“Shut up, Charlotte!”
“I really don’t care if you whacked the First Lady, Pallack. But I do have to tell you—the whole thing with your dead mother— it’s sick, crazy, you know?”
“You call me crazy? You’re a hired assassin, a psychopath. And I didn’t kill Christie, it was an accident, it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
Makepeace actually laughed. “Maybe she thought you were a little old for her, Pallack. You think?”
Dix’s wrists were raw. He felt the stickiness of his own blood, smelled it. He realized that more than anything he wanted his bloody hands around Pallack’s fat neck. He wanted to kill him the same way he’d killed Christie. He heard Pallack say in a sad, dreamy voice, “I promised her the earth, but she wouldn’t be reasonable. She tried to get away from me. I didn’t mean to kill her. It was an accident. My mother wanted to know about her, through August, and he knew. I didn’t want him dead either, I needed him, but I had no choice. None of it was my fault.”
Dix could see Christie arguing with Pallack, begging him, then finally, trying to escape him. Only she hadn’t made it. He’d killed her—and he believed it wasn’t his fault.
Charlotte said aloud what he’d been thinking. “You talk about none of it being your fault, Thomas, yet even now my brother is missing.”
Pallack said, “I don’t know where David is, I’ve already told you that.”
“But why would he run, just because the FBI asked him some questions?”
Makepeace looked from one to the other, and said, a smile on his face and malice toward Pallack in his eyes, “I guess your husband didn’t tell you he asked me to have David killed? Yep, I made the calls.” He snapped his fingers. “And no David.”
“You bastard!”
“Go ahead, Pallack, tell her. You might as well.”
And Pallack yelled at Charlotte, “Let me tell you about that sleazy brother of yours! He knew I’d killed Christie, the bastard had followed me, he confronted me. And then he laughed at me, did you know that? He laughed, then he told me he had a sister who looked just like Christie, who could easily fill Christie’s shoes. He said you had no ties to anyone, and all you wanted from the world was money. Your precious brother and I struck a deal—I paid that mealy-mouthed bastard what he called a finder’s fee. I knew he called you—told you how Christie wore her hair, what color it was, how she walked. I knew you were setting me up, and I wasn’t sure, but when I saw you, I was happy. I felt blessed. Imagine, there were two of you in the world.”
There was silence, thick and angry. Dix saw Charlotte move closer to Pallack. She was still wearing only that nightshirt, and no one seemed to notice or care. She said right in his face, “You’re lying. Sure, he told me about you, how you coveted me, that you’d give me everything I ever wanted. You know I loved David. You vicious old man—how could you tell Makepeace to have him killed?”
Makepeace said, “Well, now, you asked, didn’t you? I’m sure all of this was quite cathartic for both of you. But frankly I’m bored. You have exhausted me. It’s getting late, time to take our boy away and make sure he’s underground. As for Julia Ransom, I’ve decided I don’t like our deal anymore, Pallack. I think I’ll plan something special for her, maybe that Semtex, after all, that’d do the trick very nicely.”
Dix pictured the Sherlock house blowing up—Ruth, Sean, all of them asleep, not expecting any trouble, all helpless. He heard Makepeace walking toward him.
There was only him, no one else. He readied himself. Makepeace bent over him, grabbed his chin, jerked his face up. “Still woozy, are you? What’s wrong, pretty boy? I didn’t hit you all that hard.”
Dix gave his arms a final jerk, ignored the flash of pain through his injured arm as the ropes cut their way over his wrists and jerked loose. He jumped to his feet, leaned onto his back leg, and slammed Makepeace in the kidney with the side of his foot.
CHAPTER 60
Makepeace made no sound as he stumbled back. An instant later, he whirled and kicked out smoothly. Dix turned fast and Makepeace’s foot struck his hip, not his groin. Dix felt a slap of sharp pain, feinted left, whirled on the balls of his feet, and sent his right foot high into Makepeace’s chest.
Again, Makepeace made no sound. He landed on his back, rolled once, and came up, panting, his gun in his right hand. It was a .38 and he pointed it at Dix’s heart. “Enough of that, Sheriff.” He rubbed the heel of his hand over his chest. “You move a whisker and I’ll shoot you right here. It wouldn’t be my problem, you see, just Pallack’s.”
A shot sounded, deafening in the small space.
Makepeace flinched. He slowly turned his head to stare at Pallack, his expression bewildered. A dribble of blood snaked out of his mouth. Slowly, the .38 slipped out of his hand and fell on the carpet. He tried to turn, but couldn’t. He crumpled to his knees, then slowly he fell backward, his head striking the edge of Pallack’s desk.
Pallack pointed the gun at Dix.
Charlotte said, staring down at Makepeace, “Why didn’t you let him kill the sheriff?”
Pallack’s face was flushed, his eyes brilliant with excitement. “I figured Makepeace was the most dangerous. No, Sheriff, keep back, don’t try any of your fancy kicks or I’ll shoot you right now. I’ve got to think—okay, the way it’ll go down is that Makepeace tried to kill you and you shot him first.”
“It’s all over, Pallack,” Dix said, not moving a hair. “You kill an assassin and the law won’t put the needle in your arm. Kill me and you’ll go down hard. They’re getting closer, you don’t have much time. Can’t you hear them coming?”
Pallack froze at the sound of sirens in the distance.
Rage pumped through Dix as he stared at the mad old man. “You killed my wife, killed her because she wouldn’t leave me or her boys. Do you know how insane that is?” Dix lurched to the side, and drove his foot toward Pallack’s right arm, but Pallack jumped back and fired. The bullet went wide, and slammed into the dark wood wainscoting.
Pallack made a strangled noise, and ran out of the study.
Dix grabbed his Beretta from the desktop and ran after him.
Pallack fired again. Dix felt a bullet fly past his head and slam into the wall, and he hit the floor. He heard Pallack run all out, pause a moment to jerk open the front door, then he was through it. He jumped to his feet, saw Charlotte, white-faced, hugging herself, and left her standing next to her husband’s desk, Makepeace’s body close to her foot.
The sirens were close now.
Dix ran out the Pallack front door to see a metal door slam shut at the end of the short hallway. He jerked open the heavy door and ran up the dozen concrete steps to a small square landing. He shoved open the steel-reinforced roof door, fell back when a bullet caromed off it.
Dix yelled around the door, “Pallack, the cops will shoot you for sure if you go down those fire stairs. Give it up, it’s over now. You can still come out of this alive.”
He heard Pallack breathing hard, and wondered if he was going to have a coronary. He eased out from behind the door onto the roof, six stories up. Pallack was standing at the edge, looking down, his knees pressed to the roof guard, his gun dangling loose in his right hand.
Dix heard voices from the street, recognized Savich and Ruth.
“Give it up, Pallack,” he said again. He raised his gun and began walking toward Pallack.
Pallack slowly turned to face him. He didn’t look at all worried. He still held his gun at his side. He smiled. “You had a beautiful wife, Sheriff, but in the end, she wouldn’t have me.” He laughed. “She told me about you, about her sons, on and on trying to convince me to let her go, until—I’ve got to admit it—I lost it.” He shrugged. “She was blind to what I could give her.”