The foyer doors were closed.
She took a deep breath and darted her way across the building, making not a sound. When she reached the far balcony stairs she paused, glancing back toward Soave and Yolie. They were in position now to climb the stairs next to the cloakroom. Yolie pointed to her own weapon to remind Des that she’d take the shot if there was one to take. Des nodded.
Then they climbed.
Happily, the balcony stairs were carpeted. Des crept her way up, up to the church’s wraparound balcony, staying low to the floor as she came out right alongside the organ. From her crouch there at the top of the aisle she couldn’t make out Mitch or the killers down there. But she could certainly hear them-the acoustics were so amazing that the clarity of their voices startled her. Mitch seemed to be doing all of the talking. Big surprise there. Some noise about a young director named Stanley Kubrick. Why on earth was he talking about Kubrick at a time like this? Because he was Mitch Berger, that’s why. Not that Danielle seemed to have the slightest idea what he was going on about. Des couldn’t blame her. Because now her doughboy was talking about hot pink Jimmy Choos.
Soave and Yolie were crouched low across the balcony from Des. Meanwhile, through the balcony windows, she could see a whole herd of cube vans parked outside. The hostage unit had arrived.
Yolie slithered her way on her stomach between two rows of seats until she reached the balcony’s center aisle. When she got there she nodded to Des. Now all three of them began inching forward on their stomachs, snaking their way row by row down to the lip of the balcony for an actual look at the situation. Slowly, Des raised her head over the top of the protective facing and…
It wasn’t pretty. Danielle was no problem. She was seated in the front row of pews, her back to the balcony. The problem was in front of her on the floor, where Mitch and Eric lay propped against the dais, Eric behind Mitch. Under Mitch, really. He was employing him as a human shield. And Mitch made for one hell of a shield. Hardly any of the thinner man’s body was exposed. Nothing but his arms. His left was wrapped around Mitch’s chest. In his right hand Eric held a knife to Mitch’s throat.
Mitch’s cell phone lay next to them on the floor, as did his smashed tape recorder.
Mitch was still doing the talking. Going on about Allison Mapes now. How she’d spent the night with him last night. Say what? How she’d told him that she and Eric had been lovers back when Allison was a tender teen. Which sure came as news to Danielle, who seemed totally blown away.
Eric was trying to reassure her: “Don’t listen to him, okay? He’s strictly playing with your mind. You can see that, can’t you?”
Des sure could. Mitch was trying to turn them against each other. But Danielle didn’t care. She was too pissed at Eric.
“How could you do that to me?” she wanted to know.
“He’s a ruthless, scheming murderer, Danielle,” Mitch explained. “Everything about his life is a total lie. What made you think he’d be honest with you?”
“We’re in this together,” she responded.
Now Mitch was telling her how wrong she was. That she couldn’t trust Eric. That the two of them had serious marital problems. Des could have sworn the fool was purposely trying to rile Eric. And it was working.
“If you don’t shut your big mouth,” Eric snarled at him, “I swear I will slit your throat right now!”
Des continued to lie there on the balcony floor, powerless. There was nothing they could do-not with the way Eric was using Mitch as body armor. Des was not taking this horrible realization well. Her breathing was shallow and quick, her hand clammy around the SIG. That was the man she loved down there. She was practically ready to dive right off the balcony. But all she could do was exchange a signal with Yolie and Soave to wait. And watch.
And quietly go nuts-because with each passing second Des was becoming convinced that Mitch Berger had a death wish.
“I believe we do the right thing most of the time,” he was lecturing this deranged murderer who held a knife to his jugular vein. “I have to believe that, Eric. Because if it’s not true, then where are we? We’re… well, we’re you.”
Des had to stop herself from screaming: What in God’s name are you doing?
As he lay there in Eric’s clutches, Mitch told her. His round face was turned upwards toward the balcony and he was smiling. It was a blissful smile. A smile that told her he knew something that Eric didn’t know:
Mitch knew that Des was up there.
How? Didn’t matter. All that mattered was he knew.
Now an enraged Eric was sputtering at Danielle to ignore Mitch, insisting they could still get away.
As Mitch kept pushing and pushing: “Where will go now? You don’t trust each other, so you’ll have to stay together twenty-four, seven. And won’t that suck. It means no more nubile teenaged girls for you, Eric. Just plain old Danielle, morning, noon and-”
“I told you to shut up!” roared Eric, punching Mitch in the head, driving him into the floor.
Danielle cried out, “No, Eric! No!”
But it was no use. The organic farmer was a man possessed. “I told you! I told you!” he screamed as he pummeled Mitch in the head again and again. “I told you!” And now he was over Mitch, raising that knife high up over his head. “Say good-bye, you fat son of a bitch, because I am going to stick this in your eye! So help me I’ll…”
Yolie did not hesitate, did not waver, did not miss.
She pumped three shots right into Eric Vickers with her semiautomatic. The first went into the center of his back. The second into his neck. The third blew out the back of his head. So rapid and precise was her gunfire that, for a brief moment the meat sack formerly known as Eric Vickers was still suspended there above Mitch, clutching that knife overhead.
Until he collapsed on top of Mitch in a dead heap.
Danielle fell to the floor before him, screaming.
Soave sprinted down the stairs and cuffed her as Yolie threw open the church’s front doors to give the all- clear sign. Des was the slowest to make it down the stairs. Her knees didn’t seem to be working too well.
As for Mitch, he didn’t seem the least bit fazed, despite the knife-point hostage ordeal, the punches to his head, Eric getting shot to death. The man’s blood was all over him. And yet, the very first thing Mitch said to her after he’d struggled out from under Eric’s body was, “What took you so long, slats? I was running out of things to say.”
Des stared at him, dumfounded. “You knew I was up there,” she said hoarsely, as a pair of uniforms led the stricken Danielle outside. “How, Mitch?”
“Because you’re you. I knew you’d never wait for that hostage unit to get here.” He removed his bloodied jacket and calmly tossed it aside, grinning at Soave and Yolie. “But I wasn’t counting on backup. Thanks large.”
“No prob,” Yolie said. “Wherever my baby girl goes, I go.”
“I never believed this was possible, Berger,” Soave said, shaking his head. “But if anyone on earth could do it, you were the man for the job.”
“What job, Lieutenant?”
“You actually talked that man to death.”
“Hey, you go with your strengths.” Mitch pulled a clean, folded handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out to Des. “Here, you’ll be needing this. That cellar’s mold city.”
He knew her better than she knew herself-which sometimes irked the hell out of her. Right now, as Des proceeded to sneeze her head off, it just made her feel cherished.
“Des, I want you to know that Allison slept on the couch last night.”
“Of course she did,” Des snuffled.
“And Quirt peed in her sneaker.”
“That’s my man.”
“Oh, and one other thing. It was Claudia who was next, not Poochie. They were going to make it look like a suicide. I’m sorry to say I don’t have that on tape. He broke my recorder.”
“Danielle will give it up,” Soave said confidently. “A full confession’s her only chance.”
“School me on something, boyfriend,” Des said. “You knew those Bilco doors were unlocked?”
“I did.”
