“So you lied before when you said Jed held out on Slice. You were covering for Nell. Jed never held out. You set him up.”

“He deserved it, the bastard. Treating me like a fucking lackey. Jesus, I can’t believe it. Nell, that double-crossing bitch!” He kicked the desk furiously, several times in rapid succession.

“Any woman who would condone the killing of her own daughter…”

“Of course she didn’t condone killing Amanda. She didn’t know. I even tried to avoid it because I knew it would upset Nell.” He drew a sharp breath. “Oh, my God, that’s it, that’s it! That’s got to be it. She must’ve heard about Amanda. She’s upset with me. That’s why she ran. I have to find her.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Melanie said.

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody could locate Nell to break the news of Amanda’s death. So when I was driving back to town before, I called her hotel. They told me she’d checked out. The concierge had booked her a ticket to Switzerland. He booked it yesterday. Before Amanda was killed.”

Rommie’s face crumpled.

“Switzerland. Beyond the reach of any extradition treaty,” Melanie said.

Rommie shook his head in disbelief, looking to Melanie as if she could explain this terrible betrayal. He had a wild glint in his eyes that made her think she’d better get out of the room fast. She started to move toward the door.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he yelled, raising his gun once again.

50

THE NEXT MOMENT DAN AND THREE OTHER AGENTS burst into the room, weapons drawn. Dan body-slammed Rommie, who crashed to the floor, a flash of light and a deafening report issuing from the barrel of his gun. Seconds later chunks of plaster rained down from the ceiling.

Dan landed on him and managed to yank the gun from Rommie’s injured hand, throwing it clear. They somersaulted over Slice’s corpse, punching at each other furiously, until Dan ended up on top and smashed Rommie hard with the butt of his own gun. Rommie reeled back, stunned. Dan grabbed Rommie’s arms, wrenching them savagely, flipping him over, and handcuffing him. Rommie exhaled in defeat, his entire body deflating, seeming smaller, as if his very flesh understood it was all over. Two of the agents pulled him to his feet. He staggered between them, his eyes hollow with shock, as they dragged him toward the door. Melanie almost felt sorry for him. The third agent, gun still drawn, went to examine the contents of the secret room.

Dan knelt and checked Slice’s pulse, then stood up and looked at Melanie. Her face and dress were spattered with blood.

“I shot Slice,” she confessed, and started to shake again from head to toe.

“You killed him?” He looked at her with a mix of concern and admiration.

“Yes.” Tears welled and brimmed over, rolling down her cheeks. Dan came over and wiped them away with his fingers.

“First off,” he said, turning over her hands to inspect the duct tape, “you need to understand you did the world a huge favor. That little prick was a stone-cold killer. He wasn’t ever gonna stop. You gotta look at it like what you did saved lives.”

“Okay,” she said, still shaking violently.

“I mean, think about how many murders he had left in him. And if you hadn’ta stopped him tonight, the next one would’ve been you. Hear what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

He picked at the tape with his fingernail, then tugged. It made a loud ripping sound as he unwound it from her wrists. She shook her hands out, feeling the warm blood rush back into her tingling fingers.

“That brings me to my second point,” Dan said. “You oughta be proud as shit you made it through this alive. I know I’m proud of you. Between this piece of garbage on the floor and that psycho Ramirez, most of the cops and agents I know would’ve folded. But not you. You beat ’em. You know what that makes you?”

“What?” she asked, voice tremulous, looking up at him with huge eyes.

He brushed her hair back off her face. “You’re a survivor. You’re a fucking survivor. That’s what you should carry around with you for the rest of your life. If you ever find yourself in a tight spot again, you think back on today and you say, ‘I took out Slice. A killer with fucking twenty bodies on him, and I took him out. I’m a survivor.’ That’s what you say, you hear me?”

“Yes. I know you’re right, but-”

“No buts. I understand you didn’t sign up for gunplay. That’s supposed to be my end of the operation. But it was life or death in there. You had no choice. Do you hear me?” He grasped her chin, looking intently into her eyes.

“Yes. Thank you. That helps,” she said, taking a deep breath.

He let her go and walked over to where Sophie lay, behind the desk, still unconscious.

“Is she okay?” Melanie asked, rushing to kneel beside him. “She’s my friend. The architect I told you about.”

“Out cold, but her pulse is strong. What happened to her?”

“Apparently they drugged her to get her over here. I don’t know what they gave her, but I’m concerned about an overdose.”

“Don’t worry. When people OD, it happens right away. They foam at the mouth and stop breathing. She’s fine, she’s just knocked out. She’ll wake up with a headache, that’s all.”

The other agent emerged from inside the secret room. “Empty,” he said, “but that’s some fucking trap.”

“Empty?” Dan asked, springing to his feet. “My snitch told me Benson had two hundred keys stashed in there!”

“Apparently Nell Benson stole it,” Melanie explained.

“What?”

“Long story.”

Dan laughed. “You had quite an afternoon. I can’t wait to hear the details.” He turned to the other agent. “Call an ambulance for the woman on the floor, and notify the ME to come get this piece of garbage.”

“Yup, I’m on it,” the agent said.

Melanie stood up. “Where’s Randall?” she asked Dan guardedly, not sure how much he knew.

“I took him over to Internal Affairs and left him there.”

“Oh.” She nodded with understanding.

“You knew?” Dan asked sharply.

“I suspected. Well, yes, after this afternoon, I knew for sure. Rommie confirmed it. I’m really sorry. It must be hard for you,” she said, reading the pain in Dan’s eyes.

“People fucking suck.”

“That’s exactly what I said when I heard about it. But Randall’s a good man at heart. I want him to come out of this okay. What’ll happen next, do you know?”

He shrugged. “I put in a word for him. I owed him that much, all we been through together, but I don’t give a shit after that. With everything he was into, he’s dead to me,” he said bitterly.

“Come on now, I know you feel let down. But it sounds like Randall was up against a lot. Ramirez had him over a barrel.”

“Don’t make excuses for him,” Dan said, shaking his head with disgust. “So he was worried about his job and his pension. So what? It all comes down to money. Same shit that brought down every dirty cop from the beginning of time. My old man told me from when I was a kid, on this job you face temptation a hundred times a day. If you ever once let it be a question in your mind, you’re fucked.”

“Well, I hope after things calm down, you’ll think it over and maybe give Randall another chance. I have to admit, though, I’m relieved at your attitude. I was having some doubts about you, you know.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Things you knew that you shouldn’t have. The way you opened the Road Runner trap in, like, sixty seconds. That struck me as pretty far-fetched.”

“Yeah, you’re right. A guy with my IQ cracking the code that fast? No way.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“What are you saying? You didn’t open the trap?”

“Bigga opened it. He found out the code.”

“So you lied to me.”

“You could say that-a white lie, though. Look, Bigga was my snitch. The one you’ve been asking about? That was him. I mean, he was a good snitch back in the day, but then he went south. Participated in a murder. Wouldn’t return my beeps. It didn’t look too good. If you knew I caught him, you would’ve told me to lock him up on the spot, right?”