Backfire

His hand was shaking.

Pedal back. “Would you look at you now, Xu, no one would guess who you are. And you’ve succeeded in getting me alone. Who made you the ugliest nurse in the universe?”

Sherlock hadn’t realized her voice had risen. He moved the gun fast, shoved it against her ear. He hissed, “Keep it down. If that bodyguard of yours comes in here, I’ll blow his head off. You want him to die with you?”

She shook her head, whispered, “No, I don’t want him to die. I don’t want to die, either.”

He laughed.

“You want to know who helped me?”

She nodded at the fat bedraggled scrub nurse with coarse black hair and puffed out cheeks and smeared dark mascara looking back at her. He met her eyes in the mirror, used his nose to push aside her hair and whispered against her ear and the Beretta’s gun barrel, “No one looks at ugly people. That’s what she told me.”

“Who?”

“Crazy Charlene. She told me this getup was my best chance of killing you.”

Charlene? For a moment, Sherlock couldn’t get her brain around it. “Charlene was driving the second car out of the motel parking lot?”

He grinned at her, worked the gun barrel a bit deeper into her ear. “She found me, took care of me. She’s crazy as a loon, but the weird thing is, I like her. She’s committed. She’s got exactly two minutes to get to the roof. Then we can get this done.”

The gun in her ear hurt, but it was the fear roiling in her belly that was threatening to bleed panic into her brain. No, you can’t let fear kill you. Time, you need time.

She whispered, “Charlene is here? Did she kill Jerol Idling at the Skyline Motel?”

“Yep. That gunshot brought down the house, and so we had to move out fast. I thought my arm was going to fall off running to the car. That’s when I first thought of killing you, of watching the light go out behind your eyes. I gritted my teeth and knew before I left I’d come for you.” He shoved the Beretta in hard. She couldn’t help it; she made a small yipping sound of pain.

She didn’t look away from his face next to hers in the mirror. He was standing so close she felt his hot breath on her cheek, saw his flat, dark eyes, eyes that had watched dispassionately as he’d killed. She knew she’d see death in them if she looked closely, knew she’d see her own death. She thought of Dillon, of Sean, of a stranger walking through the bathroom door and Xu calmly shooting her. She said, “Why isn’t Charlene here wanting to kill me?”

“Charlene’s got other plans. I promised her I’d provide a nice big distraction soon so we can both take care of business.”

“Charlene won’t get near Judge Hunt.”

“Goes to show what a tiny little imagination you Feds have.” His voice lowered. “You don’t have much time, so I might let you in on it. You won the first round, I’ll admit it, but the game goes to me.”

“Why would Charlene follow you? Take care of you?”

He kept his voice low, whispered, “Charlene apologized to me for not killing you, but I didn’t mind. It meant I’d get to kill you myself. All the others, they were just business, but not you. You’re my bonus.”

Ramsey’s safe; no way can Charlene get to him. “What’s your distraction?”

“A nice big boom, like at the Fairmont, but you won’t hear it, you’ll be dead. You think Charlene’s going for that judge? Even though her brain visits Disneyland a lot of the time, Charlene realizes Judge Hunt is a no-go for now. She’s willing to let the judge lie in bed, suffer for his sins. She’s going to kill another man she blames for her son’s death, and that’s Agent Savich, your husband. Talk about hate, Charlene lives for it. I don’t think she can live without it. She seriously wants him dead.”

Sherlock’s vision blurred, and her heart stuttered. She felt Xu’s hand touch her hair. “A pity this pretty hair will be covered with your blood and your brains soon. Say good-bye to your hubby, if you want. You think Charlene’s telling him right now to say good-bye to you?”

Savich was leaning against the corridor wall, a couple dozen feet from the guards outside Ramsey’s room, speaking on his cell to Jimmy Maitland at the Hoover Building. Maitland put him on hold to connect him to the director, who wanted a status report directly from Savich. Great, Savich thought, and what am I going to say? All I can tell you, sir, is that everyone you’re worried about is still alive and at large, but there are lots of dead people, too, one of them a doctor who never hurt anyone in his life, and one a young kid who loved video games and worked with his mom in a motel.