“Once. Too much of a chance of the wrong person getting hit, though. You sure his sister’s with him? Nobody’s spotted her.”
“She was Margaret’s last caller. When I got on the line, she put me on with her brother.”
“He did a fair amount of pacing when he was on the phone. Any chance of getting him on the line again?”
Driscoll hit the return button, hoping he’d come up with a reason why he was calling by the time Angus answered the phone.
“Ready to roll?” said Angus.
He wasn’t standing.
“The Mayor’s on the line with Homeland Security. It won’t be long, now.”
“Good. Here’s how this is gonna play out. I count six shooters perched across the street. They come down. Mount your car on the sidewalk, rear door open and butted against the door to the stable. One driver. Not you. We get clearance on the plane. Cassie, me, and your sister will get into the car. Head directly to the helicopter. Make sure we hit no traffic. If I see so much as a skateboarder that looks like a cop, you’ll be calling a funeral director to arrange your sister’s wake.”
The line went dead. Not once did Angus stand.
“How many shooters up there?” he asked McKeever.
“Six.”
“Well, he tagged them all.”
Ten minutes later, Driscoll’s cruiser was on the sidewalk, its left rear door open and butted. The six sharpshooters were not only down from their perches, they were lined up in the middle of the street, weapons at their feet. To the onlooker, it appeared the Lieutenant and his idling team were waiting for clearance from JFK. But while Con Edison’s air-compressed hammers ripped into asphalt, coupled with the noise of hovering helicopters, a team of Special Operations technicians were using a Sawzall to cut through the rear wall of the stable.
Chapter 98
Angus, suspicious of the racket, tried calling Driscoll on his cell phone, but he couldn’t hear himself over all the noise. He was in the bathroom, door closed, hoping to hear more clearly, when the noise abruptly stopped.
Stepping back into the room, he heard the sound of feet storming up the stairs. He dove for Mary’s ankles, grabbing hold just as Driscoll and Margaret appeared with guns drawn. On his knees, his pistol jabbed into Mary’s rib cage, Angus smirked as he stared down the barrel of the Lieutenant’s semiautomatic.
Cassie had managed to position herself behind Driscoll’s sister, but Margaret’s weapon was bearing down on her. As the twisted twins scoped the fashionably dressed Driscoll and the casually clad Margaret, the two officers witnessed, for the first time, the cruelty that indelibly marked the pair. Cassie’s face looked as though it had been carved with a blowtorch. Beady eyes peered through jagged slits, surrounded by twisted shards of flesh, the color of burning charcoal. Layers of blubber-like flesh draped her narrow neck. She stood no more than four-foot-five. Her ears sat unusually low on either side of her head. A flat, shieldlike chest threatened to burst through the tapered blouse that clung to an anorexic body. In stark contrast, Angus displayed boyish good looks and wavy blond hair. Driscoll wondered what lay hidden behind his shirt, buttoned from waist to neckline. Hadn’t he labeled himself an odd-i-twin?
“Here! Feast your eyes,” Angus said, as if reading the Lieutenant’s mind, ripping off the garment, exposing horrific scarifications. A collection of gargoyles, a distorted unicorn, irregularly shaped tombstones, several primitive amphibian and ophidian creatures surrounded an odd figure, its upper half, Goth, its lower, paranormal. Hues of bistre, raw umber, taupe, indigo, and Prussian blue bled haphazardly, producing the ominous and all-encompassing imagery that was his body.
“Enjoying the freak show, Lieutenant?”
“This is the end of the line, Angus. I’d prefer to see everyone walk out of here alive.”
“But we’re not alive,” said Cassie. “We have no souls. They were stolen from us.”
“You’re the thieves,” said Margaret. “You took away life.”
“Depraved life,” said Angus.
“What’d you do with your father?” Driscoll asked.
Angus looked to his sister and chuckled. “He’s fertilizer.”
Driscoll caught Mary’s perplexed gaze. He offered a prayer for her and all present, before beginning what he believed to be their only way out of the stalemate. “You’re vicious, Angus. Subhuman. You know why I say that?”
Angus didn’t appear to care.
“Evil people kill. And there’s no doubt you’re evil.”
Angus squinted, looking as though he were trying to decipher a riddle.
“But vicious people are menacing. They take pleasure in watching their victim suffer. They’ll take a stick to a stray cat. String up a dog. You know why you fit, Angus?”
“The next victim I’m gonna kill is your sister if you don’t stop badgering me.”
“Vicious people kill because they’re callous.”
“Don’t press your luck, Lieutenant.”
“Vicious people kill the helpless. You know what that says about scum like you?”
Margaret was now anxious. She redirected her weapon on Angus.
“Scum like you-”
“Shut up!” said Angus. “Shut up or I’ll kill her.”
“Scum like you aren’t seeking revenge. They’re-”
“Shut up!” he hollered.
“They kill purely for selfish reasons. For the thrill of it. What’d you do with the horse, Angus?”
“Yo’, lady cop, tell your boss here to shut his mouth up.”
“Teener. That was her name. She too, was defenseless. Innocent. The perfect prey. How’d you kill her?”
Rage filled the teen.
“Poison? Starvation?”
“Lady, I’m talking to you. Do something. Or I swear, his sister’s gonna die.”
“That’d make you next,” said Margaret.
“I’d say you slaughtered her,” Driscoll continued. “What’d you use to carve her up?”
“Shut up!”
“A honing blade?”
“Shut up!”
“A chain saw?”
Angus looked to Margaret, disbelief in his eyes.
“Did you kill her first? Then cut her up? I’ll bet that got you off.”
Angus turned frustrated eyes on Driscoll.
“I’m betting you kept a piece of her? A trophy. You like trophies, don’t you, boy?”
“Just shut up!”
“Did you bury it here? No, you wouldn’t do that. You’d want to touch it. To-”
“Shut the fuck up!” he screamed, turning his weapon on his tormentor.
Driscoll fired first, then Margaret. Without getting off a round, Angus collapsed on the floor, blood gushing from a gaping hole above his left eye, and from another in his chest.
Cassie lunged for Angus’s gun. Margaret tackled her. She and the girl nearly rolled down the stairs. As her back crashed against the banister, causing her to lose her weapon, Margaret felt the barrel of Angus’s pistol against her stomach.
“Drop your gun!” Cassie shouted at Driscoll, as she untangled herself from Margaret. Raising the pistol, she pressed it hard against Margaret’s temple. “Now!” she ordered.
As Cassie attempted to stand, Margaret shoved an elbow into the girl’s ribcage, causing Cassie to fall into the lap of Mary Driscoll, who howled. But the gun had remained in Cassie’s hand. She thrust it into Mary’s mouth.
“Don’t-”
“Don’t what?” Cassie sneered at Driscoll. “You shot my brother.” Her gaze drifted toward Angus, while the muzzle of the Beretta pressed against Mary’s palate.
“Cassie, you can still walk out of here,” said Margaret. “Why don’t you put the gun down?”
“So you can shoot me, too?”
Driscoll was certain it was Angus who had fired the gun. Its safety was engaged. His gut told him Cassie wouldn’t know anything about such things, so, he took a step forward. She did as he’d hoped. She squeezed the trigger. The gun didn’t fire, and while Margaret moved in to cuff her, Driscoll retrieved the Beretta, pressing a forearm against Cassie’s throat.