I just finished explaining when DS Fisher commands the driver to move to the white house. I glance over to Scott. He reassures me by squeezing my hands. I’m puzzled about his silence.
“Why are you not saying anything?”
“This is your success. None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t stepped forward. Even our escape …” He kisses me. “I adore you.”
I’m nervous, but I’m not afraid. This time the odds are in our favor. This time the police are on my side. On top of it, there is this amazing man who adores me. What can go wrong?
We arrive at the building and eight officers from the Armed Offender Squad storm up the stairs to the hospital. As I predicted, there is little resistance. Nursing staff and guards no longer look threatening as the officers lead them to the van.
The doctor who’d plied me with chemical restraints stares at me, his face contorted in a hateful grimace, as the officers lead him away. I look the other way. His hate will not intimidate me.
DS Fisher stops the doctor with a firm hand on his chest and bellows, “Where is Raymond Feldman?”
The doctor breaks out in an insane cackle. “You’ll never get him. He’s too smart for all of you.”
I’m not sure whether Raymond’s smart, but he has the advantage of knowing his way around better than we do.
“Perhaps he saw us coming? Or he’s hiding in his house. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out which house is his.”
Scott follows the officers who open the doors to each room. To my greatest relief, they are all empty. My fear that other victims were still held in these rooms is unfounded.
“Where can he be?”
My question falls into an empty silence.
“Here is something.”
An officer shouts and opens a door. We all rush to him. Behind the door is a stairway leading upward. The sound of pounding steps tells us someone is racing up the stairs. The police officers are bolting up the stairs too, followed by Scott and me.
“What’s up there?” Scott stops, breathless from climbing the stairs.
“I have no idea, I’ve never been up there. From the road, it looks like a clock tower.”
“Stop, police. You are surrounded, man. There is no escape. Don’t make it more difficult for yourself than it already is.”
For a moment while DS Fisher shouts, it seems as if the fleeing person stops, but then the ruckus continues. The officer sends a curse after the fugitive. Whoever is the runaway has locked the door at the top of the stairs from the other side.
“Open the door!”
DS Fisher tries his best rattling the door but with little result. He waves two officers to charge at the door with their shoulders. It takes them several attempts, but then the door splinters and hangs half torn in its hinges.
We push onto what seems to be a platform of an observation tower you’d find in castles complete with battlements to protect against enemies. The view over the valley from up here is stunning. The high mountains to the East are giving the perfect, romantic background for the small Swiss village that stretches out on the opposite side of the park.
Raymond Feldman stands on a ledge, waving a gun in our direction, his eyes cold and menacing in an expressionless face. He takes a glance down to where a growing number of people are watching. Then he looks back at me.
“Stay where you are or I’ll shoot.”
“You can’t shoot us all, the police will disarm you before you fire your second shot.”
Scott tried the hardest to convince Raymond, but looking at his devilish grin, I don’t think he’s succeeding. Raymond doesn’t care. Whatever ate at him and caused him to become the monster he is, it might have tipped him over the edge of sanity.
“Drop your gun, Feldman. You have no chance.”
DS Fisher isn’t successful either. Raymond Feldman looks at him with so much contempt, it should have killed the police officer.
“Do you think I care? I’ll take her with me,” he points at me with his gun, “and erase the last stinking Wright from the face of the earth.”
“What have the Wrights ever done to you?” I take a small step forward towards him. I never thought his vendetta against me was personal but it looks very much like it is.
“Ask your mother.”
“How can I, she’s dead?”
I take another small step. I recognize some of myself in him … a person at the end of what he can endure, losing grip on reality. I know that place well from years ago, the sense of complete emptiness when nothing matters and death is becoming a welcome option to end all pain.
“So will you be if you don’t stay where you are.”
He gazed at me and I see a fleeting sense of pity in his eyes.
“You think you’ve won, but you haven’t. You too carry Eduard and Eugene’s evil core inside you. There’s no escaping it.”
Without thinking I’m taking another step forward. He sounds so tortured, so lost. There is a part of me who feels a wave of compassion for this man on the ledge.
He fires a shot at my feet.
“Stay where you are or I jump.” He grins diabolically. “You don’t want that on your conscience, don’t you?”
No, I don’t want that on anybody’s conscience. What a horrible thing to live with, knowing you’ve driven someone to their death.
An elderly woman with white hair twisted into a tight bun calls from the ground, “August Raymond Feldman. You come down this minute.”
He positions himself between the battlements and turns to see who’s calling out to him. It doesn’t look like he’s mellowed by the call. An ugly grin breaks free as he stares at me.
“I underestimated you. You’ve managed to mobilize the police, how did you do that? Ah, don’t tell
