Elise did as DeeDee instructed. The detective knelt down and felt the handbag until she located the gun, then stood up. “We’re okay,” she told Duncan.

“What about the secretary?” he asked.

“Handcuffed to the car door,” DeeDee replied. “He’s not going anywhere. I’ve called for backup.”

“Backup? How long ago?”

“What?”

“How long ago?”

“Uh, just before I ran up here. Why?”

“Shit!” he hissed.

Elise took a step forward. “Duncan, I-”

“Shut up! You’ve got nothing to say that I want to hear, Mrs. Laird. The best thing you ever did for me, the only thing, is provide enough distraction for me to get to this piece of shit.” He ground the barrel of the pistol against Savich’s temple. “How does your gun hand feel now, Savich?”

Despite the pain he must be feeling, Savich’s voice was remarkably calm. “Is this about Meyer Napoli? If so, you’ve got a problem. Nobody’s going to believe Elise, you know. She’ll make an unreliable witness.”

“Yeah, I learned that the hard way,” Duncan said, shooting her a look of pure hatred.

“So you’re wasting your time,” Savich said.

“Hell if I am.”

“Very well.” He sighed with resignation. “Arrest me. I’ll spend the night in the comfort of the hospital.”

“Un-unh,” Duncan said. “I didn’t come here to arrest you. I came to get a confession, and I’m not leaving without it.” He pulled back the hammer on his revolver.

Savich laughed. “Oh, I’m scared.”

“Your confession or your brains, Savich. You get to choose, and there’s no door number three.”

“Duncan,” DeeDee said with uncertainty, “what are you doing?”

“Did I stutter? I’m going to get a confession from him. Either that, or it’s going to get messy in here.”

“You’d never pull that trigger, Hatcher,” Savich said with infuriating condescension. “We both know that.”

Duncan fired at the carafe on the edge of the desk, shattering the crystal into a thousand shards. Water splashed across the desk and onto the floor. Drops splattered on Savich’s face. In the small office, the.357 just as well could have been a cannon. The deafening blast caused a concussion in the room.

DeeDee recoiled, but she kept her pistol aimed at Elise. “What the hell?” she shouted. “Wait for backup, Duncan. They’ll be here soon. We’ll take him in, we’ll-”

“If you’ve got no stomach for this, DeeDee, you can leave and take Mrs. Laird with you.” His eyes and his pistol were still trained on Savich. “This is between him and me. I won’t be made a fool of again. Not by her, not by her husband, and for goddamn sure not by you.” On the last word, he poked the pistol barrel against Savich’s skull, bumping it against the bone. “Give it up, Savich. Freddy Morris. Andre Bonnet. Chet Rollins. Gordon Ballew. Sound familiar?”

“Fuck you.”

Duncan fired the pistol again, this time at the cabinet across the room, shattering the glass door. Then he shot out the globe of a wall sconce. The acrid smell of cordite filled the office. The noise was unbearable, but DeeDee could be heard above the reverberation, yelling, “Duncan, stop this! This isn’t the way! You’ve lost your head over her! This is about her. You’re angry over her.”

He paid no attention. Bending down, he placed his lips directly above Savich’s ear. “Tell me what I want to hear or you’re going to die.”

“You would never do it.”

They all heard the wail of sirens approaching, but the sound didn’t deter Duncan.

“Are you sure about that, Savich? Are you willing to bet your life on it? ’Cause that’s what you’re doing. I’ve got two bullets left. Count ’em. Two.”

“Duncan, for God’s sake,” DeeDee pleaded. “Don’t do it! You’ll ruin your career. Everything. Your life.”

“My life comes down to this.” He cast a bitter glance toward Elise. “I’ve got nothing to lose. Not anymore.” He dug the pistol into Savich’s temple. “Is this the way you killed Freddy Morris? Did he stink of fear the way you do?”

“I didn’t-”

Before he even completed the denial, Duncan fired the pistol into the desk. The wood splintered, leaving a jagged hole inches from Savich’s nose. “That leaves one.”

“You’re boring me, Hatcher,” Savich replied drolly.

“Tell me you did it, or your brain is mist!” Duncan yelled.

“Duncan, no!”

“DeeDee, I told you-”

“You can’t do this.”

“Yes, I can. I can kill him. Easy.”

“No.” DeeDee’s voice cracked with desperation as she whipped her pistol away from Elise and aimed it at Duncan. “I won’t let you.”

“What are you-”

“Drop your weapon, Duncan!”

“You wouldn’t-”

“Oh yes, I would.”

He stared at her aghast. “You’d shoot me?”

“I swear I will.”

The sirens grew louder. Tires screeched. Car doors slammed. Yet inside the office, time seemed to stand still.

“I can’t let him go,” Duncan said.

“For the last time, drop your weapon.”

“You’ll have to shoot me first.”

“Don’t make me do this,” DeeDee cried, tears in her voice.

“I’m gonna take this bastard.”

“Drop it, Duncan!”

“No freaking way.”

“Duncan, don’t!” DeeDee shouted.

“See you in hell, Savich.”

“All right, all right,” Savich screamed. “I…I did Morris.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than several uniformed officers, led by Detective Worley, barged into the room. “Shame on you, Savich. I think that means you’re in a world of hurt.”

The uniformed officers eddied around the desk and surrounded the criminal. Duncan tucked his pistol into his waistband, saying, “He needs an ambulance.” Then he rushed across the room to Elise and wrapped his arms around her. “Are you all right?”

She leaned against him and nodded shakily. “I didn’t expect him to pull a gun on me.”

“Christ, I should never have agreed to let you do this. If I’d been a few seconds later-”

She placed her fingers on his lips, so he wouldn’t complete the thought. “But you weren’t. I knew you’d be here.”

He hugged her tighter, then let her go abruptly and rounded on Worley. “You took fucking long enough! DeeDee was about to shoot me, and I was afraid she would while I was stalling and running out of bullets.”

“Hey, there was traffic,” Worley said defensively. “I was standing by, waiting for her call, just like you told me to do.”

DeeDee was looking at all of them with astonishment. But especially at Duncan. “Just like you told him to do? When? What the hell’s he talking about? What’s going on?”

Worley shifted his toothpick and said, “She’s ticked, all right. Have fun explaining, Dunk. I gotta follow up on that search warrant you asked for. Should be ready soon.” He stepped out of the office to use his cell phone.

DeeDee hadn’t taken her eyes off Duncan. “When did you call him?”

“From my house when I picked up the six-shooter.”

“You never intended to pull this off, just the two of us?”

He shook his head. “No, but I wanted you to think so.”

“Why?”

“In order for Savich to be convinced that I’d gone over the edge, you had to be convinced I had.”

“So you used me.”

“I relied on your professional integrity and adherence to the rules.”

“That sounds like bullshit.”

“It is bullshit,” he admitted. “I used you.”

“How could you not trust me?”

“But I did, DeeDee. I trusted you to do the right thing, and you did. I knew you’d call for backup. I had Worley standing by, ready to roll.”

She nodded toward Elise. “What about her?”

Duncan bent down and retrieved Elise’s handbag. “He searched me, but thankfully he didn’t check my bag,” she said as he withdrew a small tape recorder and passed it to DeeDee, who stared at it with bewilderment.

“My grandmother’s. But we checked it out and it works.” He turned to Elise. “I arrived in time to hear him talking about his partnership with Laird. What about Napoli?”

“That’s why he was about to kill me. He said it was more efficient to kill an eyewitness than to make a deal with one. Just like Napoli, I was a loose end he needed to tie up. It’s all on the tape.”