As I leap to my feet, I hear Charlene cry out from behind me, and I glance back only to see Daniel grab her arm and hustle her out of the room toward the hallway that leads to the funeral home’s entrance.
No! Stop him, he—
But Darren comes at me. He’s better than I am, and every move I make he’s one step ahead of me. He deftly blocks my uppercut, does a spinning side kick that connects with my fractured ribs. I gasp and stumble backward, almost toppling over the dead female Secret Service agent.
A crippling throb of pain overwhelms me when I try to draw in a breath, and as I struggle to regain my balance, Riah valiantly tries to help and goes for Darren’s arm again, but he backhands her brutally in the face, sending her reeling into the wall. She smacks it hard with her forehead and sinks limply to the floor.
As he’s bending down to retrieve the gun, I grab him with both hands and drive him backward. He crashes into one of the metal gurneys, the momentum sends it spinning toward the counter, and that’s when I see that Riah has risen and flipped on the switch to the motor attached to the trocar. Embalming fluid immediately floods the tube.
On his feet again, Darren reaches for my head.
He broke the necks of the Secret Service agents. He’s going to—
I spin, rotating him toward Riah.
And she plunges the trocar into his side. And depresses the trigger.
He draws in a strangled, horrid-sounding breath and looks down, stunned, at the hollow metal rod that’s augered in between his ribs, that’s filling his lungs with embalming fluid. He grips it with both hands to pull it out, but Riah rams it in farther and he gasps, then crumples to the floor, making sounds I never want to hear again.
Charlene.
Go!
As Riah watches Darren die, I bolt across the room, down the hallway, through the foyer, and out the front door.
Daniel is sliding into the driver’s seat of the Secret Service agents’ SUV. Charlene lies on the driveway next to the hearse, her hands still cuffed behind her. She isn’t moving.
No!
I rush to her.
No, no, no!
When I turn her head toward me, she groans.
Oh, thank God you’re alive. Thank—
“Stop him.” She coughs slightly. “He’s still going to kill …”
“Are you—”
“Yeah.” She still seems dazed, and I don’t know why Daniel didn’t kill her, but I’m thankful—
“I’m fine. He’s going after Hoult.” There’s no hesitation in her voice. “Stop him!”
“Alright.” I jump to my feet. “I will.”
And how exactly are you going to do that?
Improvise.
Daniel is backing up to pull around the sedan. The SUV rides high, has runner boards beneath the passenger’s and driver’s side doors.
That’ll work.
I sprint alongside the vehicle and reach for the passenger-side door handle but can’t quite catch it. Daniel aims the SUV toward the road and I try for it again.
Can’t hold on.
Do this!
Now!
He accelerates.
On the third try I snag the door handle, yank the door open, and, striding off the runner board beneath it, leap inside. Either it surprises him or he’s trying to throw me from the vehicle because he swerves wildly, but I’m already in with him. The door bangs shut and I reach for the wheel to crank it to the right. Toward the yard. Toward the Schuylkill River.
Where I’ll have the advantage.
Yeah, improvise.
He elbows me savagely in the face, but I hold on, wrench the wheel again, and we bounce across the lawn toward the drop-off to the water.
And as we launch off the edge, I hit the button to roll my window down.
Cuffed
The impact is even more jarring than I expect.
The air bag smacks me in the chest and knocks the wind out of me, causing a whole new flood of pain to rupture up my side from my cracked ribs. The current grabs the vehicle, tilting it forward and redirecting us downstream. We’re low enough for water to pour in through the open window, and the SUV tips in my direction.
After all the cold-water escapes I’ve done, I’d figured I’d be more able to withstand the shock of the river water than Daniel would, but I’m out of practice, and with the fractured ribs I’m having a hard time breathing at all.
Both of the air bags are deflating, giving us more room to move. Daniel, who’s handling the chilly water better than I thought he would, wrestles to get his door open, but I clutch his arm and hold him back.
“Your brother’s dead,” I tell him. “It’s over.” Pain wracks my side with every breath. With the open window, the SUV is sinking fast and the water is almost to my chest.
“I know. His left side.”
But how? He left before—
Oh, just like your boys. He feels the pain his brother felt.
He punches my jaw, stunning me, then wraps his hands around my throat and shoves my head down. I struggle to get free, but his grip is fierce and he manages to get my face beneath the water that’s cascading into the SUV.
I wish I could smack the handcuff dangling from my wrist into his face, but the angle’s not right for that arm.
But it is right for the other arm. I’m still wearing the watch from Banner, the one built to withstand a bullet, so I use that instead. I swing my wrist backward, smash it into Daniel’s face. His grip weakens just enough for me to fight free, sit up, grab a breath.
Water is rising fast. He goes for his door again, then sees the handcuff still hanging from my wrist, seizes my arm, and drags it toward the steering wheel.
Oh—
No.
I try to pull free, but he hits me hard in the jaw again, causing me to see stars.
“I’ll kill her,” he says evenly. Looks at me with eyes fierce and cold. “The woman back there. Her life for his.”
Don’t let him get out. Do not let—
He angles my wrist to snap the cuff to the steering wheel—
Now.
You’ve done it before in your stage shows. It’s not that hard of a move.
In an instant, I twist my hand around, slap the open side of the handcuffs to his wrist, and smack the lock mechanism against his chest to ratchet it shut, cuffing his wrist to mine.
Descent
For a moment it’s as if he doesn’t realize what just happened, then he yanks powerfully at his arm, but there’s no getting free. The water is almost up to our necks. I don’t know how deep the river is — we haven’t hit bottom yet, and it looks like water’s going to fill the vehicle before we do.
Water splashes into my mouth. We won’t have air for more than a few more seconds.
Daniel wrenches at the cuffs again but it does no good.
“Never threaten a guy’s girl, Daniel. It’s not a good idea.”
The force of the current swirls the SUV and takes us farther down, and the water roils higher. I snatch one final, deep and painful breath, then the water is over my head.
As his mouth goes under, I hear a fierce, enraged scream that uses up a lot of air, and that’s bad for him. It’s seriously going to shorten his life.
I used to be able to hold my breath for three and a half minutes, but not in water this cold, and that was back when I was practicing every day. I figure the temperature will cut into that time; I might have a minute, maybe less.