Whatever it takes.
Never again.
Cresting the hill, he saw men in the door and parked cars. He stopped twenty feet from the granite steps. The warden stood outside the door with Olivet and Jacks. Woods would be there, too, probably with Liz. Adrian killed the engine and put the key in his pocket. The air outside was warm.
“You should have run and kept running.”
The warden stepped out, his shoes scraping granite. The trees above his head were dark and heavy.
“Maybe I should have killed you. First day out. First night.”
“You don’t have the balls.”
“Maybe you underestimate me. Maybe you always have.”
“That implies you had secrets to keep, and that you kept them. I find that hard to believe.”
Adrian fished a gold coin from his pocket and tossed it so it rang on the steps. The warden kept an eye on Adrian and picked it up, tilting it. “You could buy the same in any pawnshop.”
Adrian flung another dozen coins.
“So, it’s true.” The warden didn’t stoop that time. He smoothed a thumb across the coin; showed it to Jacks. “How many?”
“Five thousand. They’re yours if you let her go.”
The warden studied Adrian with new eyes. Respect was there, and even a little fear. All that time, unbroken. All that pain. “There’s still the matter of William Preston.”
“It’s six million dollars,” Adrian said. And that was the only truth that mattered. He saw it in the warden’s face, and in the way Jacks shifted his feet. Friendship was fine, but the money came first.
“Do you have it with you?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“How do you propose to do this?”
“If Liz is okay, I’ll take you to the gold. She stays behind.”
“If I say no?”
“You can torture me again, for all the good it’ll do.”
“Maybe I’ll torture her, instead.”
“Death is death,” Adrian said. “We all win or none of us do.”
The warden rubbed his chin, thinking. “And when she tells her story about what happened here?”
“Do you love your wife?”
“Not so much.”
“It’s six million dollars. Untraceable. You can put it in the trunk and go anywhere. Tomorrow morning you start a whole new life.”
The warden smiled, and it made Adrian nervous. “I don’t think Detective Black would accept the idea of her torture as lightly as you.”
“She wouldn’t have called me unless she’d thought it through.”
“Perhaps, she thought you’d come in, guns blazing.”
“I’m nobody’s hero. She knows that.”
The warden ran the same thumb across the coin. “Jacks is going to pat you down.” He gestured, and Jacks took the stairs.
The pat-down was rough and thorough. “He’s clean.”
“All right, then.” The warden picked up the other coins, bounced them in his palm so they rattled and clinked. “Let’s go inside and talk this thing out.”
Adrian followed the warden and felt Olivet and Jacks close up behind. He had no confidence his plan would work, but it was all he had: gold and men’s greed and his own readiness to die. He knew the warden, though. He was pushing sixty, tired of his job. Six million was a lot of money. Adrian thought the plan had a shot.
That disappeared when he saw the kids.
Before that moment, it was all or nothing. The plan worked or it did not. If Elizabeth died, he’d die with her. There’d been acceptance in that, and a kind of difficult peace. Liz made her choices. He made his.
That had nothing to do with the kids.
They huddled beneath the altar, not just frightened, but wounded. He knew Gideon, of course, who was as close as anything alive to the woman Adrian had loved with all his heart. The girl would be the one from the papers, Channing. A man was dead on the floor. Elizabeth’s father, he thought. The other man was Beckett, who was dead or close to it. Elizabeth was secured to a pew on the front row. “I want her free. Right now.”
“Adrian-”
“Hang on, now.” The warden cut her off. “This is still my show, so let’s try this again.” He drew his pistol and put the barrel against Elizabeth’s knee. “Where did you hide it?”
“I’ll take you to it.”
“I know you will.”
“The five of us in a car,” Adrian said. “We drive east on back roads. No cops. No witnesses. Two hours later, you’re rich.”
“My leverage is here.”
“It’s the smart move. Six million dollars.”
“Bring me the boy.”
“No!” Elizabeth fought the cuffs. “You son of a bitch! You bastard!” She kicked the warden once.
He struck her on the head, knocking her bloody. “The boy. Now.”
Gideon tried to fight, but the guard was too strong. He dragged the boy down the steps and across the rotted carpet. He left him at the warden’s feet, screaming as a foot pushed on his throat and the barrel of a gun dug into the place he’d been shot. “You see how this works?” The warden leaned on the gun and twisted. “No one around. Lots of time.”
“Stop it,” Adrian said.
“Where’s Eli’s gold? Come on, Adrian.” The barrel twisted again. An edge of smile carved the warden’s face. “You remember how we do this.”
Adrian tore his eyes from the boy. Three guards. Three guns.
“Girl’s next,” the warden said. “Then, Liz.”
He pushed harder, and Gideon screamed again, his voice as high and clear as that of any choirboy who’d ever sung in the ancient church.
Beckett was in all kinds of hurt, but alert enough to know how badly he’d messed up. The warden. Liz. The reverend…
He saw the dead man, the open eyes.
He found Liz, then blinked and thought of Carol.
My beautiful lady…
They were his life, the both of them, his partner and his wife. He loved them each, but the choice had never been in doubt.
His wife.
It would always be his wife.
But this…
Death and children and the way Liz looked at him. He’d never had a choice, but goddamn it was bad. The kids. The hole in his gut. He was dying; had to be. There were words he couldn’t understand, a musty smell and movement like a spill of color. He was fading, nearly gone.
But there was also the pain.
God…
He blinked, and it chewed through him, dragged him in and out, and broke him like a bottle on a rock. Right now he was lucid, if only just. The boy was screaming; the guards were focused on Adrian.
That left Channing.
Beckett tried to speak, but couldn’t; tried to move, but his legs didn’t work. One arm was trapped beneath him, but the other was clear. He could barely move it-just his fingers-but he got fabric in his grip and worked the jacket up, an inch, then five. When the gun at his back was exposed, he tried to say her name, but came up empty. It hurt. Every bit of it hurt like hell. But this was his fault, so he asked God to take pity on a stupid, fucked-up, dying man. He prayed for strength, then drew air into his lungs and said her name again. It came out a croak, the barest whisper. But she heard it and saw the gun.
The girl, who was bending above him.
Channing, who could shoot like a dream.
Olivet saw it first, a slip of girl with a gun too large for such tiny hands. He wasn’t worried. She could barely stand, and thirty feet of carpet stretched between them. His instinct was to hold out an open hand and say, Careful, little girl. Instead, he said, “Warden.”
The warden looked up from the bright-eyed, bled-out little boy. The girl staggered right, as if the gun were pulling her down. Her eyes were barely open. She was basically falling.
“Somebody shoot that little bitch,” the warden said, and Olivet’s first thought was Damn. His own daughter was not much smaller and this one was kind of cute, trying to be brave and all. He’d rather just take the gun and sit her back down.