In her purse, banging against her hip, she felt the heavy pistol, the one she’d been planning to use on Covey several days ago. She was familiar with guns — she’d helped several of the other Lotus Foundation clients “transition” by shooting themselves. And though she’d never actually pulled the trigger and murdered someone, she knew she could do it.
The tears were gone now. She was thinking of how to best handle the shooting. Studying the old man and that woman — who’d have to die, too, of course; she’d be a witness against Margaret herself for the murder today. Anyway, the double murder would make the scenario more realistic. It would look like a mugging. Margaret would demand the wallet and the woman’s purse and when they handed the items over, she’d shoot them both in the head.
Pausing now, next to a tree, Margaret looked over the park. A few passersby, but no one was near Covey and the woman. The detective — Simms, she recalled — was still hiking up the hill to the concession stand. He was two hundred yards away; she could kill them both and be in her car speeding away before he could sprint back to the bench.
She waited until he disappeared into a stand of trees then reached into her purse, cocking the pistol. Margaret stepped out from behind the tree and moved quickly down the path that led to the bench. A glance around her. Nobody was present.
Closer now, closer. Along the asphalt path, damp from an earlier rain and the humid spring day.
She was twenty feet away…ten…
She stepped quickly up behind them. They looked up. The woman gave a faint smile in greeting — a smile that faded as she noted Margaret’s cold eyes.
“Who are you?” the woman asked, alarm in her voice.
Margaret Ludlum said nothing. She pulled the gun from her purse.
“Wallet!” Pointing the pistol directly at the old man’s face.
“What?”
“Give me your wallet!” Then turning to the woman, “And the purse! Now!”
“You want—?”
They were confused, being mugged by someone outfitted by Neiman Marcus.
“Now!” Margaret screamed.
The woman thrust the purse forward and stood, holding her hands out. “Look, just calm down.”
The old man was frantically pulling his wallet from his pocket and holding it out unsteadily.
Margaret grabbed the items and shoved them into her shoulder bag. Then she looked at the man’s eyes and — rather than feel any sympathy, she felt that stillness she always did when slipping someone drugs or showing them how to grip the gun or seal the garage with duct tape to make the most efficient use of the carbon monoxide.
The woman was saying, “Please, don’t do anything stupid. Just take everything and leave!”
Then Robert Covey squinted. He was looking at her with certain understanding. He knew what this was about. “Leave her alone,” he said. “Me, it’s okay. It’s all right. Just let her go.”
But she thrust the gun forward at Covey as the woman with him screamed and dropped to the ground. Margaret began to pull the trigger, whispering the phrase she always did when helping transition the Lotus Foundation’s clients, offering a prayer for a safe journey. “God be with—”
A flash of muddy light filled her vision as she felt, for a tiny fragment of a second, a fist or rock slam into her chest.
“But…what…”
Then nothing but numb silence.
A thousand yards away, it seemed.
If not miles.
Talbot Simms squinted toward the bench, where he could see the forms of Robert Covey and Mac on their feet, backing away from the body of the woman he’d just shot. Mac was pulling out her cell phone, dropping it, picking it up again, looking around in panic.
He lowered the gun and stared.
A moment before, Tal had paid the vendor and was turning from the concession stand, holding the tray of drinks. Frowning, he saw a woman standing beside the bench, pointing something toward Mac and Covey, Mac rearing away then handing her purse over, the old man giving her something, his wallet, it seemed.
And then Tal had noticed that what she held was a gun.
He knew that she was in some way connected to Sheldon or Farley and the Lotus Foundation. The red hair…Yes! Sheldon’s secretary, unsmiling Celtic Margaret. He’d known, too, that she’d come here to shoot the only living eyewitness to the scam — and probably Mac, too.
Dropping the tray of tea and coffee, he’d drawn his revolver. He’d intended to sprint back toward them, calling for her to stop, threatening her. But when he saw Mac fall to the ground, futilely covering her face, and Margaret shoving the pistol forward, he’d known she was going to shoot.
Tal had cocked his own revolver to single-action and stepped into a combat firing stance, left hand curled under and around his right, weight evenly distributed on both feet, aiming high and slightly to the left, compensating for gravity and a faint breeze.
He fired, felt the kick of the recoil and heard the sharp report, followed by screams behind him of bystanders diving for cover.
Remaining motionless, he’d cocked the gun again and prepared to fire a second time in case he’d missed, looking for a target.
But he saw immediately that another shot wouldn’t be necessary. Tal Simms carefully lowered the hammer of his weapon, replaced it in his holster and began running down the path.
“Excuse me, you were standing where?”
Tal ignored Greg LaTour’s question and asked them both one more time, “You’re okay? You’re sure?”
The bearded cop persisted. “You were on that hill. Way the fuck up there?”
Mac told Tal that she was fine. He instinctively put his arm around her. Covey, too, said that he was unhurt, though he added that, as a heart patient, he could do without scares like that one.
Margaret Ludlum’s gun had fired but it was merely a reflex after Tal’s bullet had struck her squarely in the chest. The slug from her pistol had buried itself harmlessly in the ground somewhere nearby.
Tal glanced at her body, now covered with a green tarp from the Medical Examiner’s Office. He waited to feel upset, or shocked or guilty, but he was only numb. Those would come later, he supposed. At the moment he was just relieved to find that Mac and Robert Covey were all right — and that the final itch in the case had been alleviated: The tough Irish girl, Margaret, was the missing link.
They must’ve hired muscle or used somebody in the Foundation for the dirty work.
As the Crime Scene techs picked up evidence around the body and looked through the woman’s purse, LaTour persisted. “That hill up there? No fucking way.”
Tal glanced up. “Yeah. Up there by the concession stand. Why?”
The bearded cop glanced at Mac. “He’s kidding. He’s jerking my chain, right?”
“No, that’s where he was.”
“That’s a fucking long shot. Wait…how big’s your barrel?”
“What?”
“On your service piece.”
“I don’t know. It’s whatever they gave me.” Tal nodded at the gun on his hip.
“Three-inch,” Greg said. “You made that shot with a three-inch barrel?”
“We’ve pretty much established that, Greg. Can we move on?” Tal turned back to Mac and smiled, feeling weak, he was so relieved to see her safe.
But LaTour said, “You told me you don’t shoot.”
“I didn’t say that. You assumed I don’t shoot. I just didn’t want to go to the range the other day. I’ve shot all my life. I was captain of the rifle team at school.”
LaTour squinted at the distant concession stand. He shook his head. “No way.”