“My God,” Julia breathed. For an instant the revolver jumped toward her. Wallace quickly retrained it on Jerome, but in that split second Julia understood. Not everything but enough. Or rather her muscles understood—her blood, her stomach, her heart. Her mind would find the words and the sense of it later. My God.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Wallace said calmly. “Eva least of all. But if you refuse to see reason and common sense, perhaps you’ll understand this.”
Without moving his eyes, he said, “Julia, please step back. You and your friend.”
Julia couldn’t move. She was afraid to breathe, afraid a feather would jar Jerome’s trembling finger. Now he was the one in danger. They all were. They had been from the start, from the moment a bullet had entered Leonard Timson’s brain. She tried to speak, to muster a squeak of bravado, but her throat had closed.
Wallace shrugged. No doubt his aim was perfect. And with Eva now shielding him, he held the advantage. Jerome would never fire, never risk hurting Eva. Wallace was using that certainty to ensure Jerome’s death. The Wallace Julia had known was shrewd and unflappable, the consummate business and political leader, but here was a cornered animal, fighting to survive.
“Lay down your gun and give yourself up, Crockett,” Wallace said. “Think about it. You’d never get away. We have two impeccable witnesses who’ll verify everything, and my staff will confirm that you broke into my home. You might get away with one murder, but never two.”
“Murder?” Jerome repeated. The word broke in his throat.
Eva sobbed, the howl of a trapped and wounded animal.
A howl sounded inside Julia too. Something momentous had just leaped into the room, but before she could grasp its contours, Wallace spoke again.
“I will ask you one more time.” His eyes bored into Jerome’s face. “Drop the gun. Bend your knees slowly, and lay it on the floor. If you make any other move, any other movement at all, I will take it as an attack. I must warn you I’m a very fine shot. Especially in self-defense when threatened in my home by an armed fugitive.”
Julia agonized, willing obedience into Jerome’s listing arm. The plea seeped from her pores: Just bend your knees. Put it down. Let it go, Jerome. Let it go. It’s your only chance.
Her agony, though, came in knowing he had no chance. Proud, righteous Jerome was doomed. Even if Wallace let him live, he’d be torn to pieces by the law. The only small victory Jerome might claim now was in shaping the story of what Wallace would call his crime. Wallace was already rehearsing his version of events, justifying the bullet before he fired it. By yielding peacefully, Jerome could at least die with a modicum of honor. Julia would testify to that—if the shooting stopped before the rest of them were dead too.
Time swelled. It was probably only one or two seconds, but the harrowing moment pressed air from her lungs, bled light from her vision. It seemed to last forever, that unblinking stare between two guns not ten feet apart, one trembling and the other steady.
A noise. Shouts. Clattering voices. Then running feet, what sounded like a thudding herd from the entry hall behind them. Eva’s eyes lifted in terror.
Jerome’s head swung to see.
“Drop it, boy!”
Eva jerked, her entire body twisting to get free, but Wallace reclutched, cinching his forearm like a rope across her ribs. With a powerful heave she seized his hand, pulling it and the gun into her stomach. She gave a terrible shriek.
A blur of motion. The shatter of a gunshot. A starburst of blood.
Eva and Wallace jackknifed together. They doubled over, Eva folded inside his crumpling body. They fell as one to the carpet.
CHAPTER 32
Fury struck Julia, knocking her sideways. She stumbled hard against the corner of the living room portal and fell. Austen disappeared into the hallway, his head cracking against the wainscoting. Three cops swarmed past her, sticks already raised. One hit Jerome’s jaw, bouncing his head back in a spray of blood and sweat. The gun skipped away across the carpet as Jerome collapsed beneath the frenzy of blows. Grunting with exertion, one of the cops drove his boot into his belly. His mouth yawned wide—pink and wet and silent.
“Stop!” Julia had never heard herself scream. Her ears rang with the terrible sound. “Stop!”
She tried to crawl toward the melee, but a cop shoved her away. She clawed at his arm. She’d have bitten it if she could. “Stop!”
Another gripped her shoulders, pulling her back. “Calm down, lady! You’re safe now.”
She tried to twist free. “No! Stop!”
Austen’s voice from somewhere echoed her, before he was violently sick.
The pounding gradually stopped. She squirmed free of the cop’s grasp.
Time shimmered like light on a hot horizon. Two minutes? Ten? An hour? Julia pulled herself upright onto hands and knees. She saw only carpet. Every breath brought the hot reek of blood. Voices hummed and spiked. She remained on all fours, head down, waiting for her throat and her stomach to unclench.
She lifted her head and sat back on her heels. Austen was upright, barely, his face in his hands. He staggered into the hall.
A few feet away, Jerome was propped against the other side of the portal. His eyes were tightly shut. Chin lolling above his chest, he was groaning. His shirt was splattered with blood, and a stream of pink saliva oozed from his mouth. His wrists were shackled behind his back.
“It wasn’t him.” Julia’s words were hoarse and muzzy.
“Let us figure out what happened here, Miss Kydd.”
