Then, of course, the economy fell apart. What Helena had left took a big hit when the markets tanked. When she died, Daria would have been able to look into her finances, and she would have had questions Stilton didn't want to answer. So he'd had to make sure they both went about the same time, in a way that appeared natural. He had done his research, found that although selenium poisoning would show noticeable physical symptoms, it was rare enough that most doctors would run through scores of other tests before they stumbled upon it. And then death would present as congestive heart failure, which could be natural. To slow things down even more, he interfered whenever Dr. Boullet tried to make appointments to diagnose the problem.
"It's true, Helena," Stilton said. "I can't say I'm proud of it, but time was running short. I had to do something."
"It's over now, Stilton," Sam said. "You're not walking out of here without bracelets on."
"Wrong," Stilton argued. "You can't risk shooting Helena, and the two of us are going for a ride."
He didn't believe Helena could survive such a ride. The poisoning had weakened her; that and age and stress had parked her on the edge of a cliff, and at the bottom of the cliff was death. Stilton had dragged her close to the rim, and now he had two hands on her back, ready to give the final shove. None of that mattered, though – all that mattered was that the cops couldn't take a chance on killing her themselves.
Neither of them had a safe shot. Stilton's head was exposed, but he kept bobbing it back behind Helena. Even if they hit him, there was a chance his gun would go off. In her condition, Helena couldn't risk so much as a flesh wound.
"I won't hurt her if you let me walk," Stilton said. "I'll let her go someplace safe, and you'll never see me again."
"You have to know that's not how these things work," Sam told him.
"It's how it's going to work this time. Unless you want to take responsibility for her death. I've got nothing to lose, but she does."
"Think about this, Stilton," Willows said. "Think about what it'll be like out there. On the run, always looking over your shoulder, cringing every time you see a police car. We'll be watching your bank accounts, freeze your credit. Are you sure it's worth it?"
"I have plenty of money," he said. "Tucked away around the world. Sit on a beach somewhere instead of going to jail? Yeah, I think it's worth it." He tugged Helena toward the door. She dragged her feet, and he gave her a rib-crushing jerk. "Come on, Helena. Don't make this diffic -"
The shot rang out in the small space, loud and echoing off the walls, and the bite of acrid smoke reached Catherine's nose while she was still working out what had happened. Stilton's head snapped back, his hands flinging out to the sides, the gun sailing from his open hand and tearing a chunk of plaster from a wall. Blood jetted from the small entry hole in his right temple and gushed from the exit wound opposite. Helena screamed once, then collapsed.
Drake McCann stood there, legs spread, smoke still wafting from the barrel of the gun in his hand. He looked shell-shocked, eyes wide and jaw slack.
"Drop it!" Sam barked, spinning around and aiming his weapon at McCann.
Drake's expression didn't change, but his fingers went limp and his gun clattered to the floor. "She… she never deserved any of this," he said quietly.
Catherine crouched at Helena's side and put her hand to the woman's throat. There was a pulse, weak but steady. Helena drew halting, shallow breaths. Catherine fumbled for a phone to call for an ambulance. Behind her, she heard handcuffs being snapped over McCann's wrists. Dustin Gottlieb came tearing into the suite, demanding to know what had happened, tears spotting his cheeks when he saw.
As she sat waiting for the paramedics, Catherine thought about the two bodies in Doc Robbins's morgue, perhaps side-by-side in drawers. Robert Domingo, a wealthy man from a poor community, and Troy Cameron, a poor man from a rich family. In the greater scheme, she knew, she was one cog in the machinery of state, and whatever inequalities and injustices had affected the lives of the two men, her role, and that of the people she worked with, was to make sure that in death each was treated the same. Nobody took precedence because of personal health, no human being was so unimportant that he or she didn't deserve their fullest efforts.
Sam led McCann, in handcuffs, out of the suite. McCann had killed Troy Cameron in the course of his job, protecting the Cameron estate. Now he had killed Craig Stilton while protecting Helena. He would never do time for either killing, and that didn't bother Catherine in the least. This shooting, like the other, would be ruled justifiable. Both were unfortunate; neither was homicide.
Of all of the people with whom Helena had surrounded herself, he might have been the best at his job, the most loyal and honorable.
And he was, it seemed, a very skilled marksman, with just enough of a different angle on Stilton that he'd been able to take the shot. It was still a risky play, but it had paid off.
When Helena Cameron recovered, Catherine would suggest that she give Drake McCann a raise.
26
If they were going to spot him, Brass figured, it would be now, while he was working his way down off the last boulder and approaching the back door. He couldn't be sure how many people were inside or how vigilant they were, but for all he knew, someone might have been lining up a shot at that very moment from one of the dark windows facing his way.
The backyard had been planted with grass once, but that hadn't lasted long. There were a couple of tufts remaining, and the rest was as dry and dusty as the front. A deck extended from a concrete slab behind the house and wrapped around a covered hot tub, but that was the only feature of note. Instead of a fence, there were the boulders that backstopped the property, some of them as tall as the house itself, jumbled up one atop another as if they'd been shaken out of a can. The scramble up and down and around had been tiring, and Brass's clothing, entirely unsuited to the job, was thrashed.
But he had almost reached his goal.
Seven windows faced him, one small and set high into a wall – a bathroom window, he thought. One, near the far left corner, was floor-to-ceiling, and he could catch glimpses of an empty living room or dining room through that one. A few feet to the right of that was a door with a window inset, which Brass guessed led into a kitchen or utility room. The others were upstairs, more standard-sized and regularly placed, and were probably bedrooms.
He hadn't detected any movement through any of them. For all he could tell, Solis and Moran weren't there after all or had left after Brass and Aguirre split up, and this had all been nothing more than a fairly unpleasant afternoon workout.
Brass stopped in the notch between two boulders he had just climbed down and scanned the back of the house again. All was still. He couldn't hear anything from the house. In the distance, a raven cawed, and muffled conversation from around front sounded as if Aguirre had reached the pair of police officers standing guard. The only smell was the dry tang of desert.
Waiting any longer wouldn't do him any good. He drew his duty weapon and stepped out into the yard. Walking briskly, he made for the back door. No one raised an alarm, and in seconds, he had the doorknob gripped in his left hand. It turned easily. The window was smudged, greasy on the inside, preventing him from seeing through.
Brass took a deep breath and let it out again, willing the hammering of his heart to slow. He had more years on the job than he liked to think about, but no matter how many times he had done it, going through a door blind, into a place he didn't know, where anybody might be waiting, was a nerve-wracking thing. To make it worse, he had to trust that Aguirre was really working on distracting the men out front and not warning them. Ray's friend had speculated that most tribal police would be on Domingo's side. Whether that extended to Aguirre he couldn't know.