Will heard the breath expelling from Tom’s lungs in surprised gasps, but he didn’t spend even a single second wallowing in the minor victory. He untangled himself from Tom and stepped back, then spun to his right and grabbed the bookcase from behind and pulled it with everything he had, until the thick wood furniture careened forward, crashing into Tom’s back and plunging to the floor, taking Tom along with it.
Will didn’t have any illusions that the bookcase was going to hold Tom down for long. In fact, Tom was already halfway off the floor, the bookcase sliding off his back, when Will smashed his right knee into Tom’s left temple. That forced the big man back down, the bookcase crashing on top of him for the second time in the last ten seconds.
This time, Tom didn’t get up quite as fast. But get back up he did, pushing the bookcase off him as he slowly rose from the floor.
“That all you got?” Tom shouted, though Will didn’t detect the same level of boisterous bravado as before.
“Not by a long shot,” Will said.
Will walked over to where the Glocks were and picked one up. He checked the slide to make sure there was a bullet in the pipe.
Tom had risen from the floor behind him, and he stood like a hulking giant. A hurt but still hulking giant slightly bent at the waist, his breath coming out in ragged gasps. He eyeballed Will like a predator. “It’s not over yet, soldier boy. There’s still round three.”
“It’s over.”
Tom’s eyes went to the Glock in Will’s hand, but he managed to grin through a mouthful of blood anyway. “Bullshit. I know guys like you. We’re cut from the same cloth.”
“You don’t know me.”
“The hell I don’t. You were a cop, too, right? After the Army?”
“Yeah.”
“See.” He spat out a thick gob of blood. “I know guys like you. I went to work eight hours a day, five days a week with guys like you. Gung-ho motherfuckers to the very end. Just like me. That’s how I know you’re not going to use that gun.”
Will was tired and hurt and his back felt like it had been crushed into a thousand different sections. He stood across from Tom, watching the man breathing in a lungful of air with every gasp. “You don’t think so?”
“Fuck no,” Tom said, brimming with confidence. “You’re going to end this the only way guys like us know how. With our fists.” He held up his hands, balling them into fists for effect. “Round three, motherfucker. Show me what you got.”
Tom had on a nice, dull black watch with what looked like a polycarbonate frame. Will glimpsed a digital readout and compass and backlighting functions.
“I like your watch,” Will said.
Tom looked confused. “What?”
“Your watch. What’s that go for? Three hundred?”
“How the fuck should I know.”
“I need a watch,” Will said, and he shot Tom in the forehead.
CHAPTER 28
LARA
She was simultaneously trying to reach the surface of a swimming pool filled with dense, sticky mud and process what Josh was telling her and ignore the flaring of pain in her left arm. The bullet wound had suddenly re-manifested itself after taking a leave of absence for most of yesterday. That led to her wondering if her painkillers were still in her hotel room. The Tramadol would be nice about now, maybe even a Percocet, or a Vicodin…
Lara could tell from the looks on Carly’s and Gaby’s faces as they sat next to her that they were having the same difficulties — but minus an old gunshot wound, lucky them. The fact that she was wearing panties and one of Will’s shirts didn’t help her to adjust quickly to the situation. The shirt was about two sizes too big, though the most disturbing part was realizing someone had dressed her. She had been nude when she had fallen asleep in Will’s arms last night.
She shivered a bit as she tried to push the repulsive idea of someone molesting her while she was in bed out of her head.
She was also barefoot, and the floor was hard and cold and pricking against her feet and legs and butt, despite the air around her feeling heavy and humid. How was that possible? And the itchy sensation in her left arm was getting more intense, and it was all she could do to grit her teeth and force herself to ignore the urgent desire to rake at the scabbing wound under the bandages.
“Where’s Will?” were the first coherent words out of her mouth.
“He went to look for some clothes and weapons,” Josh said. “That was about five minutes ago.”
“Figures,” Danny said, yawning behind them.
Danny was wearing boxers covered in leaping dolphins. Unlike Lara and the others, he didn’t look like he was having very much difficulty accepting what Josh had told them. But that was Danny. Army Ranger. Ex-SWAT commando. Flippant comedian. Like Will, he adjusted amazingly well to almost any situation.
“He’s always going off and having fun without me,” Danny said. “I really need to start putting bells around that boy’s neck.”
“What about the girls?” Carly asked, looking back at Elise and Vera, still asleep on the floor behind them. Elise had curled up into a ball, her hands under the side of her head as makeshift pillows. Vera was snoring lightly with the strangest smile on her face. Lara wondered if she had looked like that while she was under, too.
Rohypnol, Josh had told them. Or roofies, the date-rape drug. She had known right away they had slipped it to her and the others during dinner, in the red wine, before Josh had even filled her in on that part.
“Will says to let the girls sleep,” Josh said.
Lara nodded. “There’s no point in waking them up.” She looked over at Sarah, standing nearby, not saying a word. Lara thought the other woman looked scared.
She should be.
“Sarah,” she said, “the wine last night. That was you.”
“I had no choice,” Sarah said.
“Of course you did,” Carly snapped. “We all have a choice. Don’t stand there and tell me you didn’t have a fucking choice. You decided to go along with this.”
“You don’t understand,” Sarah said. She sounded close to tears. “I came here with Jenny, hoping to get away from those things out there just like the rest of you. Karen and Tom and the others were just dragging people out of their rooms by gunpoint back then. People got hurt, some got killed. A boy we came with got shot because he fought back. I convinced them they could use Rohypnol instead so that wouldn’t happen again. It was safer. That was how I saved my family. I had no choice.”
“How many times did you have to tell yourself that before you started to believe it?” Carly asked. The hard edge in her voice hadn’t softened a bit.
“Carly,” Josh said, “she came back here to help us.”
“So what’s the new angle, Sarah?” Carly’s eyes were still zeroed in on Sarah.
“There is no new angle,” Sarah said, almost offended by the suggestion.
“Bullshit. Spit it out. What angle are you playing now?”
Lara watched Sarah’s face carefully, and she thought she understood. What would she do for Will? For Elise? Or for Carly?
Lara walked over and got between the two women. “Not now. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about this later.” Before Carly could respond, Lara looked over at Josh and said, “What else did Will say? When is he coming back?”
“He didn’t say,” Josh said. “Just that we should stay here until he comes back with the weapons.”
“So where are they?” Danny asked Sarah. “The party people?”
“Karen, Marcus, Tom, and Berg are usually the only ones involved,” Sarah said. “The rest stay in their rooms until morning. Tom is in the lighthouse — the Tower. Berg is in the unfinished part of the hotel, going through the things we brought out of your rooms. He’s kind of odd; he spends a lot of time doing things the rest of us find a little disturbing. Karen and Marcus are probably asleep.”