Bob, as it turned out, was an effective cover for both of them. “Oh shit!” he shouted. The gun fell out of his right hand. He grabbed his upper right arm with his left hand and tripped over his own feet. “Jesus!” he said. “I’m fucking shot!”
Sydney screamed.
Now Veronica was running down the bridge, away from me. Sydney turned to run, but Patty blocked her way long enough for Veronica to grab her. She took hold of her by the arm and started dragging her back to where I was leaning up against the walkway wall.
Veronica said to Patty, “Get that gun!” Meaning Bob’s, which had slid away from him. He was in too much pain to try to reach it.
Patty did as she was told, held the weapon down at her side in her right hand.
Veronica turned on Sydney and said, “Get over there.” She kept pushing Sydney along the bridge, then shoved her down when they reached me.
Sydney threw her arms around me, her fingers getting smeared with my blood.
“Dad, are you okay? Are you shot?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“Why is Patty helping her?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
I put an arm around Sydney, pulled her into me. I wanted a chance to hold her before Veronica ended up killing all of us.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said. “We’re together. I love you. I love you so much.”
Veronica looked down at Sydney. “God, what a pain-in-the-ass little bitch you turned out to be. All we wanted was a nice, English-speaking face on the front desk, and look at the trouble you got us into.”
“He was a bad man,” Sydney said through her tears. “Mr. Tripe was a very bad man.”
“You think I’ve been hunting you down to get even for that?” Veronica asked. “I just want to shut you up, once and for all. As long as there was a chance you might come back, tell the police about the hotel…” Veronica shook her head, called over to Patty, “Bring me that other gun, would you, love?”
Patty approached.
The gun hung from her right arm. I wondered if Bob had ended up with the Ruger with only one bullet left in it. If so, it was empty now. That would mean at least Patty was not a threat.
But how many bullets did Veronica still have in her weapon?
Patty stopped a few feet away, gun still in her hand.
“You know how this is going to go,” I said to Patty. “If you ever thought there was going to be a chance for us to connect, to have anything, it’s not going to happen. She’s going to kill me. And your sister.”
Sydney said, “What?”
“Just shut up,” Patty said.
“She’s your sister,” I told Sydney.
“Shut up! Shut up!” Patty shouted.
I was still looking at Sydney. “Patty is… Patty’s my daughter.”
Sydney couldn’t find any words.
In the distance, a siren. People, no doubt, had heard the shots.
“Shit,” said Veronica. “We have to get out of here.”
It sounded as though more than one siren was approaching. A cop car, probably an ambulance, too.
“I’m sorry,” Patty whispered. She looked at Syd and me. “I’m sorry. I really really fucked this up. This isn’t how I wanted it to go.”
A solitary tear ran down her left cheek.
Veronica pointed her gun at my head. “We have to run,” she said. “Bye-bye.”
I got ready. I tried to pull myself over Sydney, to somehow protect her.
And then the shot came. Loud.
But it didn’t come from Veronica’s gun.
Then there was another shot.
Bob, evidently, had taken the gun with three bullets.
Veronica’s body was thrown up against the railing. Feebly, she raised her weapon and fired it once at Patty before she slid down to the planks of the covered walkway.
The one shot Veronica managed to get off had caught Patty in the chest. The gun fell from Patty’s hand as she collapsed against the wooden beams, then slumped down into an awkward sitting position.
I lunged for Veronica, grabbed her wrist and slammed it against the railing. But there was no fight in her. The gun went over the side and down into the creek. Veronica didn’t move.
Syd was screaming.
I got my arms around her. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I said. I kept telling her it was okay, that it was over, that we were going home, that she was going to see her mother, that everything was going to be okay, that the nightmare had come to an end.
Even though the sirens were closing in, suddenly it seemed very quiet.
I kept holding Syd. I wanted to hold her forever, never let her out of my arms again, but we weren’t totally out of the woods yet. People were hurt. Patty. And Bob. Even though I’d only been nicked in the ear, I was feeling very faint.
No doubt a large part of that was emotional. This roller-coaster ride we’d been on for weeks was coming to an end. I felt like I was shutting down.
“Sydney,” I said softly, trying to calm her, “it’s over. You’re coming home. You know that, right?”
I felt her head go up and down.
“We’re going home. We’re going home now.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”
“The police, the ambulance, they’re coming,” I said. “They might see Bob, but they won’t know anyone’s in here.”
Another nod, a sense that she was pulling herself together, at least slightly. “I’ll tell them,” Syd said.
“I’ll stay here with Patty,” I said. “She’s shot pretty bad.”
“You too,” Syd said, looking at the blood running down from my ear.
“It’s not that bad. But… I’m feeling a bit weird.”
Then we both looked at Patty. There was a huge black spot rapidly spreading across her chest.
“Daddy,” Syd said, not able to take her eyes off the blood, her voice shaky. “You said she was my-”
“Hon,” I said. “Go. Now.”
She looked at both of us a moment longer, sniffled, nodded, then started running down to the end of the bridge.
I slid over, put my arm around Patty, pulled her into me, felt the warmth of the blood that was soaking her clothes.
If only I’d known. If only I’d known.
“They’re coming,” I said to her. “Just hold on.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I barely made out the words. They came out raspy, bubbly.
“Don’t talk,” I said, trying to comfort her, putting my face up against her cheek, our tears coming together. “Don’t talk.”
“I just wanted you to love me,” Patty whispered.
“I love you,” I said. “I do.”
I stayed and held Patty as she drew her last breaths while my other daughter flagged down the ambulance and the police.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I want to thank my terrific agent, Helen Heller, and at Bantam, Nita Taublib and Danielle Perez for their continued support. Also, thank you to Deborah Dwyer, for her usual meticulous copy-edit. My friends Carl Brouwer and Mike Onishi, two retired car salesmen who’ve both persuaded me over the years that I really did get a great deal, were generous with their time in explaining how their business works. Dale Hopkins filled me in on credit card fraud, and told me a slew of private detective stories I hope to rip off from him one day. Finally, none of this would mean anything without Neetha, Spencer, and Paige, who deserves a special thanks. Eating the eggs I’d made her one morning, she said, “Suppose you came to pick me up at my job, and found out I’d never worked there?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LINWOOD BARCLAY is a former columnist for the Toronto Star. He is the author of several critically acclaimed novels, including Too Close to Home and No Time for Goodbye, a #1 bestseller in Great Britain. He lives near Toronto with his wife and has two grown children. His website is www.linwoodbarclay.com.
