Someplace in the shadows of the outer office Jack heard a scream. “Louis, no!”
René.
A shot rang out, and instantly Jack heard a grunt as Louis fell backward. He had dropped his umbrella and was clutching his arm.
Before Teddy could get off a shot at René, Jack flew at him, knowing instantly that in his condition he was no match for Teddy. So he sunk his teeth into Teddy’s wrist. The guy screamed and released the gun, but not before catapulting Jack off of him. But Jack grabbed the pistol and rolled away, his muscles paining him with the effort. It passed through his mind that he had not held a gun for a couple years, since target practice with Vince at the police range. But now a gun felt good in his grip.
The next moment exploded with a scream from René as Teddy made a move to stomp Jack. Without thought, Jack took aim and squeezed the trigger. And Teddy hit the floor with a huge grunt, grabbing his leg. The bullet had hit him in the calf.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Moy pick up a crystal sculpture of his company’s logo to hurl at him. But Jack flashed the gun at him. “Drop it or you’re dead,” Jack said.
Moy dropped it and Jack pulled himself to his feet, holding the pistol in both hands.
“I should have taken care of you, too,” Moy said.
“Yeah, you should have.”
From the shadows behind them Louis sprang up. His injured arm didn’t stop him from flying at Jordan Carr and pulling him to the floor and flailing at him with his elbow and good hand. Louis was muttering odd syllables and swearing at Carr and saying something about Fuzzy. Jack didn’t understand, but Louis had Carr pinned to the floor.
René shot over to him to pull him up to tend his wound. But Louis kept pummeling Carr, who yelled for help. René shouted for Louis to stop and managed to pull Louis off him. She removed Louis’s shirt and fashioned a tourniquet for his arm with the bow tie. His shirt was soaked in blood, but Louis insisted she put it back on him.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Just had a little—” Louis cut himself short, seeing Jack tying Moy’s hands behind him. Louis’s face lit up. “We got ‘em both, Fuzz. Hear that? We got’em.”
Jack didn’t know what Louis was saying, but he seemed pleased. He pushed Moy on his front while René bound his hands and Jack fanned the gun from Moy to Theo to Jordan Carr, who had pulled himself to his feet again.
Jack aimed the gun at him. “Playing both ends against the middle, right?”
René looked at Jack. “What are you doing?”
“He’s with them.” With his free hand Jack knocked a small lamp off Moy’s desk, pressed his foot on it, and tore the electrical cord off it. He tossed it to Carr. Then he pulled telephone wires out of the phone and wall. “Tie him,” he said, nodding to Teddy Moy, who was writhing on the floor. “Good and tight.”
“Jack!” René said, glaring at him for an explanation.
“I think they had something to do with Nick’s death.”
“The fuck you doing?” Teddy protested as Carr began to tie him up. “Get the gun.”
Carr looked back at the gun in Jack’s hands and began binding Teddy Moy’s arms behind him, then his legs to the thousand-pound marble table.
“What are you saying?” René asked as she came over to Jack. She glared at Jordan Carr on his knees tying a tourniquet on Teddy’s left leg. Then she looked back at Jack for confirmation. Jack nodded, and René flew to Jordan. She grabbed Jordan by his shirt. “You killed Nick? You killed Nick?”
“I didn’t. He did.”
Teddy swore at Carr from his facedown position. “And you were right there calling the shots.”
“But why?” René cried, and she whacked Jordan in the face.
Jordan put his hand to his cheek, which looked branded. “Because he was in the way, that’s why. Because he wanted to stop something that was good. And maybe before you go sanctimonious on me again, you can ask yourself this: If you could have saved your father, wouldn’t you have done anything? Wouldn’t you?”
René said nothing.
“Sure you would, even if it meant eliminating anyone who stood in the way of his cure, right? You would have done the same—anything to keep him from dying layer by layer, even if it meant a few flashbacks. Right? Right?”
For a stunning moment René could not respond, as if she did not know how to answer the questions. But she backhanded Jordan in the face.
The moment was broken when Moy’s cell phone cut the air. Jack reached into Moy’s jacket pocket and pulled it out. It was someone identifying him as GEM’s executive vice president.
“Yeah, everything’s just dandy,” Jack said. “We’re on our way down.”
When Jordan Carr was finished binding Theo, he looked at Jack and René. “So now what?” he asked, trying an ingratiating smile on Jack.
Louis was sitting in a chair muttering to himself. But he looked okay. Just a flesh wound.
Moy was in his chair, his hands bound behind him. Theo was tied to the marble table and going nowhere. Jack aimed the gun at Jordan Carr’s chest. “You’ve got thirty seconds to tell us about Bryce or I’m going to start shooting holes in you.”
ALL THE WAY DOWN THE STAIRS and through the corridor they could hear the chant of the crowd initiated by his management team: “Gavin! Gavin Gavin!”
They paraded into the hall, Gavin leading the way, his hands bound behind him, Jordan Carr in tow, also bound. And behind him came Jack with the gun and flanked by Louis and René. Teddy was back in Moy’s office enjoying a view of the underside of his father’s pink marble table.
For a moment, cheering flared up as people at the rear of the hall spotted Moy. But instantly it began to mute as people saw the spectacle of him being led at gunpoint to the podium. In the distance the sound of police sirens from Jack’s 911 call. But he had plenty of time before they arrived.
At the microphone, he introduced himself, then said he would like to make an announcement. He felt for the lump in the breast pocket of his sportcoat and he removed the small silver MP3 recorder that Vince had given him. He held it up to the microphone and pressed Play.
“You killed her. Admit it.”
“Yeah, I killed her and she deserved it. You happy now? I killed her.”
Epilogue
Homer’s Island · Seven Weeks Later
A SMALL SIGN ON THE beach read BEWARE OF JELLYFISH!
“Nice timing,” Jack said, and handed René a plate.
They sat on beach chairs by the water’s edge picnicking on shish kebab, stuffed grape leaves, pilaf, and stewed vegetables.
“In the late sixties, she was on a marine science panel in Cambridge with Jacques Cousteau—something about the threat of industrial pollution and global warming on the oceans of the world. Thaddeus Sherman was impressed, and they started talking. One thing led to the next, and he invited her to stay here because it was the only place in the northeast where Caribbean sea life shows up. One visit, and she fell in love with the place and started collecting specimens.”
Jack poured two glasses of chardonnay.
“Sounds like she was a very special woman.”
“I think she was.” They clicked glasses.
Today was the thirty-first anniversary of Rose Sarkisian’s death.
“She apparently had an affair with Gavin Moy, who was more her type—academically speaking—than the man she married. Who knows? Records say they were in divorce proceedings before he was killed in a plane crash. They hid that fact on the gravestone to save face.”