Terminal (A Lomax & Biggs Mystery Book 5) (22 page)

And like Cal Bernstein before him, Egan Granville locked his eyes with mine and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 58

THIS TIME IT
was different. No blood. No brain matter. No sound, except for the hollow click of an empty chamber.

Dumbfounded, Granville stared at the cold gun in his hands. He put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger a second time. Then a third.

“You’re a coward, Egan Granville,” Amanda said. “And cowards should not be permitted to go gentle into that good night. Did you really think I’d give you a loaded gun and let you take the easy way out?”

He threw the Glock across the room at her. It went wide and clattered across the floor.

“Come on, Detective,” Granville yelled as Terry picked it up. “Yours has bullets. Use it on me. You’ll be a fucking hero.”

Terry stood there stone-faced.

“What about you?” he said, tossing the suicide-by-cop challenge at me. “I’d think you’d be happy to shoot me. I heard your wife was one of the women who died.”

Whatever shred of sanity, reason, or pure police professionalism that I had left in my body snapped, and I exploded. “
You heard
?” I screamed, advancing toward him, brandishing my gun at his head.

“Mike!” It was Kilcullen.

I ignored him. “You
heard
, you worthless sack of shit? You
don’t even
know
? My wife was not
one of the women who died
. Her name was Joanie Lomax, and she was a woman who lived, and laughed, and loved, and made life worth living for everyone around her. She didn’t
die
. You murdered her, you money-grabbing weasel, as sure as if you put that gun to her head.”

“Look, I’m sorry…”

“You’re
sorry
?” I said, my breath shallow, my chest constricted, my face on fire. It was all I could do to not pull the trigger and end his miserable existence. “You got caught, and now you want me to kill you because you don’t have the balls to live with your lies? You’re right about one thing. There are millions of people out there who would have been happy to watch you blow your brains out. But I’m not one of them, and I’ll be damned if the last thing I do before I lock you up is stand here and let you turn my Joanie into just another one of your anonymous statistics. Not this time, motherfucker!”

I holstered my gun, dug into my pocket, and pulled out the letter that Big Jim had put it in my hand on Friday night. Then I turned to the camera. I no longer cared about Granville. I only cared about the hole he had left in my life, and I needed to share that emptiness with a world that would understand my loss.

“Joanie was the kind of woman who could even turn the act of dying into a labor of love, and when she died she left behind a series of letters to help me cope with her passing. I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve read them, always wishing for more. And then, two days ago, just hours before the second anniversary of her death, Joanie blindsided me. Another letter arrived.

“I had just announced to my family that I was adopting an eight-year-old girl, and my father gave me this letter that Joanie had written to help me celebrate that moment.”

I unfolded the letter, and my hands trembling, my voice unsteady, I began to read.

Dearest Mike
,

I’m of mixed emotions as I write this. Bummed like crazy, be
cause I know I have to be dead in order for it to be delivered, but thrilled out of my mind, because it means that you are about to realize a dream
.

When you and I first decided to have a baby there was a story I wanted to tell you, but I decided to wait until I got pregnant. And then, with each failure, my story, which I knew would make you laugh, became sadder and sadder
.

But now that you’re about to become a father I can finally share it with you, and the only sad part will be that I won’t be there to see your face light up when you hear it
.

Remember my Aunt Sally and Uncle Barney? Not only did my four cousins and I adore them, but so did every kid in the neighborhood. There was something magical about the way they interacted with children. Never judging, never talking down, always encouraging
.

When I was eight years old, Grandma Stockton came from Indiana and spent a week with us. That first day she walked into my bedroom where I was building some fantastic make-believe city out of blocks. She looked around and said, “Where are your dolls?
”

I was so screwed. Grandma was always sending me dolls, but I had no interest in them, and they’d go right into my closet. Sometimes I never even took them out of the box. I couldn’t lie to her, so I opened the closet, and it was like I had brought her to Barbie’s secret graveyard. She was horrified
.

She asked me why I didn’t play with them, and I said blocks were more fun. She said, “Do you want to have babies when you grow up?” I hadn’t really thought about it—I mean I was only eight—but I said sure. And Grandma said, “How do you expect to learn to be a good mommy unless you start practicing now?
”

It was probably the dumbest parenting advice ever handed down from one generation to another, but you know me. Even as a kid I did not suffer fools lightly. So I said, “Granny, do you think Uncle Barney is a good father?” Her face lit up. She had
three sons, but everyone knew Barney was her favorite. She said, “Your Uncle Barney is the best father in the world. You’d be a lucky young lady to find a husband like him
.”

I couldn’t argue with her, because everybody thought he was such a great dad, so I looked her straight in the eye and said, “Does it just come natural, or when Uncle Barney was a kid, did he practice with a bunch of stupid dolls?
”

The old girl shut up, walked out of the room, and that was the last parenting lecture she ever gave me
.

Mike, you and Uncle Barney have a lot in common. You’re warm, caring, compassionate, understanding, and trust me—I checked with your father before I agreed to marry you—when you were a kid you didn’t play with dolls either
.

Congratulations on becoming a dad. I’m sorry I can’t be there to share the joy with you, so let me share one more memory from my childhood—a quote from the world’s most quotable teddy bear, Winnie the Pooh
.

“
If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever
.”

I love you
,

Joanie

“That’s the woman you decided was worth sacrificing so you could keep filling your pockets with money you’re never going to be able to spend,” I said to Granville, folding the letter and putting it back in my pocket.

“I don’t know how many people are out there going through the same pain you put me through,” I said, “but I do this on behalf of every one of them.”

I hauled him to his feet, put his hands behind his back, and snapped the cuffs on hard.

“Egan Granville,” I said, the tears spilling over and streaming unashamedly down my cheeks, “you are under arrest for the murder of Joanellen Stockton Lomax. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…”

PART FOUR

C.T.W.

CHAPTER 59

IT HAD BEEN
a week since Diana and I last found the time or the emotional wherewithal for sex, and we were both on fire. After a quick dinner and an inexpensive but highly effective bottle of red at our favorite Italian restaurant, we passed on the manager’s offer of dessert on the house, and made a beeline for the parking lot.

As soon as I got behind the wheel, she leaned over and began kissing my neck. “You’re a cop,” she said. “Run the lights.”

“I realize we’re in a hurry, but it’s totally against the law to—”

She reached down, cupped me between my legs and began massaging with an expertise that made all protests moot.

“Fuck the law,” I said, hitting the gas.

As soon as we got home, she stuffed some cash into the babysitter’s hand and sent her on her way with the speed of a junkie scoring an eight ball. We checked on Sophie, then clawing at each other like a couple of teenagers in heat, we worked our way to the bedroom.

There’s a faded gray armchair parked on one side of the room that basically serves two purposes. It’s where I toss my clothes when I’m too tired or lazy to hang them up, and it’s Diana’s go-to spot for one of the more popular positions in the
Kama Sutra
.

As soon as I locked the door and put my gun on the dresser she unbuckled my belt, pulled my pants and shorts down to my
ankles, put one hand to my groin, and pushed me onto the chair. She was in command, and foreplay was not on her agenda.

She lifted her skirt, pulled off her panties, and mounted me. I was hard, she was wet, and I slipped inside of her effortlessly.

She dug her nails into my shoulder blades, parted my lips with her tongue, and gyrated her hips, up and down, back and forth, her body dictating the rhythm of our lovemaking and the intensity of her orgasm. I was practically done before I started, but I held on until her head and shoulders jerked back once, twice, at least five times, and her jaws clenched as she stifled the moans and screams that would have rocked the house had Sophie not been asleep in the next room.

And then came the tears. “Don’t you ever fucking do that to me again,” she said, her fists pounding hard against my chest. “Ever.”

I didn’t have to ask what
that
was. “I’m sorry. I was trying to spare you the—”

“Don’t you fucking apologize to me and then try to backpedal with an explanation. We are either in this together, or we’re not. You don’t get to decide what information you share and what information you hold back.”

“You’re right. I’m wrong. I’m sorry,” I said. “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. I want to marry you.”

“And I want to marry you, but not if you behave like an asshole.”

“Behaving like an asshole is a time-honored tradition among the men in the Lomax family,” I said, “and Big Jim has set the bar high for his two sons.”

She laughed. “I know.”

“But I promise I’ll do my best. So let me repeat the question. Diana Trantanella, will you marry me?”

The tears started to flow again, and she buried her face in my chest and sobbed. “We’ve both lost so much,” she whispered once she caught her breath and was able to speak.

Diana’s husband had died a year before Joanie. We were both aching on the night Big Jim decided that we belonged together, and although I hated to give the intrusive son of a bitch credit, it turned out he was right. Diana and I had healed one another.

“And now you’re crying because you’re afraid we’re going to lose what we have,” I said.

“No. I’m crying because we
have
what we have. We’re not losing anything.”

“So can I take that as a yes on the ‘will you marry me’ question?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”

She kissed me gently on the lips and began to undulate her hips slowly. I was still inside of her, and within seconds I caught her rhythm.

“One more apology,” I said.

“Mmmm,” she moaned.

“I always thought that when it came time to propose, I’d get down on one knee.”

She laughed. “If anyone asks,” she said as she picked up the pace, “let’s just tell them you did.”

CHAPTER 60

I WENT TO
bed that night happier than I’d been in years. As I drifted off, wrapped in Diana’s arms, reveling in my post-coital afterglow, thoughts about my impending doctor visit began to creep in, and within seconds my euphoria was shrouded by the shadow of death.

I tried to shake it off, and the best I could do was flash back to what Sophie had said the night Grandma Xiaoling died.
We all die, Mike. The best thing to do is have as much fun with your life while you can
.

Thinking back, her world view pretty much lined up with what Charlie Brock had said at the Living With Dying meeting.

“So let’s recap,” Terry said the next morning. “First you find out that you may have a life-threatening illness. Then instead of waiting for the test results, you adopt a kid, propose to your girlfriend, and now you’re worried that dying will put a major crimp on your ability to take care of them.”

“It sounds dumb the way you say it, but yeah—that about sums it up.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Terry said. “We’re going to have a sit-down with Amanda Dunbar, and from what I remember about those Chilton-Winslow annual reports there are still half a dozen targets she didn’t get around to killing yet. At a half a million a pop that could really add up for you.”

Amanda waived her right to counsel. “I have no desire to remain silent,” she said. “This company has been lying to the public for years, and it’s time to get it all out in the open.”

She then spent the next four hours with me, Terry, and Anna DeRoy from the DA’s office giving up every detail of the conspiracy to hide the truth about Ovamax, along with the names of all fourteen of the people involved in the cover-up. It included the six she’d had murdered, six more Chilton people, a senior official at the FDA, and of course, Egan Granville.

But she drew the line at helping us track down her paid assassins, Charlie Brock, Rupert Simms, and the pilot we only knew as Dahlia.

“If you’re such a champion of justice,” Anna said, “why don’t you help us bring them to trial? Don’t you think the families of the people they murdered deserve that much?”

“Nice try, counselor,” Amanda said. “Charlie, Dahlia, and Rupert will be dead soon enough, and if there’s any justice in the world, when they get to heaven Saint Peter himself will open the gates and welcome them in.”

“As long as we’re on the subject of dying,” Anna said, “my office is going to vet everything you said here today, and if it holds up, we’re going to arrest and prosecute some very prominent individuals.”

“I wish I could be around to see it, especially since I’m one of their victims,” Amanda said, rubbing a hand over her bald head. “But the odds don’t look promising.”