Downfall

  He groped for his phone. As it lit up, he saw that he’d had several calls and texts from Emily and his mother. He’d forgotten the phone was on silence.

  No time to call them back now. He had to call the police.

  The 911 operator answered.

  “There’s a guy holding a girl hostage at the Decatur water tower!” he blurted.

  “Is he armed?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But please . . . hurry. He could kill her.”

  He cut off the phone just as he heard April’s scream. Leaving the phone on his console, he bolted out of the car.

  Tyson saw the headlights illuminating them. Lance had come.

  Perfect.

  A car door slammed. “Tyson!” Lance yelled.

  Tyson had almost gotten her to the top. “Go over the rail, onto the catwalk,” he ordered.

  Whining and blubbering, she froze.

  Tyson glanced back. Lance had jumped the fence and was coming toward the ladder.

  “He’s got a gun!” April screamed.

  Lance didn’t back down. He came closer, as if he thought he could disarm Tyson by sheer will. “Drop the gun, Tyson!” he called up.

  “Climb, April!” Tyson said, jabbing her leg with the gun.

  Lance started climbing. “Tyson, I called the police when I got here . . . they’ll be here any minute.”

  “Perfect,” Tyson said. “The bigger the audience, the better. Nobody stops me. Not my mother, who’s been laying in bed in her own blood for four days . . . and surely not the police.”

  He summoned all the strength of the drugs pulsing through him to get himself and April onto the catwalk.

  As Lance climbed the tower’s ladder, he heard April crying. “April, the police are coming,” he called. “Just do what he says.”

  “The police can’t help you, precious,” Tyson said to April, then called down to Lance, “and big sis can’t help you either, Lancelot. She talked about you all the time. About how the worst thing that could happen would be if you followed in her footsteps, got into drugs, ruined your life like she did.”

  Sweat dripped into Lance’s eyes. “How do you even know her?”

  “She worked at Haven House. High and mighty, got me thrown in jail.”

  Lance froze on the ladder, trying to make sense of what Tyson had said. Then it came to him. Tyson . . . he’d committed all these crimes. He had killed those women, bombed Emily’s car, set fire to Kent’s house . . . “All this . . . is about her? You’re the one?”

  Tyson laughed like a demon in a burning church.

  Now more than ever, Lance wanted to reach Tyson and put an end to all this. But Tyson was insane. He might push April off the tower without a thought.

  Lance tried to distract him. “You killed your mother?” he asked. “Is she really dead in her bed?”

  “Yeah, I killed her,” Tyson said through his teeth. “She nagged me, she tortured my dad — I put him out of his misery, too. Now I’m free. I’m the Avenger!” He raised his arms and screamed out a victory shout.

  Nausea swept over Lance, but he fought it back. Where were the police?

  April sobbed, gulping wind. Lance pulled himself up, his breath coming harder, his lungs unable to keep up. He thought of Tyson shooting his mother, leaving her in her bed for days.

  God, please get the police here!

  Tyson’s cell phone chimed with a text. Emily again? He came out of his victory stance, pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  Tyson, I’m really jonesing for crack 2night. Can u hook me up?

  He laughed. She must know that he had Lance.

  Or maybe she really did want a hit. Her sober act was destined to fail. The drugs had a stronger pull than any decision she could make.

  His mind raced in a million directions as he watched Lance climbing higher. April sat on the catwalk, legs bent, arms hugging her knees. He thought of Emily, craving and crawling, of his father locked in that wheelchair, of his mother lying in the bed where he’d leveled things with her four days ago. The freedom her death had given him had opened the floodgates, allowing him to do all that he’d done this week. Allowing him the power to be the great Avenger.

  No one had yet found her body, or his father’s either, strapped in his wheelchair where he’d been stuck, since his scuffle with this tower. Powerless, sitting in his own waste with his hands strapped down.

  “Tyson, please . . .”

  April’s plea snapped his racing thoughts back. This was the snowcapped mountaintop. The coup de grâce. He felt the power rising inside him, threatening to explode through his own skin and break him free of human trappings.

  He watched, grinning, as Lance reached the top. The wind picked up, making the fire in his ears and his neck, his fingers and toes, cool a degree. “Over the rail, Lance. Join us, won’t you?” Throwing his head back, he wheezed with laughter.

  Lance came over the rail. Wind whipped through his hair. “Here I am, Tyson. Just let her go.”

  “The only way she’s coming off this tower is if I shove her. I love that idea.”

  Tyson stood between them, blocking Lance’s path to April. Whimpering, April slid sideways, trying to get away from Tyson, but there was nowhere she could go. Lance moved closer, but Tyson stopped him by pointing the pistol in his direction.

  Only one thing would make this perfect. Emily. Still pointing the weapon at Lance and holding his phone with his left hand, Tyson typed with his thumb:

  Sure can, babe. Knew u couldn’t hold out much longer.

  “Come on, Tyson.” Lance’s voice was low, gentle.

  Emily’s reply chimed back.

  I know Lance is with u. Can u come get me 2?

  Tyson shrieked with laughter. She knew. Was she worried about her brother or her own appetites? Tyson thought of bringing Emily up here with him, shooting her veins full of fuel, watching her fly . . .

  But not now. This was too good.

  Busy now, he typed. Lance about 2 fly.

  He hoped that felt like a knife in her chest.

  But he couldn’t tell from her reply: Come on I have a hundred bucks.

  His mind raced. Her desperation filled him with glee. The need. He loved her need. He thought of all they could do together, just him and her and a syringe. . . . The perfect revenge would be starting her downfall, tangling her up with desperation, just before she went to prison for all the things he’d done.

  He started to text her again, but his thumb hit the wrong icon. The screen filled with “CALL,” and her number came up, searching for a cell tower, connecting . . .

  He started to press END, but suddenly Lance was on him, trying to grab the gun, making him loosen his grip. Tyson dropped the phone as he grabbed the gun with both hands, trying to move the barrel toward Lance’s forehead. But Lance grabbed Tyson’s wrists and forced his arms up, the barrel pointing toward the sky. The phone bounced once on the steel deck beneath them, then disappeared from his vision. Tyson cursed.

  April screamed for help, hollering like a tortured animal. Tyson kicked Lance, knocking him back, then turned to April, the gun cold in his itching fingers.

  He raised the barrel and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 51

  It’s him!” Emily cried. “Tyson’s calling!”

  Kent lunged toward the phone, but didn’t take it. “Answer it on speakerphone and keep him talking. Try to find out where he is.”

  On the third ring, she took a deep breath, clicked ANSWER, and set the phone on the table. “Hello?”

  Nothing but wind, cars passing, the sound of a faint, distant voice.

  “Hello? Tyson?”

  On his own phone, Kent punched out the department number, hoping they could trace Tyson’s call.

  “Hello?” Emily said louder. “Tyson?”

  There was no answer. She turned up the volume. “Tyson?” she yelled.

  “Is it an accidental call?” Barbara asked.

  They listened to the voices . . . st
ill faint . . . still distant. Was that a girl screaming . . . crying . . . ?

  “Oh, dear God, help us,” Barbara whispered.

  Kent picked up the phone, took it off speaker, and listened. “I hear a man’s voice, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. He sounds a long way away.”

  He muted the call, held Emily’s phone to one ear, and with the other, brought his own phone to his mouth. “Madge, Kent Harlan. I need a trace of this cell phone number.” He read Tyson’s number from the screen on Emily’s phone. “Can you get a GPS fix on it?”

  The air in the hotel room seemed thin, and perspiration coated his face as he waited. Finally, she spoke. “It looks like the phone is at the East Lake MARTA Station, or at least in that area.”

  “Thanks. Do me a favor and get some units dispatched to that area. And let Andy know this is our guy.”

  Kent cut the call off. “I’m going there now.”

  “What if he realizes what’s happened and gets on the phone?”

  “Then I’ll talk to him.”

  “But he’s expecting to talk to me,” she said. “Let me go with you. If he gets back on the phone, I can talk to him.”

  Kent hesitated, looking at Barbara.

  “Whatever we do, we have to hurry!” she cried. “He’s going to kill them! Come on, we’ll all go.”

  Kent heard sirens over the phone line. The police were already approaching! Someone else must have called before him. “All right, come on.”

  They raced out to his car. Emily got in the backseat. They put Tyson’s call back on speakerphone, with the phone muted, as they flew to the area, the blue light in Kent’s grill flashing. Kent called Andy and filled him in.

  Emily and Barbara listened to Tyson’s call, trying to make out the voices and the sounds around them. The sirens had stopped. “It doesn’t sound like they’re in a train station,” Emily told Kent. “It sounds like they’re outside.”

  They heard the girl’s distant screaming again, the whoop of celebration.

  But they didn’t hear Lance.

  Chapter 52

  Has the phone moved?” Kent yelled into his cell as he flew toward Decatur.

  “No,” his phone company contact said. “It hasn’t moved since we first located it.”

  “Let me know if it moves one inch.” He glanced at Emily in his rearview mirror. “Anything changed?”

  “No. We can still hear a girl screaming,” Barbara said. “Kent, please hurry!”

  The radio crackled. “ . . . reported disturbance at Howard Avenue and Paden Circle, across from East Lake MARTA . . .”

  “That’s it!” Barbara cried.

  Kent grabbed the mike and radioed the dispatcher to repeat the call.

  “Before your call, there was another call about a man holding a woman hostage at the Decatur water tower across from the East Lake MARTA.”

  “The water tower! That’s our suspect,” Kent said into the radio. “Is he on the tower?”

  “We’re not sure yet. Units just arrived at the scene.”

  He heard her transmission to the officer who’d arrived there first. Static again, then: “There are three people on the tower.”

  “Lance is up there!” Barbara shouted. “God, please!”

  As they approached the MARTA station, Kent saw police cars flashing blue strobes. Mood lights illuminated the water tower with the name DECATUR shining in big block letters. There was Barbara’s car.

  Into his radio, Kent said, “We need some snipers here as fast as you can get them to us. This guy is holding two people hostage, and we have to assume he’s armed. And get this highway blocked off.” He slowed at the MARTA station. “Get out, both of you. Wait at the train station. I can’t take you there with me.”

  Barbara and Emily didn’t argue. They jumped out, both looking across the lanes of traffic at the tower.

  “Go inside,” he said. “Hurry.”

  When they headed inside, he crossed the lanes of traffic and pulled up to the tower. He left his headlights on, adding to the others shining on the tower.

  Victorious whoops echoed down as Tyson leaned against the rail, arms raised. Suddenly there was a gunshot.

  Kent dropped to the ground behind his car door, straining to see if Lance was still standing.

  Chapter 53

  Lance wished he knew how many bullets Tyson had had in his chamber when he’d started shooting. So far he’d shot three times, and he was getting crazier. The spotlights the police shone on them blinded them, but the blue lights below gave Lance some hope. Maybe they could stop Tyson, force him to let them down.

  Tyson jumped from foot to foot like a boxer in the ring. He’d probably gone days without sleep — ever since he’d murdered his parents — and now the drugs and the delusion mingled in a frightening brand of insanity.

  But Lance’s mind was clear. If he could just think . . . be smart. Play into Tyson’s delusions.

  “We’re on TV, baby,” Tyson said. “Those are spotlights. They’re filming me. I’m a star.”

  “You’ll be famous,” Lance agreed. “The guy who scaled the tower. The guy who conquered it.”

  “Got that right!” Tyson shouted, then whooped again. “I could fly. Wouldn’t they love that, on live television? If I stepped up here on the rail and spread out my wings, and just launched myself on the wind?”

  Lance thought of bringing him back to reality, telling him that he didn’t have wings, but Tyson’s delusions might be their only hope. Lance’s mouth was dry. “You could get your own reality show. You’d have fans all over the world.”

  A red dot appeared on Tyson’s chest, moving around in a tiny circle. A light like a laser . . .

  Lance looked at the police cars clustered below them, but couldn’t see the origin of the red light, cutting in a straight line through the blinding light of the spotlight.

  He’d seen it in movies. The lasers of high-tech gun sights. They were going to shoot Tyson.

  He felt weak, but he had to be strong. He had to move himself and April away from Tyson.

  As Tyson leaned on the rail, his arms spread as he screamed a victory whoop. Lance slipped behind him and got between Tyson and April.

  He took a step to the side, another, putting two feet between them, three feet, pushing April to move away . . . slowly, so Tyson wouldn’t react.

  Suddenly, Tyson noticed the light on his chest. He tried to sweep it away like a bug. Then his face changed as he realized what it was. He let out an enraged scream that sounded like a tortured vulture.

  He lunged toward Lance, grabbed him, and jerked him in front of him. “You kill me, you kill him!” he screamed down. “You hear me?”

  Lance prayed that they would hear him, that they could see clearly, that no rookie cop, in the excitement of the moment, would make a mistake. He heard a bullhorn and a familiar voice. “Jack Tyson, this is Detective Kent Harlan. Let me come up and talk to you.”

  Relief and dread deflated Lance.

  “No need!” Tyson screamed down. “He’s coming down to you!” He shoved Lance, but Lance gasped and caught himself on the rail.

  And then he saw the red dot, dancing around on his own chest now. Tyson pushed Lance against the rail, crowding him from behind, his breath hot on the back of Lance’s neck. “We’re on TV, baby,” Tyson said into his ear. “I can let you fly first. Right over the edge. And then I’ll be right behind you.”

  “No, Tyson,” Lance said. “I can’t fly. I don’t have what you have. I’ll hit the ground like your father.”

  “That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Tyson whispered into his ear. “Everything is perfect. Emily will see it all on TV.”

  “I don’t know what she did to you,” Lance said, his voice wobbling. “But you’ve shown her. You have. You’ve really gotten the best of her.”

  Tyson shoved him harder against the rail, the gun barrel pressed into his back. Was he going to push him over? That red spot moved up Lance’s chest. He couldn’t see it anymore
. Was it at his throat? His forehead? Were they going to kill them both?

  Lance had to do something fast. “I wanted to see you fly,” he said, forcing strength into his voice. “I wanted to watch you catch the air. I know you could do it.”

  “Oh, I could do it,” Tyson said, his voice rippling with excitement. “I could catch the air, and it would lift me up, and I’d soar through the air like Superman. I wouldn’t fall because gravity has no hold on me.”

  “If you throw me over,” Lance said, “gravity wins. You can’t let gravity win.”

  The logic of his words made Tyson hesitate. “I have to show them that I beat it. I have to show them while they’re taping.”

  “You’re on TV, man,” Lance said carefully. “They want a show. Either they win or you do.”

  Tyson let him go, whooped again, and stepped up onto the lower rail. His knees leaned against the top one, and he held out his hands in another victory shout.

  “I can fly!” he screamed. “I can defy!”

  And then he stepped up to the top rail, spread his arms like wings, and took flight.

  Chapter 54

  As Tyson plunged to the ground, April screamed. She sat on the catwalk, face buried against her knees. Lance fell to her side and put his arms around her, holding her with all his strength.

  On the bullhorn, Kent said, “Stay there, Lance. We’re coming up to get you.” Squinting, Lance saw Kent crossing the fence, running toward the ladder.

  In the blinding light he saw a fire truck moving closer, its ladder sliding up toward them. He wanted to stand, but April was limp, so he waited at her side.

  When the fire truck’s ladder was almost up to them, Kent reached the catwalk, winded from the climb, and came toward them. “Lance, April, don’t move,” he said.

  Lance waited, frozen. When Kent reached them, he helped coax April to her feet. Lance held her as rescuers surrounded her and got her onto the fire truck’s ladder.

  As Lance got on behind her, he heard his mother’s voice some distance away. He looked toward the MARTA station and saw her and Emily running across the highway. When he reached the ground, she almost crushed him as she threw her arms around him, weeping and thanking God aloud. Over her shoulder, Lance watched April. Shivering, she was staring at the body on the ground. Tyson lay face-down, lifeless.