“Let the girl go.”
He still had the gun aimed at Serena’s chest.
“Let. Her. Go.”
Slowly, Jagger dropped his other arm, releasing his grip on Delaney. The girl stayed where she was, frozen. Tears rolled down her face. Her eyes were wide, two white orbs staring back at Serena.
“Put your arms in the air, Delaney,” Serena told her, “and walk away slowly. Head to the police cars behind you. Do it right now.”
The teenager still froze, as if not willing to move, not willing to leave her.
“Delaney, go.”
Finally, the girl did. She put her hands in the air, then backed away from Jagger. She kept walking backward, and when she was ten feet away, she turned and ran. Floodlights from the squad cars lit her up, and she bolted that way. Serena watched the girl until she saw a police officer scoop her into his arms.
She was free. She was safe.
“Put down the gun, Jagger.”
Serena took another step toward him.
“Nobody else has to get hurt,” she said.
Another step.
“Kneel down, put the gun on the ground. There’s a sharpshooter in that helicopter, Jagger. I can tell you what’s happening up there. He’s asking for a green light to take you out. You have about ten seconds before he puts a bullet in your head. What’s it going to be? Do you live or die?”
The devil stared at her. Dressed in black. Covered in red.
Jagger’s arm sagged. The gun shifted, barrel pointing at the ground. He knelt to put it down, but he didn’t even get that far. His grip loosened, and the gun fell away. He slumped sideways to the highway, unconscious, losing blood. Serena closed the last few painful steps, and then she kicked the gun away and stood over him. The helicopter throbbed over her head. The bright light made her squint. Running footsteps pounded from all sides, cops charging from the squad cars. Chaos. Shouts. And one voice above all the others.
“Serena!”
It was Jonny. Running for her.
She tried to focus. She tried to see what was real and what was in her head. There were so many people around her. Friends and ghosts. Maggie. Guppo. Delaney. And Nikki. And Samantha, too. Just for a moment, Samantha was there, standing by the trees, before she became mist.
“Serena,” Stride murmured, rushing up to her, reaching for her.
She smiled a tired smile and collapsed into his arms.
42
Stride expected to find Maggie sitting behind her desk. Instead, she sat in front of the desk, her feet up. She had a Big Mac on a paper wrapper in her lap and a large Coke in one hand. He looked around the office and realized that it wasn’t her office anymore. It was his office again, almost exactly the way it had been fourteen months ago. His photographs — Serena, Cat — were back in frames on the desk. His pictures hung on the walls.
“Hey, boss,” she said casually, taking a large bite from her Big Mac with one hand and then wiping her mouth.
He looked around, feeling as if time had marched backward. This was the world before he was shot. It wasn’t today’s world. “What the hell, Mags?”
“I moved my stuff into Abel’s office,” she replied.
Stride shook his head. “No. We need to talk about this.”
“Too late. It’s already done.”
“That’s not what I want.”
Maggie shrugged. “Are you back? I mean, for good?”
He didn’t hesitate this time. There was no longer any doubt. “Yes, I’m back, but that’s not the point. It’s been over a year. The job’s yours. I talked to K-2. I told him I wanted you to stay in charge.”
“I know you did. Thank you for that. And also, I told him to stuff it. Well, not exactly like that.” She grinned. “Okay, yeah, exactly like that.”
“This isn’t fair to you.”
Maggie spread her arms wide, spilling a little Coke. “So what? Life’s not fair. It wasn’t fair you getting shot. I filled in, but this will always be your job. Besides, if you want the truth, I really hate being the boss. It ain’t me. Add in the fact that most of the cops hate me when I’m in charge, and I’d rather be number two again. Then I can piss and moan about you like everybody else.”
Stride went over to the window and leaned against the ledge. He studied the leather chair behind the desk. It was his chair. She’d moved it back here from Abel Teitscher’s office.
All he had to do was sit down.
“I’m not happy about this, Mags,” Stride said.
“You’ll get over it.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not being noble, boss. It’s what I want.”
“K-2 better make sure you keep your rank and benefits.”
“Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about that. I’m incredibly gracious, but I’m not stupid. I’m still Lieutenant Mags as far as my pension goes.”
He didn’t know what to say. He’d had plenty of second chances in life, more than he deserved. This was another. He glanced out the window and wondered what other surprises the future held, but then he realized that thinking about the future was a waste of time. It would come no matter what he did.
Yes, he was really back.
“So tell me about our songbirds,” Stride said.
Maggie’s smile widened. She drank more of her Coke. “Oh, those two can’t turn on each other fast enough. Jagger says the whole thing was Chelsey’s idea. Chelsey says Jagger came up with the scheme, and she just went along for the ride. The bottom line is, we’ll put them both away for a long time.”
“Did they meet at the Fallon wedding?”
“Yeah. It was sex at first sight. Sounds like it was a torrid affair worthy of a romance novel. You know, Jagger shirtless, Chelsey caressing his turgid manhood. Anyway, they were going at it hot and heavy for months, and then Chelsey found out about Susan’s cancer. One of them — doesn’t really matter who — began to speculate about the idea of Jonah’s money going to Susan... and then to Gavin... and then to Chelsey. The question was how to do it without fingers being pointed at either one of them. The first half of the plot worked exactly as planned. Jagger used Nikki’s Highlander to run down Jonah, and nobody knew he’d done it. Honestly, if Serena hadn’t gone to the bar to ask about those hundred-dollar bills — and the bar hadn’t triggered her memories of Nikki’s case file — they probably would have gotten away with the whole thing. I’m not sure we’d ever have made a connection to the Fallon murder otherwise.”
“How about the kidnapping?” Stride asked.
“They planned it months ago. Then they really began laying the groundwork after Susan died and Gavin got the money. Chelsey started talking to people about how Gavin was making her nervous, how she was afraid of what he might do to her. They wanted us to see him as a suspect from the beginning. Jagger planted the surveillance camera to make the abduction look legit, and then they staged the kidnapping while Gavin was gone. It was just the two of them, nobody else. Hink Miller had nothing to do with it. Jagger killed Hink to point the finger at Gavin. The scheme was actually pretty smart — just enough conspiracy to make us suspicious, without making it too obvious. Use one of Gavin’s clients as his ‘partner,’ leave behind part of the ransom and some of Chelsey’s hair and perfume in the trunk of Hink’s car, and use Gavin’s gun for the murder. Then they’d make sure we found the gun later. The point was to make us think that Gavin hired Hink to kidnap and kill Chelsey, and then he killed Hink to cover it up, assuming Chelsey was already dead in the woods somewhere according to his plan. They didn’t really care whether we had enough evidence to actually arrest Gavin. The plan was always for Chelsey to kill him and claim self-defense.”