Edwyn Noble moved from the front of the crowd toward the stairs. “Peter, don't do this.”
“What?” Bondurant asked. “Damage my reputation? Or yours?”
“You're talking nonsense!” the lawyer demanded. “Put down the gun.”
Peter didn't listen. His anguish was an almost palpable thing. It was in the sweat that ran down his face. It was in the smell of him. It was in the air he exhaled too quickly from his lungs.
“This is my fault,” he said, the tears coming harder. “I did this. I have to pay. Here. Now. I can't stand it anymore.”
“Come with me, Peter,” Quinn said, stepping a little closer, offering his left hand. “We'll sit down and you can tell me the whole story. That's what you want, isn't it?”
He was aware of the whir of motor drives as photographers shot frame after frame. The video cameras were running as well, some likely running live feeds to their stations. All of them recording this man's agony for their audiences.
“You can trust me, Peter. I've been asking you for the truth from day one. That's all I want: the truth. You can give it to me.”
“I killed her. I killed her,” he mumbled over and over, tears streaming down his cheeks.
His gun hand was trembling badly. Another few minutes and his own burning muscles would make him lower it. If he didn't blow his head off first.
“You sent for me, Peter,” Quinn said. “You sent for me for a reason. You want to give me the truth.”
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” Bondurant sobbed, the struggle within himself enormous, powerful, tearing him apart. His whole right arm was shaking now. He cocked the hammer back.
“Peter, no!” Quinn ordered, going for him.
The gun exploded. Shouts and screams echoed with the shot. A fraction of a second too late, Quinn grabbed hold of Bondurant's wrist and forced it up. Another shot boomed. Kovac rushed up behind Peter, the uniforms right behind him, and pulled the gun out of his hand.
Bondurant collapsed against Quinn, sobbing, bleeding, but alive. Quinn lowered him gently to the marble steps. The first shot had cut at an angle above his temple and plowed out a furrow of flesh and hair two inches long on its way to the second floor of the building. Gunpowder residue blackened the skin. He dropped his head between his knees and vomited.
The sound level in the hall was deafening. Photographers rushed forward for better angles. Edwyn Noble shoved past two of them to get to his boss.
“Don't say anything, Peter.”
Kovac gave the attorney a look of disgust. “You know, I think it's a little late for that.”
Ted Sabin took the podium and called for order and calm. The mayor was crying. Dick Greer snapped at his captains. The cops went about their jobs, dealing with the gun, clearing a path for the EMTs.
Quinn crouched beside Peter, hand still on the man's wrist, feeling his pulse race out of control. Quinn's own heart was pumping hard. A fraction of an inch, a steadier hand, and Peter Bondurant would have blown his brains out in front of half the country. An event to be broadcast on the nightly news with the disclaimer: We warn you—what you are about to see may be disturbing . . .
“You have the right to remain silent, Peter,” he began quietly. “Anything you say may be used against you in court.”
“Must you do this now?” Noble asked in a harsh whisper. “The press is watching.”
“They were watching when he came onstage with a loaded gun too,” Quinn said, tugging at the duffel bag Peter had smuggled the gun in. Bondurant, sobbing uncontrollably, tried to hold on to it for a moment, then let go. His body crumpled into a bony heap.
“I think people have already let too many rules slide where Peter is concerned,” Quinn said.
He handed the bag to Vince Walsh. “It's heavy. He may have more weapons in it.”
“You have the right to have your attorney present at questioning,” Kovac continued the Miranda warning, pulling out handcuffs.
“Jesus God!” came the hoarse exclamation. Quinn looked up to see Walsh drop the duffel bag and grab the side of his neck, his face purple.
The paramedics said later he was dead before he hit the ground . . . right beside the bag that carried Jillian Bondurant's decapitated head.
35
CHAPTER
KATE STEPPED BACK from Angie, not trying to decipher what the girl had said. She was breathing hard, and she'd cracked her elbow on the coffee table on the fall to the floor. She rubbed it now as she tried to get her thoughts clear. Angie sat on her knees, keening like a banshee, hitting herself in the head with her bloody hands over and over again. Blood soaked the thighs of her jeans and oozed out through the slits she had cut with the knife.
“My God,” Kate murmured, shaken by the sight. She backed into the desk, turned to the phone.
Rob stood three feet away, staring at the girl with a peculiar kind of interest, as if he were a scientist watching a specimen.
“Talk to us, Angie,” he said softly. “Tell us what you're feeling.”
“Jesus Christ, Rob,” Kate snapped as she picked up the receiver. “Leave her alone! Go in the kitchen and get some wet towels.”
He went instead to Angie, pulled a six-inch black leather sap from his coat pocket, and struck her across the back. The girl screamed and fell over sideways, arching her back as if to try to escape the pain.
Kate stood stunned, staring at her boss with her mouth hanging open. “W-what . . . ?” she began, then swallowed and started again, her pulse racing. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked, breathless with astonishment.
Rob Marshall turned his gaze on her with undisguised hate. His eyes nearly glowed with it. The stare ran through Kate like a sword. She could feel the contempt roll off him in hot waves, could smell it rising, sour and vile from his pores. She stood there, time elongating, instincts coming alive even as she realized her phone was dead.
“You have no respect for me, Kate, you fucking cunt,” he said in a low, growling voice.
The words and the hatred behind them hit her like a fist, stunning her for a moment, then shaking her as the pieces fell into place.
“Who choked you, Angie? Did you know this guy?”
“Sure . . . So do you . . .”
“. . . It's all right, Angie. You're safe now.”
“You stupid bitch. Now you're dead.”
Rob Marshall? No. The idea seemed almost laughable. Almost. Except that the phone had been working before he showed up, and he was standing before her with a weapon in his hand.
She put the receiver down.
“I've had it with you,” he said bitterly. “Picking, picking, picking. Bitching, bitching, bitching. Belittling me. Looking down your nose at me.”
He stood on the victimology reports that had scattered on the floor. Everyone is a victim of something. She'd had that thought half a dozen times that morning when she'd been going over the reports, but she hadn't examined it closely enough.
Lila White had been a victim of an assault.
Fawn Pierce had been a victim of rape.
Melanie Hessler, another rape victim.
At some time or other they had all dealt with victim/witness services.
The only one who didn't fit was Jillian Bondurant.
“But you're an advocate for victims, for God's sake,” she murmured.
An advocate who, because of his position, listened to account after account of people—largely women—being victimized, brutalized, beaten, raped, degraded. . . .
How many times had he made her sit through the replaying of Melanie Hessler's interview tapes? Rob listening intently, running the tape back, replaying pieces over and over.