But if Molly knew a way out, then there was another way out. Maybe he could hide long enough to find it. Watch Molly take it, then take it himself. Or do both.
Point was, keep moving.
Jamie moved to the right. If he could make it to the abandoned offices and cubicles, he could duck in and out of those, listening for her footsteps (bare feet on carpet, good luck) and eventually make his way around to the other door, then to the elevator bank, then to the other fire tower.
Besides, the other way—toward David’s office—was a dead end.
There was nothing else he could do except move to the other side of the floor. That, and try to control his breathing. His lungs were pumping too hard. He had to slow it down. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
On the other side of the office, Jamie saw the white box with the little cartoon heart on it.
Wait. There
He opened the front panel. Read the instructions quickly. Took the paddles in his hands, even his sore one— he could deal with it for a little while—and used his good thumb to hit the charging button. There was a high- pitched whine.
Sixty seconds to go.
Jamie put his back to the panel, paddles behind his back.
Molly was standing in the hallway.
“You never answered my question,” she said.
Keene opened the door and fired the Ruger.
There was no need to play it cute. Keene had a feeling that McCoy would spot a ruse in a microsecond.
But the bullet struck bare wall. Something sliced at his forearm, ripping through skin and muscle. A butcher knife.
“Ah, you cunt.”
The gun tumbled from Keene’s hand. Keene threw his weight into the door. It slammed into McCoy. Keene pivoted, then booted McCoy in the testicles so hard, it sent him staggering backwards. He smashed his head into the corner of an oak bureau.
Keene, the pain in his forearm overpowering, fell backwards. Landed on his ass. A simple slash across the arm shouldn’t hurt so much.
McCoy either had braced himself or didn’t actually have testicles, because he recovered quickly. He opened the bottom drawer next to him. Reached below a stack of six T-shirts. Always with his T-shirts. The one on the top said the bad plus.
He’d hidden a gun under there. It was a Ruger, too.
They were both students of the old school.
“Have a nice walk?” McCoy said, then shot Keene in the chest.
“Come with me,” she said.
“No,” Jamie said. Trying to keep his breathing under control.
“You don’t have to pretend,” she said. “I can give you everything you want.”
How many seconds had elasped? Ten? At most?
Keep yourself calm.
Keep her talking.
Molly started walking toward him. “Come with me and we can leave this building. Right now.”
“No,” Jamie said. “Not until you tell me what this is about. Why everyone on this floor had to die.”
“What does it matter? You going to write a book about it?” She smiled.
Jamie could hear the high-pitched whine. Could she?
“I want to know.”
Molly was just a few feet away. Jamie pretended to lean back against the wall, frightened. Which was not too difficult to pretend.
Had a half a minute gone by yet?
“This is just a company. We’re just employees. I’m going for a promotion. Not just for me. For both of us. And now I want to know if you’ll come with me.”
“How can I just leave my life behind?”
“Is it really a life you’ll miss?”
Behind him, something clicked.
She touched his chest.
Smiled.
Jamie pressed the defibrillator paddles against Molly’s chest and squeezed the plastic handles. Prayed it had been enough time.
It had.
There was a loud
She yelped. The shock blew her body back across the hall. Down there on the floor, she looked like a puppet with her strings cut.
Jamie droppped the paddles. God bless OSHA, which had started to require these devices in buildings over twenty stories in downtown Philadelphia. Even the abandoned floors of buildings.
The shock wouldn’t be enough to kill her. Even from this distance, he could see her chest moving. But it would buy him time until he figured a way off this floor.
Even if he had to lift a desk and hurl it through the glass. Let the firemen below know that there were people up here in need of rescue.
The conference room was his best bet. Maybe he could use that gun to shoot out the glass. Ah, damn it! He kicked himself for not thinking about that before. Shoot the glass and start heaving office furniture out. A chair first, to get their attention. Then the conference room table itself, if he had to.
Jamie started down the hallway but stopped when he felt something on his pant leg.
Fingers.
Yanking the material downward.
“You,” Molly said, “never answered my question.”
The wound was mortal; Keene knew that. There wasn’t much time. The bullet must have nicked quite a few arteries. He could imagine the inside of his chest with miniature leaking hoses, and an imaginary coronary engineer throwing his hands up, exasperated.
He also had a pain in his arse.
Literally. Something hard, jabbing him in the soft, fleshy part of his cheek.
“You just find out, or have you known for a while? I’m thinking you just found out.”
Keene looked at McCoy. His lover had a smirk on his face. Ordinarily, Keene took great pleasure in that smirk. It made him horny.
“I’m not going to sit here and explain it all to you,” McCoy said. “I hate that.”
“Yeah,” Keene said. At least, he thought he said it. It might have been in his mind.
“I will tell you this, though. And this is more of a personal note, though it does cross over slightly into the business end of things.”
“Yeah?”
McCoy. Always drawing things out. Forcing you to ask “what?” or “yeah?” or something. Even as he sat here, dying.
“I’m not even gay.”
Keene’s fingers found the Ruger, under his arse. He had the strength to lift it. So of course he had the strength to squeeze the trigger. Repeatedly. He blasted off the five remaining shots.
