“I might as well be,” I said. “You’ll do whatever you want to do. I’ll at least keep my pride.”
He turned and looked at Bennett lying on the floor, crying. “You would not tell me,” he said. “You knew it was him, but you would not tell me. You think I am a fool. I came to you for the truth and you told me you knew nothing.”
“Because I didn’t. You wanted the truth. I hadn’t found it yet. Believe me, he’s the last person on earth I want to protect. He’s a rapist at best and a murderer at worst. Why would I risk my life for him?
Bennett could hear me. He looked up at me, pleading. “For God’s sake, Elena!”
“Shut up!” I shouted at him. “You’re exactly that and you know it.” Kulak’s interest went from me to Bennett and back again. “All right, Ms. Estes,” he said, unlocking the door to my cage. You believe he is a rapist and a murderer. Show me.“
He opened the door and pulled me out of the locker by my injured arm. Black spiderwebs shot across my vision, and my legs swayed beneath me.
Kulak pulled me over to where Bennett lay bleeding. His skin was pasty white and gleaming with sweat. He was going into shock. Once again Kulak kicked him in the ribs. “Turn over! On your back!”
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” Bennett whimpered. Tears ran from the corners of his eyes as he turned to lie on his back. Kulak put the bolt cutters in my hands, then pulled a.38 from belt holster and put it against my head. “You want justice, Ms. Estes?” he said. “You want revenge? I want revenge. For Irina. Give him the justice a rapist deserves, castrate him.”
Chapter 64
The bolt cutter was heavy. The sharp steel pinchers hovered over Bennett Walker’s genitals. The cold steel of the gun barrel rested against my temple.
“Is there a problem, Ms. Estes?” Kulak whispered.
“No,” I said. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment.”
Bennett cried, mumbling my name, saying “please” over and over.
“I’m just… a little dizzy,” I said, swaying against Kulak.
“Do it,” he said.
I pretended to try to open the bolt cutter without success.
“I feel really weak,” I said.
“Do it!” he shouted. “Do it!!”
Abruptly, I dropped to my knees and elbowed Kulak in the groin.
As he doubled over, I drove the handles of the bolt cutter upward with as much strength as the adrenaline rush gave me. One handle hit him in the face, shattering a cheekbone. The other caught him under the jaw. His head jerked back, and his gun hand swung upward.
The gun went off, the bullet hitting something metal across the room with a loud Ping!
He swung the weapon downward toward me.
I hit him in the side of the leg with the bolt cutter, and he dropped to his knees, firing again.
I tried to scramble backward, away from him, as he tried once more to take aim at me.
Jabbing at him with the bolt cutter, I managed to hit his wrist.
The gun fired again.
I ducked to the right.
Kulak was screaming now, in a blind rage, his eyes rolling in his head.
“Kulak! Freeze!”
“Sheriff’s office!”
“Freeze!”
“Drop it!”
I heard the shouts and the shots that followed instantly.
Blood and tissue pelted me.
Alexi Kulak’s body jerked and twisted above me.
He looked surprised. Shocked.
And then the light in his eyes went out, and his rage went flat, and his body dropped, falling across Bennett Walker’s legs.
I dragged myself to the side on one arm, trembling violently, my heart pounding wildly. My ears were ringing. I lay flat on the cold concrete. Not six feet away Bennett Walker stared at me. His eyes were wide open, unblinking.
One of the shots from Kulak’s gun had struck him in the forehead.
He was dead.
Chapter 65
Landry ran across the garage, shouting Elena’s name at the top of his lungs, knowing she probably couldn’t hear him. The gunshots were still ringing in his own ears. He could hardly hear himself think.
“Elena! Elena!”
She didn’t move, staring at Bennett Walker’s blank, lifeless stare.
“Elena!”
He was there then, on his knees, bent over her, wiping blood splatter and tissue from her face, hoping to God none of it was hers. His hands were shaking.
“Are you hit?” he shouted, staring into her face. “Are you hit?”
She blinked, seeing him for the first time.
“H-he’s d-dead,” she said.
Landry nodded. Gently he pulled her into his arms and held her, his cheek pressed against the top of her head. It seemed they stayed there for a long time, even as deputies and crime-scene people moved around them.
His heart galloped for miles as the adrenaline slowly ebbed. He couldn’t remember ever having been so scared as he had been seeing Alexi Kulak pointing a gun at this woman he now held.
What an idiot he had to be, falling in love with a woman who put herself into situations like this one over and over again. But there it was, and all he could do about it was hold her and stroke her hair, and whisper words to her that he was sure she couldn’t hear.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter what the words were. It only mattered that he said them.
Chapter 66
For once an ER doc and I agreed: she did not want to admit me, and I did not want to be admitted.
“She’s been shot, for Christ’s sake,” Landry growled.
The doctor, who might have been a zygote when I was her age, rolled an eye at him. “It’s only a flesh wound.”
“Yeah?” Landry said. “How many times have you been shot, sweetheart? This isn’t a fucking paper cut.”
I got off the gurney, my arm in a sling, and started for the door.
“Elena-”
“I want to go home,” I said simply, and walked out into the hall.
“I’m going with you,” he said.
I didn’t argue. Nor did I point out to him that I couldn’t get home without him. I hadn’t gone to Alexi Kulak. Alexi Kulak had come to me. I didn’t want Landry asking me why.
