She cursed him, and through her rage he heard the pain. A bullet took the bark off right by his face, sliced his cheek. Another damned scar. How many more rounds could she have in his SIG?
Savich knew she wouldn’t stop.
It was enough, he thought; it was too much. He came out from behind the tree.
“Drop the gun, Lissy!”
She didn’t. She yelled at him, “I hate you! I’m going to kill you!.” She ran straight at him, screaming curses, her blood dripping from her arm, and she aimed her gun at his chest.
Savich pulled the trigger. The bullet struck her between the eyes. The force of it lifted her off her feet and flung her backward. Lissy was dead before she hit the ground.
He limped to her and stared down at the pretty eyes that no longer looked mad, at the pretty eyes that no longer saw him, no longer saw anything. Her fingers were still curled around his SIG. He pulled it free, shoved it into his waistband.
He had to get back to Sherlock. He turned on his heel and stumbled back as fast as he could.
72
SHERLOCK STOOD OVER Victor Nesser, panting, very aware of the tugging ache where her spleen had once resided, the heel of her boot against his chest. She’d shot at him with the Lady Colt she carried in her ankle holster a good four or five times, missed because her Colt was good only at short range. Then she shot at his feet and hit him in the ankle. He’d stumbled, kept hurtling forward, and she’d tackled him from four feet back, her adrenaline pumping hard. Now he lay on his back, breathing heavy but not moving. His ankle had to hurl She said, trying to catch her breath, “All over now, Victor. Don’t you think of twitching. Hey, we got you on both ends, head and toe.”
Victor didn’t move, just lay there and moaned. Sherlock yelled over her shoulder, “Cully, Bernie, I’ve got him. We’re good here. Vic-tor isn’t going anywhere.”
Victor closed his eyes tight. He heard the woman’s voice, felt the weight of her foot against his chest and the god-awful pain in his shattered ankle, shooting up to his belly. He felt a sharp pain on the side of his head, licked his lips, and tasted blood. He was afraid to touch his ankle, afraid of what he’d feel. He’d rather walk around with half his head blown away than never be able to walk again. And there was nothing he could do about it. What was worse, he knew he couldn’t help Lissy.
Where was Lissy? Had she killed Savich? He didn’t think so; he didn’t think the guy could be killed. And this redheaded agent who’d shot him was his partner.
Who was Autumn? What had she done to him? He remembered rolling around on the ground, helpless, his body twitching and heaving. Autumn was a little girl? No, that wasn’t possible, there’d been no one there. It was all a lie, it was something Savich did, but what did he do, and how? He felt himself growing cold, felt fear nibble at the edges of his brain.
If only he’d shot Savich right away when he was stretched out and helpless beside Bernie, shot both of them, it would have been done, over with. And Lissy would know she could always count on him. Of course Lissy could have killed them herself, but she’d wanted to toy with them, toy with him too. It was a huge mistake, the biggest mistake they’d ever made. Their last mistake.
Victor remembered how it was before all of this, his years with his parents, his father knocking the crap out of his mother whenever the mood struck him, and then she’d gone back to Jordan with him to be knocked around some more. Was she even still alive? And Aunt Jennifer, the years that insane woman told him when to eat, when to brush his teeth, who he could speak to, and how she was going to kill him if he ever touched her precious thirteen-year-old daughter, the only human being he’d ever loved, spawned by that insane woman. He could still feel the edge of the butcher knife she’d held against his neck while she was screaming at him. Aunt Jennifer thought he was molesting Lissy. What a joke that was, but he hadn’t defended himself, hadn’t told her how it was Lissy with her newly budding breast who came to his tiny bedroom under the eaves. Lissy had stopped her mother, grabbed away the knife, but still, not an hour later, Aunt Jennifer had struck him with a hammer even though she’d known it was Lissy—oh, yes, she’d known. He thought he was going to die then, but he didn’t.
Victor knew there was no future for him. He guessed he’d known that from the moment Lissy got in his bed. And now Lissy could be dead. There was no way she was going to walk away from the cops this time. It was over, all of it.
Tears streamed down through the rivulets of blood on his face, not from the horrible pain of his shattered ankle but because he’d never see Lissy again. He didn’t think he wanted a future. He opened his eyes and looked up at the agent standing over him, holding a small gun in her hand, aimed right at his bloody face.
Cully came up behind her, slowly lowered his weapon, and looked down at him. He said, his voice emotionless, “You remember me, Victor? I’m the guy you trussed up on your bedroom floor, the guy you wanted to blow to pieces? Do you even remember that mother and father you and Lissy shot down in their kitchen in Alexandria? You shot two people for a damned car. How many other people have you and Lissy shot for no good reason? You’re both rabid, Victor. You’re both crazy.”
Victor said, “I’m not crazy.”
“Yeah, right,” Cully said. “You going to blame it all on that teenager you’ve been screwing since she was thirteen?”
Sherlock lightly laid her palm against Cully’s shoulder, felt him shaking with rage.
“I never screwed Lissy! Do you hear me, it wasn’t ever like that She needed me, only me. She always said she knew me, from the moment I came, she said she knew me to my soul. You’re trying to kill her! You want to see her dead!”
Cully kicked Victor in the side, but Victor didn’t even appear to notice. He shouted down at him, “Time for you to listen, punk. You’re lucky you didn’t kill Bernie or I’d kill you myself.”
Sherlock saw that Cully was still shaking with rage and she said calmly, “But since you didn’t kill Bernie or kill Agent Savich, Cully and I are going to take you to a hospital. We’ll even help you, since your ankle’s shot to pieces. You want a handkerchief to wipe the blood off your face? Ah, here’s Bernie. We’ve got him, Bernie, no problem.”
Bernie opened his mouth, but Cully overrode him. “I just wish I’d been the one to find you first,” Cully said, and kicked Victor again. “I bet Bernie wishes the same thing. Then you wouldn’t have gotten off with this puny foot wound.”
Victor looked at them through pain-dead eyes. “You should be dead. All of you would be dead if it wasn’t for that girl Autumn. Who is Autumn? There wasn’t any little girl up there.”
“You’re right, Autumn wasn’t nearby,” Sherlock said. “But it doesn’t really concern you now, Victor.”
Victor tried to rise, hissed in pain, and fell on his side. They heard him whisper, “Lissy wanted to go to Montana. I guess that’s not going to happen now.”
Cully and Bernie lifted him, each of them with a shoulder under his arms. He was crying and moaning, and he left a trail of blood on the rocky ground. Sherlock didn’t care what he said; she was too worried about Dillon. Lissy could still be out there, and it was Sherlock’s fault. She could have taken her down, should have, but she couldn’t bring herself to shoot that young girl in the back. She’d let her focus slip for that instant of time, and Lissy had been so fast, moved in a blur, all of it unexpected, and then Sherlock had fired at her, but only a wound, maybe not even a bad one. Dillon could be dead because— Sherlock shook her head. No excuses. She’d screwed up royally, put all of them in danger. She hadn’t done her job.
“Sherlock, you guys all right?”
Savich came limping through the trees. He was almost whole. Good enough. She gave him a huge smile.
Victor stopped cold. He yelled, “Where’s Lissy? What did you do to Lissy?”
Savich looked at the young man’s ravaged face, at the soul-eating fear in his eyes. He said, “She’s gone, Victor.”
