DIVA (45 page)

An infinitesimal change in his expression told her she’d scored a hit.

Then his face clenched in a scowl and his neck corded. “We won’t be playing any duets now and you know it. You think I’m stupid?”

“No, Barry. I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re very smart.”

“You got that right. Too smart to fall for any more of your fucking lies. You fooled me once with that bullshit about fixing your flute with that fucking screwdriver. And then you stabbed me. You don’t think the cops are going to let me out of here alive, do you?”

“We will if you put down the gun,” Kelly said. “Put the gun down and everything will be fine.”

He laughed, a raucous braying sound that filled the room. “Listen to Little Miss Robo-Cop, thinks she’s gonna take me in by herself.” His gaze flicked to Kelly. “That what you think, Officer O’Neil?”

Belinda gasped. How did he know Kelly’s name?

“I think you don’t give a damn about anyone but yourself,” Kelly said, her voice tense and shrill and full of determination.

“Shut up! Just ‘cuz you got a gun doesn’t give you the right to put me down. You want to shoot me? Go ahead. My finger’s on the trigger and this Beretta’s got a real light pull. You know what that means, Officer O’Neil? You shoot me, my finger hits the trigger and boom. Belinda’s dead. Stop running your mouth or I’ll shoot you.”

“Barry,” she said, desperate to distract him, “remember the piece you played on my piano that day when I came into the studio?”

“Sure. The Beethoven sonata. I played it for my Boston Conservatory audition. Not well enough to get accepted, though. Back then I couldn’t do anything well enough.” His lips twisted into a ferocious smile, the smile of a wolf about to pounce on its prey. “But now I can. Ask those cops out there. They’ll tell you how good I am. The ones that are still talking.”

The ones that are still talking
.

She dug her nails into her arm. Was Frank dead?

Icy chills skittered down her neck. She had to keep him talking, had to keep him focused on music. Not killing cops. Or her.

“I thought your piano playing was quite fine—”

“Shut up! Don’t feed me compliments thinking it’ll get you out of here. It won’t.”

“I’m not trying to get out of here, Barry. I’m trying to talk to you. This morning you asked me what I wanted. Why don’t you tell me what
you
want.”

He studied her silently, his eyes cold and merciless. “Here’s what I
used to
want, Belinda. I wanted you to like me. Back in high school, Rachel introduced us after a concert and you blew me off like I was nothing. You were the star even then, principal flute of the best high school orchestra in the state. Fifteen years old and you made the others sound like fifth graders.”

Back in high school
. Fear jolted her like an electric current.

“I’m sorry, Barry, but I don’t remember meeting you.”

“You blew me off in London, too. Belinda Scully didn’t need a driver.” An ugly smile parted his rubbery-red lips. “The accident changed that though. That got your attention.” His gaze shifted to Kelly. “Don’t shake your head, bitch. I should shoot you—”

“No, no, no! You don’t have to shoot anyone, Barry. Let Kelly go. She can leave her gun here and walk out the door and you and I can talk privately—”

“No.” Kelly’s grim raspy voice. “I’m not going anywhere until he puts down the gun. I’m not leaving this room until Belinda walks out of here safe and sound.”

Another braying laugh from the monster. “Hoo-eee, this little gal is a spitfire! Wish I’d met you sooner, Officer O’Neil. We could have had fun. Except for the fact that I’ve been in love with Belinda forever. Too bad Belinda didn’t reciprocate.”

He raised the lethal-looking gun and aimed it at her heart.

“Please don’t point that gun at me, Barry. You wouldn’t do that if you loved me.”

His expression grew thoughtful, a ruminative expression that morphed into anger. “It’s for your own good. That’s what Daddy-O used to say when he beat me. It’s for your own good, boy.”

Her fingernails clawed her forearms. She couldn’t keep this up much longer. “Barry, this morning you wanted me to kiss you goodbye.” She forced herself to smile, forced herself to look him in the eye. “Will you let Kelly go if I kiss you?”

Bile rose in her throat, her body revolting at the thought of those lips on her mouth.

“Now there’s an idea.” A big wolfish grin. “I like that, Belinda. You want to kiss me? Great.”

Her heart exploded in a paroxysm of fear and revulsion.

Kiss the monster? Feel that disgusting tongue inside her mouth again? Could she make herself do it? But if Kelly got away, she could get help.

“Let Kelly go first. Then we’ll have some privacy so I can . . .” She steeled herself. “So I can kiss you the way you deserve to be kissed.”

His face froze, a death mask of rage. “Kelly’s not going anywhere. Get on your knees, Belinda. Forget playing kissy-face. It’s time you kissed another part of my anatomy.”

_____

Frank burst from the walkway into the hospital corridor and stopped, shocked at the carnage. Warren Wood was down. Larry Nixon was down.

His gut plummeted like an elevator with cut cables. Holding his SIG in front of him, he advanced down the corridor. Warren lay on the floor in a pool of blood, eyes vacant and staring, a bullet hole between them.

But Nixon was alive. His eyes blinked shut. Slowly opened. Nixon saw him, and his mouth opened, but no sound came out, his tongue thrusting between his lips. Frank knelt down beside him. Saw the entry wound in the side of his head. Saw Nixon’s eyes start to glaze over.

“Took my gun,” Nixon gasped. “I think he got Sam, too.”

“Don’t try to talk. Otis is coming. He’ll help you.”

He rose. Took two strides. Flattened his back to the wall.

Peeked around the corner. Near the door to Belinda’s room, Sam Wallace lay on the floor. Blood seeped from his neck.

Belinda’s last line of defense. Fear clawed his throat.

He tried to get his breath. Forced air from his lungs. Inhaled.

The corridor was silent, a terrible eerie stillness, as if this were some post-apocalyptic world where everyone had died.

He crept down the hall to Sam. Saw the head wound and the vacant eyes. Sam was gone. His shirt clung to his back, soaked with sweat. Gripping the SIG in both hands, he inched closer to Belinda’s suite.

His heart slammed his ribs so hard he could almost hear it.

The door to the anteroom was open.

“Don’t do it, Belinda. He’ll kill us both.”

The hackles rose on his neck. Kelly’s voice, shrill with panic.

Kelly was alive, and so was Belinda. But Stoltz was with them.

He edged into the anteroom. Bloody footprints on the carpet.

Straight ahead of him, the door to Belinda’s room was ajar.

“Don’t pay any attention to Little Miss Robo-cop, Belinda. Do what I tell you.”

Stoltz. And Stoltz had a gun. A meat-cleaver of dread chopped his gut.

The carpet masked the sound of his footsteps as he inched to the door. Put his eye to the opening. The sight fried his brain.

He closed his eyes. Opened them. Saw the same horrific scene. Kelly, eyes wide, face frozen in a feral expression, arms raised in front of her. Holding her Glock in both hands. Aimed at someone he couldn’t see.

Stoltz. Armed and dangerous and bent on revenge.

The door wasn’t open wide enough for him to see Belinda. Or Stoltz.

But it wasn’t hard to picture the scene. Kelly had her gun on Stoltz. And Stoltz had his gun on Belinda. Stalemate. Unless he did something.

Holding the SIG in his right hand, he put his left palm against the door.

Willing Kelly to notice and hoping Stoltz wouldn’t, he gave the door a tiny shove. The door opened another inch. Then another. And Kelly saw it!

She didn’t look his way, but he could tell by the way her jaw muscles bunched. Now he could see Stoltz, the right half of him anyway.

His back was to the door, feet spread, legs braced. Holding a Beretta fitted with a silencer. Aimed at Belinda’s head. He could only see part of her. The part he could see was kneeling on the floor, facing Stoltz.

He waggled his fingers to attract Kelly’s attention. Then, in rapid succession, he held up three fingers—one, two, three—then motioned downward with his hand.
One, two, three, drop to the floor
.

Kelly blinked twice. Two deliberate strokes of her eyelids.

His heart surged. Kelly got it. But Belinda didn’t know he was here. Kelly would know enough to drop to the floor when he fired, but Belinda wouldn’t. If he fired at Stoltz, he might hit her.

“Let’s go, Belinda,” Stoltz said. “You asked me what I wanted and I told you. Suck my dick, bitch. That’s what you get for stabbing me.”

The air left his lungs as if sucked out by a vacuum cleaner.

Situation critical.

He raised his left hand and waggled his fingers at Kelly.

He held up one finger. Two fingers. Three.

Kelly dropped to the floor and he burst into the room.

“Police! Drop the gun!”

Stoltz whirled, arms extended, both hands clamped on the Beretta. “Motherfuck—”

He shot Stoltz in the face.

Inside the small hospital room the blast was deafening. Time stretched out like a slow-motion video, a kaleidoscope of sounds and images.

Belinda eyes widened. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

In a reflex motion Stoltz threw up his hands. A shot from his Beretta pierced the ceiling. Blood spurted from the hole in his forehead.

But he stayed on his feet, teeth bared like a cornered animal. A guttural sound came from his mouth.

More sounds. Belinda’s high-pitched wail.

More images. Kelly prone on the floor, gripping her Glock.

Stoltz’s bloody hairless face.

Then, impossibly, Stoltz staggered toward him, hands outstretched, fingers like claws, eyes fixed on him. His face contorted with fury and hate.

Frank aimed at his heart and pulled the trigger.

Stoltz blinked, shuddered, and collapsed on the floor.

CHAPTER 48

“It was a righteous shoot, Frank. No question.” Vobitch rattled the ice in his rocks glass, stone-faced as Mount Rushmore, gray eyes full of certainty.

He nodded, chewing a mouthful of cheeseburger. They were holed up in a dim-lit pub in Kenner, two towns away from the carnage at City Hospital.

“How’d it go with IAD?” Vobitch asked.

After the IAD interview, Vobitch had met him outside in the hall and said, “Come on, Frank, I’m taking you out for a pop.”

Twenty feet from their booth, a TV set above the bar blared news of the New Orleans Massacre. Frank ignored it and mopped his cheeseburger in some catsup. Under stress, his appetite vanished, but now he was ravenous.

He hadn’t eaten all day, the longest day of his life. But he was alive. Kelly was alive. Belinda was alive. And Stoltz was dead. The buzz-saw that had clawed his gut for the last twelve hours had subsided.

Vobitch raked fingers through his silvery mane of hair, outrage replacing the certainty in his eyes. “What? Did they lean on you? I’ll blast those fuckheads—”

“It went okay. I’ve been through this before. In Boston.”

Boston had been much worse. The bad guy died, but so had an innocent young girl. That interview had been a nightmare. Hard eyes, probing questions, police union and IAD tape-recorders running. He’d sat there for an hour picturing the dead girl, pain gnawing his gut.

He gulped some ice water, unable to quench his terrible thirst. “They put me on paid administrative leave and told me to write my report ASAP.”

“You’re okay with this, right?” Vobitch said, pressing him.

Touched, he studied the older man, not old enough to be his father, but old enough to express his concern in a fatherly way. Vobitch hadn’t brought him here to be sociable. It was a gesture of solidarity:
You did the right thing, and I’m behind you a hundred percent.

Had Judge Salvatore Renzi heard about the massacre, he wondered.

“I just wish we got Stoltz sooner,” he said. “He killed a lot of people, wounded a lot more. He did a lot of damage.”

Vobitch rattled the ice in his glass at the waitress, signaling for another round. “Hey, the guy was a fuckin' maniac. We get into the military data base, we’ll probably find out he was a Green Beret or something. He had a fuckin’ arsenal! SWAT found a crossbow in that house. Know what else they found?”

Overcome by exhaustion, he shook his head, too weary for words.

“A rabbit.”

He studied his boss’s face to see if he was joking. Vobitch often did that in tense situations to put people at ease. “A live rabbit?”

“Yeah. In a cage, like it was his pet or some fuckin’ thing.” Vobitch’s lips formed a smile. “When one of the SWAT guys tried to take the rabbit out of the cage it bit him.”

Laughter burst from his mouth. For a moment Vobitch stared at him. Then Vobitch started laughing too, thunderous gut-shaking guffaws. Nervous laughter after the unbearable tension.

“The rabbit,” Frank said, shaking with laughter. “The rabbit bit him?”

Vobitch nodded. He couldn’t stop laughing either.

The waitress brought their drinks—Dewars on the rocks for Vobitch, a Heineken for Frank—and hustled back to the bar, couldn’t get away from her weirdo-customers fast enough.

Their laughter, a welcome release from the stress, finally subsided. Frank set aside his plate, all traces of cheeseburger gone. Now that he’d eaten he wanted to go home and sleep for twenty-four hours. Make that a week. He yawned, a prodigious crack-your-jaw yawn, exhausted by the day’s frantic action and bone-crushing tension.

A ring-tone sounded. Vobitch took out his cell phone and answered, then listened, poker-faced.

Emotionally drained, Frank leaned back against the padded seat. Kelly’s father and oldest brother had flown in from Chicago. He was glad the cops in her family had come down to support her, but that meant he wouldn’t see her till Monday. Seventy-two interminable hours.