“For a while, that’s right,” Thomas said. “But actually, it was an analysis of handwriting by some very smart FBI agents that started your downfall. I had samples of your father’s handwriting. They compared yours to his. Remember the notes you wrote to Mr. McBride in Riptide? There was no comparison, of course, so it couldn’t be Vasili.
“Then Adam remembered that your father had traveled to England quite a number of times. He wondered why, particularly since the visits were always at the beginning of the school term or at the end. He knew your father had remarried, so it probably wasn’t a woman he was visiting. He’d purged files, even your mother’s name, and we wondered why he would do that. After all, who cared if he had a wife, now dead, or any children?
“It wasn’t tough then to track you down, the son whose father had sent him to England to be educated, so that one day he could avenge the murder of his dearest mother. You were at that private boys’ school at Sundowns.”
Thomas continued, “Your father molded you, taught you to hate me, to hate everything I stood for, programmed you for this.”
“I was not programmed. I do this all of my own free will. I am brilliant. I have won. Even though you found out about me, it is I who am standing here in control. It is I who run this show.”
Thomas said, “Fine. You run the show. Now tell us how you got into NYU Hospital without being stopped by the FBI agents.”
He laughed, preened. “I was a young boy, so sorry-looking in my slouchy clothes, my pants halfway to my knees, and my baseball cap, holding my broken arm, and everyone wanted to help me, to send me here, to send me there, and I came up to those stupid agents, crying about my arm, and then I shot them both. So easy, all of it. In the room when I saw neither of you were there, I just killed them, too, but with the woman, it was very close, too close. But I escaped. I was out of there before anyone realized what had happened.”
Thomas said, “Why, Mikhail? What did your father tell you to make you want to do this? What?”
“He didn’t make me do anything. He simply told me how you butchered my poor mother, went through her to get to him. You shot her in the head and laughed as my father held her until she died. Then you tried to kill him but he managed to get away. He told me that, and he began teaching me to prepare myself to avenge her. And I’m here now. I’ll kill you just as you killed my mother.”
“You killed your stepmother, didn’t you, and her children?” Becca said.
He laughed, actually laughed. “Yes, I hated her as much as she hated me. She didn’t want me ever to come back during my vacations. And her spawn—they weren’t all that surprised when I killed them because they had guessed that I hated them. As for her, she pleaded just like her pathetic daughter.”
Becca said, “And your own little brother? Your father’s other son?”
“I tried to kill him, burn him out of existence, just to leave ashes, but he survived. My father sent him to Switzerland, to this clinic that specializes in burns. He knew then what I’d done. I called him a coward, told him he’d let that wretched woman, those children, distract him from killing the man who butchered my mother. You know what he said? He said it over and over, tears in his eyes, wringing his goddamned hands—it had been an accident, he’d lied to me all those years. I didn’t believe him. He wanted it soft and easy—a woman in his bed, children around him—but I wasn’t going to let him forget my mother, just erase her memory, and turn away like you would turn away.
“Now I’ve got you both and I’m going to kill you, just as you killed my mother. It’s justice. It’s retribution.” He smiled as he raised his gun, aiming right at Thomas.
“No!” Becca yelled. “I won’t let you!” She hurled herself in front of her father.
Mikhail Krimakov gave a scream of rage when Thomas shoved Becca to the floor. But he didn’t have time to cover her with his own body. Mikhail shot him in the chest, knocking him backward.
Mikhail dropped to the floor, grabbed Becca’s ankle, and jerked her hard toward him. He slammed his arm around her neck, and pressed the gun against her ear even as the balcony glass door shattered inward and Adam leapt through the billowing draperies and the broken glass into the bedroom. He stopped dead in his tracks.
Mikhail smiled at him. “You try to kill me and the little bitch is dead. You got that?”
30
Mikhail said, the gun pointed in Becca’s left ear, “That bastard shot my mother in the head. He’s paid for it. You move and I’ll blow her head off. You won’t even recognize what’s left.”
Adam couldn’t believe it, just didn’t want to accept what he was seeing. “I should never have let you stay here. Damn me, I should have drugged you, Becca, and hidden you away.”
But Becca didn’t hear him. Mikhail’s arm had tightened until she couldn’t breathe, until everything turned black and she heard voices in the distance, but they didn’t reach her, not really.
Mikhail eased up on Becca’s neck as he waved his gun at Adam. “Drop that gun and do it slowly and very carefully.”
Adam let the gun fall to the floor. It came to a stop, he saw, about thirteen inches beyond his left foot.
“I dropped the gun. You’ve killed Thomas. No one else is near. Let her go, damn you, you’ve already choked her unconscious.”
“Yeah, right, you asshole.”
Thomas felt as if his chest was frozen, a good thing, he knew, because soon enough he would be in such pain he probably wouldn’t be able to think, much less move. Krimakov’s son was pressing a gun against Becca’s throat. Adam stood not four feet away, helpless, frozen in place, shattered glass all around him. Thomas knew he was trying desperately to figure out what to do. Becca’s eyes were closed, Mikhail’s hold against her throat was too strong, far too strong. She’d passed out. He had to do something, anything. He couldn’t let her die, not like this, not after she’d hurled herself in front of him, to save him, to take the bullet herself. He felt the pain pulsing deep in his chest, but with it, he felt such an intense surge of love for her that gave him a burst of strength. He managed to ease his hand down to his pants pocket, to the small derringer. Just a bit more strength, that’s all he needed, strength.
Mikhail saw the slight movement from the corner of his eye. “Damn you, you’re supposed to be dead. Don’t move!” His hold against her throat lightened and almost immediately he saw that Becca was coming out of it. He clouted her hard on the side of the head, and shoved her away from him. He leaped to his feet, pulled a Zippo lighter from his pocket and set it to the bedding. In an instant, the blanket and sheets burst into flame.
Thomas fired the derringer. Mikhail yelled and grabbed his arm as the bullet punched him backward. He hit the wall but didn’t fall. Adam dove for his gun. Thomas fired again, but Mikhail had twisted low and the bullet just grazed the side of his head.
Thomas fell back, the derringer falling from his hand. Adam twisted about, his gun raised, but Mikhail was out of the bedroom, and when Adam fired, the bullet hit the door frame. Mikhail slammed the door behind him and the flames gushed higher with the sudden rush of air, igniting the pillows, the thick brocade drapes that were ripped from Adam’s run into the bedroom.
“Damnation,” Adam shouted. “Becca, are you all right?” He leaned over and slapped her face. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. Damn, the drapes are on fire now.” He scrambled on his knees to where Thomas lay on his back. He shook him. “Thomas, open your eyes. That’s it. Now, can you make it?”
Thomas just smiled at him. “No, unfortunately not, Adam. I think this is the end of the line for me. Get Becca out of here. Tell her I love her.”
“Don’t be a jackass,” Adam said. “We’re all getting out of here. Come on, you can do it.” He wrapped an arm around Thomas and jerked to his feet, pulling Thomas with him. He started to lift him over his shoulder.
“No, not yet,” Thomas said, the pain flooding over him now, drawing at his brain, making everything darken, darken. “No, dammit, we??
?ll get out of here. Becca, get yourself together! I’m not going to lose you now.”
Becca was sitting now, shaking her head, trying to breathe. She heard agents yelling outside, prayed they wouldn’t try to come into the burning room, prayed they’d be ready to pump a hundred bullets into Mikhail when he came out of the house. She said, “I’m okay. Just give me a second, just a moment.” She stared at her father. “Mother left me. There’s no way you’re going to leave me now. I’ll help you, Adam.” Together, one of them on each side of him, they managed to get the door open and drag Thomas into the hallway. The flames were whooshing up high behind them, thick, incredibly hot, smoke gushing out of the room. No time, Adam thought, just no bloody time to put it out.
All of them were coughing now from the smoke. “Let’s move,” Adam said. He pulled the bedroom door closed after him, but it was too late. The fire was already eating away at the hallway carpeting.
“If he isn’t dead yet,” Adam said, “they’ll get him the instant he gets out of the house.”
Becca was panting with effort and coughing at the same time. “I had my gun strapped to my leg, but it didn’t matter,” she said, coughing. “Are you all right, Daddy? Don’t you dare talk about dying again. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Becca,” Thomas said, and his chest was on fire, just as the fire raged around them, it raged inside him. He knew he couldn’t last much longer. He didn’t want to leave her, not yet, please God, not yet.
“Just a little farther.”
They heard a whoosh of flames behind them. The smoke was dense and black now. “We’ve got to hurry,” Adam said. He didn’t ask, just picked up Thomas and eased him over his shoulder. “Becca, get downstairs. I’m right behind you.”
A shot rang out in the thick smoke. Adam felt the punch in his arm, sharp, hard. He didn’t loosen his hold. “Jesus, Becca, get down, crawl. I don’t want him to shoot you.”
But Becca had her Coonan in her hand. She stepped behind Adam and fired back through the smoke in the direction of the shot. There were three more shots. Then silence.
“He must be back near the bedroom, Adam.” And she fired off another shot. “That’ll keep him away. Get my father out of here. Oh God, the walls are on fire. It’s bad, Adam. Hurry! Save my father!”
Adam felt his arm pulsing with raw pain, weakening as he carried Thomas down the front stairs. He felt an instant of dizziness, then shook his head, coughed, and kept moving. He felt a strange pulling in his back, weird, but nothing really. Thomas was now unconscious. He prayed he wasn’t dead. He heard another shot, then another, but nothing all that close.
“I’m right behind you, Adam. Go, quickly!”
He didn’t realize Becca wasn’t with him until he was out the front door and two agents had lifted Thomas from his shoulder. “Jesus, a chest wound. Get the paramedics over here!”
“The fire department is on the way,” Gaylan Woodhouse said, running up, his gun still at the ready. “My God, you’re shot, too, Adam. Hey, Hawley, get over here. We need some help.” Adam stood there holding his arm, his teeth gritted. And now, of all things, that pulling in his back, it was bringing him down.
“Where the hell is Krimakov?” Savich shouted.
“Becca,” Adam said, looking around wildly. “Becca?”
“Jesus,” Hatch said, running to Adam. “He got you in the back, boss. Did you know you got shot in the back? Oh God, hurry, let’s get him down.”
“Becca,” Adam said, frantic now, and he knew he was barely hanging on. “Where’s Becca?” He saw the flames billowing out of the upstairs windows. The beautiful ivy that nearly covered that side of the house was on fire.
“Thomas shot Krimakov,” Adam said to Gaylan Woodhouse and Hawley, who were bending over him. “He’s got to still be inside. Maybe he’s unconscious or dead. Jesus, where’s Becca? Please, you’ve got to find her.”
The walkie-talkie boomed out, “No one has tried to come out of any windows or the back of the house.”
“Get Krimakov,” Gaylan shouted. “Dammit. GET HIM!”
Becca, oh God, where was Becca? He wanted to go back into that house to find her. He had to, had to, but he just couldn’t move. The fire wasn’t only in the house now, it was inside him and it was eating its way out. The pain in his back held him utterly locked in place. He couldn’t move.
“Oh my God,” an agent shouted. “Up there!”
“It’s Becca,” Gaylan Woodhouse whispered. “Oh, no.”
Adam did move, suddenly, with a spurt of strength he didn’t know he had. He roared to his feet. He followed everyone’s eyes to the roof of the house and felt his heart drop to his feet. No, please Jesus, no. But it was Becca, on the roof of the burning house.
“Becca!”
There were at least a dozen people standing in the front yard, looking upward. Then everyone was silent, still.
There, highlighted in flames, stood Becca, in her white nightgown, her bare feet spread, holding the Coonan between her hands.
“Becca,” Adam shouted, “shoot the fucker!”
But she didn’t. She just stood there, pointing the Coonan at Mikhail Krimakov. He was holding his arm, blood dripping through his fingers. Blood also dripped down his cheek from a head wound. He was leaning over, as it was nearly beyond him to straighten. What had happened to his gun? Oh God, Adam couldn’t believe what he was seeing, would have given five years of his life if he could have changed it, if he could even have moved, at least tried to save her. But there was nothing he could do. He saw an agent raise a rifle. “No,” he said, “don’t try it. He’s off at an angle. Don’t take the chance of hitting her. Where are the firemen?”
Flames had caught the roof on fire now, licking out of the balcony off Thomas’s bedroom. It wouldn’t be long now until the flames ate the roof and sent it crashing into the house, until it was too hot on the roof for her to stand there, barefoot.
He heard her then, speaking loudly, very clearly.
“It’s over,” Becca said to the young man not eight feet from her. “Finally, it’s over. You lost, Mikhail, but the cost was too high. You killed eight people, just because they were there.”
“Oh no, I killed many more than that,” he said, raising his head, panting with the pain. “They didn’t count, any of them. I used them, then of what possible use were they to me?”
“Why didn’t you stop when your father died in that car accident?”
He laughed, he actually laughed at her. “It wasn’t an accident, you stupid bitch. I killed him. He wanted me to stop this, said I’d already done enough, that this was just too much. He’d turned soft, he’d become a coward. I killed him because he’d become a weakling. He wasn’t worthy any longer. He betrayed my beloved mother’s memory. Yes, I clouted him on the side of the head and drove him in his car over a cliff.”
There wasn’t a sound from anyone standing below. Then, the sound of sirens in the distance. The flames were licking up over the edge of the roof now. She had to get out of there. Adam stood there, impotent. Becca, please, please. Get the hell out of there.
Becca said, her voice still strong, still clear and loud, “It ends here, Mikhail. Since I knew you’d try to escape back through that roof trapdoor, you had to know I wouldn’t let you get away. It ends here.”
“Yes,” he said. “It ends here. I killed the bastard who murdered my mother—your beloved father. I’ve done what I promised to do. And I took pleasure along the way, cleaning out the vermin that had invaded my life.”
He was standing very still, this handsome young man she’d spoken to in the gym in Riptide. He was slowly straightening now, standing tall.
“My father isn’t dead, Mikhail. He’ll survive. You failed.”
“The roof is going to collapse beneath us, Rebecca. It’s getting hotter. You’re barefoot. It’s got to be burning your feet now, isn’t it?”
Fire trucks pulled up to the curb, men jumping out, going into action. Becca heard a man yelling, “We’v
e got a two-story residential fully involved structure fire! Jesus, what’s going on here?”
“Oh shit, there are people standing on the roof! That woman has a gun!”
“We can’t ladder the building, it’s too late. Get the life net!”
Becca heard them, felt her feet now, the heat burning them, wondered if the roof would collapse under her. “We’re going down, Mikhail,” she said. “Look, they’re bringing one of those safety nets. We’ll jump.”
“No,” he said. “No.” Then he pulled the lighter out of his jacket again and lit his sleeve. He rubbed it on his shirt, his pants, even while she watched, so horrified she froze. Then he smiled at her, nearly ablaze now, and ran at her, yelling, “Come away with your boyfriend. Come, let’s fly together, Rebecca!”
She pulled the trigger, once, and still he came, a ball of flame now, running toward her, nearly at her, his arms outstretched. She fired again, then again and again, fired until the Coonan was empty.
He fell forward, nearly into her, but she jerked away just in time and he rolled over and over, a flaming ball of fire, off the roof to the ground below.
She heard people yelling. A jet of flame caught the sleeve of her nightgown. She ran quickly to the side of the roof, stood there for just an instant, slapping down the flames on her arm even as the fire inched closer and closer, and at last the firemen had the safety net in place.
Adam yelled, “Jump, Becca!”
And she did, without hesitation, her nightgown billowing out around her, her long legs bare, the white sleeve of her nightgown smoking. She hit the white safety net, her nightgown tangling around her. It closed over her for just an instant, and then a fireman yelled, “We’ve got her. She’s okay!”