49

HOW FUNNY, MELANIE THOUGHT, DYING DOES FEEL like you’re still alive, but there’s no white light. The next second she opened her eyes. Slice slumped to the ground, a flap opened in the top of his skull.

“Nice work,” Rommie said. “It was him or us. Motherfucker woulda bodied us for sure.”

Wearing an expression of pure disgust, Rommie flipped over Slice’s lifeless body with his shoe so it lay facedown. Melanie was shaking all over. She couldn’t believe it. She looked down at the gun clutched in her tightly bound hands, and then back at Slice. She’d just killed a man.

Seeing the state she was in, Rommie pressed his advantage. He leaned over, picked up Slice’s gun in his left hand, and leveled it at her.

“Okay, Melanie, you had your fun. Enough cops and robbers. Drop the weapon.”

Rommie looked dangerous as a stray dog in pain. Sweat poured down his forehead into his eyes. He wiped his face with his cut right hand, leaving a trail of blood. This was a side of him she’d never seen before. Unbeknownst to her, he’d already walked a mile down the path of corruption. No telling how much farther he’d go. He’d probably be willing to kill her. Dropping the gun was not a risk she could afford to take.

“No,” she said, raising it instead, to point at his chest. “You drop yours.”

The surprise in his eyes was gratifying. But then his expression changed.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “That’s my gun, isn’t it? You picked it up off the floor?”

“Yes.”

He laughed. “It’s empty!”

She studied his face, holding the gun as steady as her shaking hands would allow. Rommie didn’t look like he was lying.

“I don’t believe you. You’re bluffing,” she said, trying to sound strong despite the trembling in her legs.

“I went to the range this morning because I was due to qualify,” Rommie said. “Emptied the clip, except for one bullet, which you did me the favor of pumping into my friend’s head there.”

Holy shit, was he telling the truth?

“You would never leave your gun empty like that,” she said, definitively, as if she could will it to be so. “You would reload.” Then again, remember the fuck-up she was talking to.

“Sometimes it pays to be sloppy, kid.”

Rommie advanced on her with an evil grin, his gun pointed right at her head.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. “Get back!”

“You worried I’ll kill you, Melanie? L’il ole me? I’m flattered.”

Panting in terror, but determined, she pointed the gun at Rommie’s legs and squeezed the trigger. Right away, she knew it felt different. There was no tension. The trigger snapped back uselessly, making a hollow, clicking noise. Rommie closed the gap between them and ripped the gun from her hands. He shoved it into his waistband, then grabbed her by the throat with his blood-slicked hand, backing her straight up against Benson’s desk.

“Everything I did for you, and you try to blow me away? What kind of friendship is that? I’ll remember when the time comes to figure out what to do with you. Which is right after you tell me where those blueprints are.”

“Let go!” she choked out. “Let go, and I’ll tell you!”

He dropped his hand and backed off, and she sucked in a ragged breath. Adrenaline born of pure fear was the only thing keeping her functioning. She needed a plan. She needed more time, and a way to call the cops. But how? The blueprints were right outside. And after the wild-goose chase she’d sent him on once today, Rommie wasn’t likely to fall for another.

As if to confirm her thoughts, he raised Slice’s gun and placed it to her temple.

“Now-or you’re fucking dead in five seconds.”

“Outside, in the planter next to the door,” she blurted. Shit! She’d given up her last bargaining chip. But she had to. Rommie, like his buddy Slice, was stupid enough to kill her without getting the blueprints first. Now she’d have to come up with another way to stay alive.

His eyes narrowed. “Why there? Why should I even believe you had ’em in the first place? You fed Slice a line so he’d let you live. Who’s to say you’re not playing me now?”

“I had them, I swear. I got them out of the trap in Jed Benson’s Hummer.”

That registered. Rommie obviously knew about that trap.

“How?” he snarled. “When nobody else could figure out how to open that fricking thing?”

“Dan did it.”

“O’Reilly.” He nodded. “But you stashed them in a planter? Ohh, I get it. You want to go outside. This is all a goddamn scam, isn’t it, Melanie? I take you outside to get the plans. You make a scene on the street. Start screaming or something. And somebody calls the cops. You must think I’m pretty fucking stupid.”

He jammed the barrel of the gun hard against the side of her head, making her wince. But still, she’d heard it. She’d heard her opportunity, clear as a bell, and it gave her hope. He had the gun, but she could outwit him. She had to. There was no other choice.

With the gun pressed to her head, she managed to feign a shrug of indifference. “If you don’t believe me, make me stay here, and you go check it out.”

Rommie cast her a savage look, but her playacting had worked. He relaxed and backed off a step, keeping the gun leveled at her, albeit with visible effort. She could tell he was in pain.

“This better fucking be straight.”

“It is.”

“The upper floors are sealed off, you know. The only way out is past me,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere, Rommie.”

“I come back and a fucking hair on your head moved, you’re dead.”

“I understand.”

He backed away, keeping his gun trained on her until he reached the hallway, then turned and made rapidly for the basement door.

As his footsteps receded down the hallway, Melanie hurried over to the desk and dropped to her knees. Heart pounding, she retrieved her cell phone from under the desk where Slice had thrown it, what seemed like a lifetime ago. It was a lifetime ago-Slice’s lifetime. She glanced at his stiffening corpse, lying inert on the floor like some grisly piece of debris, surrounded now by a shiny, dark pool of blood. She wouldn’t let herself think about what had happened, what was still happening. Not now, or she’d fall apart. She had to get herself out of here, so she could live, so she could see her daughter again. Tiny baby girl, nena preciosa. Get home to Maya, then think about everything else. She’d have plenty of time later to come to terms with it all. She’d have the rest of her life.

Clutching the phone in her bound hands, she turned it on. She dialed Dan O’Reilly’s pager number as fast as her thumb would move, the whole time thinking she might just be calling another calamity down upon herself. But even if Dan was bad, wouldn’t he save her life? She just couldn’t believe that their whole relationship-everything she’d read in his eyes, the things he’d said, that kiss-was all an elaborate act. Anyway, she was running low on options. At the prompt she punched in the numbers for the town house’s address, followed by the code she and Dan had come up with. Lucky seven, he’d said. It damn well better be. Then she turned off the phone, threw it back under the desk, and hurried to the exact spot where she’d been standing when Rommie left the room.

ROMMIE CAME BACK CARRYING THE RED TUBE. He hurried over to Jed’s desk, pried off the lid, and spread the blueprints on the marred surface.

She took a step closer, and he spun around with lightning reflexes, raising his gun.

“Stay away, Melanie. Now that I have these, I’ll blow your fucking brains out if you mess with me!” His eyes were deadly. He wasn’t bluffing. She backed off a step.

“I was just curious about the trap.”

“Yeah, well, curiosity killed the prosecutor,” he said, breathing hard, still sweating profusely. He gestured with the gun to a spot right beside the desk. “Get over here where I can keep an eye on you.”