A fire engine beat him into the intersection, stringing its long body across the entire width of the street. He slammed on the brakes, but not before he had done some damage to the other vehicle and crumpled a fender of Mallory's car. He reversed gears and backed up by ten feet as an angry fireman climbed down from the driver's seat and walked toward him. Now the driver was joined by other men dropping down to the pavement like combat troops parachuting in for a battle. They were all moving in tandem, and the strategy was clear: they were planning to surround Riker and take a little satisfaction out of his hide – slow torture by paperwork and forms filled out in triplicate. Flashing his badge would not save him, and he could not spare the time to do even that much.
Taking a tip from the Mallory School of Bad Driving, Riker aimed the car at the walking wall of firemen. Brave bastards, they waited until the last possible moment to jump aside. And now the small tan sedan was running round the long red truck, using all of the sidewalk to do it, and civilians were diving into the street. Move or die – that was the message.
Mallory would have been proud.
If I wanted you dead," said Ian Zachary, "I could have killed you months ago. You were the easiest one to keep track of." He ran the gun barrel lightly along the deformity of her spine. "Such a distinctive profile. Tell you what. Let's do a trade – your life for Victor Patchock's." He reached out to a small table, picked up the telephone and carried it to her chair. "Call him over here."
"You'll kill us both."
"No, no, no." Zachary wore a condescending smile as he knelt down before her. "The last juror standing takes all the blame. I thought you understood that, Doctor. That's why people keep dying in your vicinity. First Timothy Kidd, then poor Bunny. When the police find Victor bleeding all over your rug, I think they'll have enough to close out the case."
"And no witness to back up the charge of jury tampering." Johanna nodded her understanding. One of the surviving jurors must die tonight. "But if I'm supposed to be the Reaper – if I die, you have no show left."
"You do understand." He rewarded her with his widest smile, then patted her hand. "Good girl. Yes, ideally there would be another trial – yours. A long, drawn-out affair. You're wealthy, Dr. Apollo. You can hire the best legal team in the country. I promise you'll never do a day in prison for all those murders. You'll buy your way out with legal talent. It's the American way."
"And then we start over?"
"Right. A fresh jury. And, next time, all twelve of them die."
"And then another trial? Do you get all your plans from comic books?" Ah, she had disappointed him. This was not the response he had expected. But she knew he would not kill her – not yet. First, he must make her into a believer – a fan of sorts. She was all the audience that he would ever have. He wanted – applause.
He set the telephone in her lap. "You see? I do have an interest in keeping you alive. So you know I'll keep my word." He pressed the receiver into her hand. "Call Victor Patchock."
"You have a famous face," she said. "How many people spotted you downstairs in the lobby? How many of them saw you get on the elevator?"
"Oh, I don't need an alibi tonight. This time, I'll be the one who discovers the Reaper's next victim." He held up her old business card and flipped it over to show her a personal note. "Recognize your own handwriting? I took this off the corpse of Agent Kidd. The wording is ambiguous, no names or dates, just a reminder that the appointment's been changed from ten to eleven o'clock. I'll say you invited me over, lured me here with the prospect of interviewing Victor. But then – what a shock – you killed him right before my eyes." He looked down at his watch. "It's close to eleven o'clock."
"I don't know where Victor is." And this was true. She had been unable to reach him tonight.
"What a pity." He pulled a small silver penknife from his pocket and opened the blade. The honed metal edge gleamed bright. "You can split hairs with this thing – razor sharp." Zachary smiled in mock chagrin. "Oh, I lied about not having a weapon."
Removing the telephone from her lap, he set it on the floor. "Fine, don't call Victor. I'll just have to make do with you." He rose to his feet and backed away from her. "More fun this way. Make me chase you around a bit. Up you go." With a lifting gesture of the small knife, he urged her to rise. "How fast can a hunchback run?"
Crazy Bitch sat behind Ian Zachary's console, leaning into a stationary microphone and saying, "They're coming, boys and girls." She had cut off the pretaped interview to give the fans a moment-by-moment account of an unknown invader drilling out the lock on the studio door. "Is it the cops? Is it the Reaper? Stay tuned." She laughed too loud, creating an electronic feedback squeal that drowned out the sound of the drill. Hysteria was toned down to mere giggles. "Yeah, like you're gonna turn me off before that door opens. Oh, here they come."
There was an unintentional moment of high drama in the silence that followed. The door swung open, and Crazy Bitch had lost her voice, unable to adequately describe the scene before her eyes when tall Mallory strode into the room, wielding a wicked-looking drill and carrying the shield of a medieval knight. The blonde was moving forward with grim resolve.
Could this woman be any more pissed off?
Crazy Bitch thought not.
Ian Zachary could not yet bear to part with his audience, or this was Johanna's thought as she watched the small blade dip and rise to punctuate his words.
"You have no alibi for any of the jury murders," he said. "I was very careful about that. Curse of the grotesque. Poor baby, you spent all your evenings alone. And then there was Timothy Kidd, murdered in your reception room. Now Bunny's crime scene was a piece of luck. I was counting on the neighbors to lead the police back to you. I never expected you to be there when they found the body."
Zachary turned away from her, thinking so little of her ability to fight back. After plumping up the couch pillows, he sat down and stretched out his legs on the coffee table. "Standing trial for murder isn't the worst that could – "
A knock on the door was followed by Riker's voice yelling, "Jo, it's me! Open up! I know you've got my gun!"
Zachary, vaguely amused, pulled the revolver from his pocket. "This is his. You stole a cop's gun?" He inclined his head in the manner of a complimentary bow. "You're an interesting woman, Dr. Apollo." He waved the revolver in the direction of the door. "Let him in."
Johanna smiled, and he didn't like that. "You're afraid of Riker," she said. "You're the one with the gun, but you'd never open that door yourself. You don't want to get that close to him."
The knocking was constant now and louder.
"You were hoping he'd just get tired and go away?" Zachary crooked one finger around the base of a ceramic table lamp. "I think this might get his attention."
The lamp toppled to the floor, smashing to pieces. Riker's knocking escalated to the bang of a closed fist, and he yelled, "Jo!"
Zachary took aim at the door. "I can drop him from here if you like. Let him in, or I'll shoot him right now."
"It's a big gun," said Johanna. "Powerful." She stood up and moved between the door and the couch, blocking his aim. Behind her back, she could hear the savage kicks to the wood, but the dead bolt lock was holding. "You could get both of us with one bullet – if you're lucky. But you won't risk a shot through a closed door – not you, the pathological planner. What if you miss Riker? What happens to all that careful scheming? Improvisation is not your forte."
"It's a moot point, Doctor. Look at what he's doing to that door." She turned to see the wood splintering on one side of the lock. The frame was cracking, yielding, and there was only time to open the bottom drawer of the armoire before the door banged inward and Riker crashed into the room. He had one instant to register the weapon in the other man's hand, and then Johanna made a mighty swing to bring the wine bottle across the back of his skull. Riker dropped like a stone.