“If you want to come with me,” Molly said, “nod your head once.”
Jamie had no choice. Jamie had no air.
She hadn’t dragged him far. They were in the conference room. He recognized the ceiling. The floor was hot beneath his back. Smoke was curling and rolling outside the large windows.
“You’re going to lose consciousness any second now.”
Jamie nodded.
She jammed a palm into his chest. The mystery valve released. Air tried to gush in and out of his lungs at the same time. Jamie turned to the side, curled up, and then vomited.
“There, there,” Molly was saying. “Just breathe. The feeling will pass.”
The ground was so hot now, Jamie could imagine his own puke sizzling within a matter of moments. Reheating his breakfast. Those Chessmen.
She was rubbing his back now. Jamie opened his eyes and saw two people lying on the floor. It was a woman, topless except for a bra. She was slumped over a guy in a suit. Nichole … and David?
Molly rolled him back over, dabbed at his lips with a napkin she must have picked up from the conference room table.
“No offense, but I don’t think I’m going to kiss you until after you brush your teeth,” she said.
Jamie’s mouth and throat burned, and his lungs still felt like they were on the verge of exploding. The rest of his body seemed to be in retreat mode. Sensation dimmed—the normal sensations you feel every second of the day. His skin chilled. His legs went numb. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Was he going to die anyway, after all of this?
“One last thing, Jamie,” Molly said. “We’re going to need to leave something of you behind. Something the investigators will be able to use to harvest some DNA. Blood won’t be enough. It burns up too quickly. We need a part of you. Something they’ll find, so they won’t come looking for you.”
Screw you. Let them find me. And David. And Nichole. And Stuart. And Amy. And Ethan. Find everyone who was brought up here this morning to die and figure it out. If he was to die, Jamie wanted Andrea and Chase to know what happened. He didn’t want Chase to grow up thinking, Daddy just didn’t come home one day.
“I’m thinking your hand,” she said.
“What?” Jamie croaked.
“It’s already injured. And yes, you’re a writer. But I’ll be there to help. You can dictate. I can transcribe.” Molly smiled. “After all, I am an experienced executive assistant.”
“No.”
“I can numb your arm. I can’t say it won’t hurt, but it won’t be as bad as you think. You can close your eyes. I’ll take care of everything.”
“No.”
“We have to act soon,” she said, and stood up. “If you can think of another body part, tell me quick.”
Molly turned to face a corner of the conference room. She pushed her wet hair out of her face, best she could. She straightened her bra and panties, as if adjusting a business suit after a ride on the regional rail lines. Then she did the strangest thing of alclass="underline" She addressed a ghost in the corner of the room: “Boyfriend, I’m ready.”
She’s insane, Jamie thought.
Truly, truly insane.
“You’ve watched a demonstration of my abilities,” she continued. “You’ve seen my skills, and how I quickly and decisively respond to evolving circumstances. In the end, despite setbacks, my objectives were achieved. I hope you’ll find that I am a creative and determined operative, able to deal with any challenge placed before me.”
Who the hell was she talking to? The imaginary voices inside her head that told her to kill, kill, kill?
“In our discussions, you promised escape and refuge at the completion of my demonstration, if you found my performance satisfactory or greater. I ask you now. Do you find me worthy?”
Jamie rolled over, looking for another pair of legs. Maybe someone else was in the conference room. Maybe there was a helicopter floating outside, waiting for them to grab hold of a rope ladder and be taken away to safety.
But there was nobody else in the room. Just the two of them, and their dead coworkers. Stuart hadn’t moved an inch since dropping dead a few hours ago. David must have finally died from his head shot. Or something else. Maybe Nichole had finished him off. But then who had killed her?
“Do you?” she asked the corner of the conference room.
Molly, of course. Molly had killed them all. One by one. Why was she sparing him?
Because of an attempted kiss one drunken night a few months ago?
“Please answer me,” she pleaded.
Jamie made it to his belly and used his good hand to push himself up to his knees. He could see Nichole and David more clearly now. More important, he could see the gun on the floor, under her face. The grip was showing.
“PLEASE ANSWER ME!”
Thirty-five hundred miles away, there was no one who could answer her.
The question was, could Jamie do it?
Could he shoot a woman?
No, not just a woman. Molly Lewis. Crazy as she was—and that was another consideration, her being clearly mentally incapacitated—was it right to shoot a woman you wanted to kiss just a few months ago? Especially if she’s not in her right mind?
But Jamie wondered about that. Maybe she was in her right mind. There were bigger things than him at play in this office this morning. Nichole had told him as much. Unless Home Depot was running a sale on chemical weapons, explosives, and poison champagne … wasn’t it possible that this was something larger and stranger than Jamie would have imagined?
And Molly was at the center of it?
Jamie looked at the gun. Looked at Nichole, who knew what was going on, but refused to tell him.
If you don’t already know, then you’re not supposed to know.
This was a betrayal beyond reason.
Ania couldn’t understand it. Granted, her audition was technically shaky. Nothing had proceeded as planned. But she had improvised her brains out. And in the end, the mission had been accomplished. Her coworkers were dead. Every single one of them—save Jamie. The explosives had been detonated. Again, not according to plan, but the cleansing fire was under way nonetheless. Things had worked out. She’d proved her worth. She deserved a response.
Couldn’t they acknowledge her with a simple response?
Was she not worth a mere syllable?
A yes?
Or a no?
The silence was maddening.
Ania thought of her mother in that dreadful place, hanging on to the promise of a better life. Don’t worry, Mama, I’m coming back for you, she’d told her.
Ania had lied.
Lied to her mother.
Not a single syllable, and now here she was, in the place of her own nightmares, burning alive, torn apart, covered in blood, trapped with the only man she cared about. The man she’d promised to introduce to Mama.
You’ll like him. He’s a writer. Just like Josef.
And they were both going to die.
She tried one last time. One last beg for a response. She was owed that much.
She’d put too much into this job for it to end this way.
With nothing.
Could he do it? The gun was right there, on the floor.
Pick it up.
This is a woman who could take a full blast from a defibrillator and pop right back up.
Think about it being the right or wrong thing to do later.
You need to stop her.
Do it.
Do it now.
The conference room doors slammed open and two firemen, decked out in helmets and face masks and pickaxes, stormed in.