ve done to yourself.”
“I’ve been shot before.”
“Let me at least change the bandage.” Michael nodded, and she changed the pads, the gauze. She threw the bloody mess in the trash. “Can I put a pillow under it?”