When the guard reached the bottom step, he spun around. He was armed, as well, and was going to try to fire off a round before the Winnebago reached him.
The windshield shattered. Tiny shards of glass rained down on them inside the cab.
Chloe had ducked at the first sight of the gun, and now was driving blind. But she hadn’t slowed, and the next thing she heard was a loud THWOMP, and when she glanced up, she caught a half-second glimpse of the guard’s head appearing briefly above the lower edge of the windshield opening.
He slipped quickly from sight.
The Winnebago came to a crashing halt as it reached the bottom of the stairs. The front bumper of the RV hit the floor, but momentum carried the vehicle a couple of feet farther. The wheels no long had purchase. The front two were suspended above the floor, and at the back end, the rear bumper rested on a step, the back tires hanging in the air.
The brownstone’s front door was only ten yards away.
“Out, out, out!” Chloe said.
She and Nicky unbuckled their belts and nearly fell out of their seats, since the RV was pitched forward. It might have been faster to go out the open front window, but the sill was a row of jagged glass teeth. So they climbed three feet to reach the RV’s side door, and once they unlocked it and pushed it open, it swung back on its hinges. One at a time, they jumped out.
The two of them came around the front of the monstrously damaged Winnebago, its engine still running, the smell of exhaust and fuel in the air.
They started for the door.
But standing there, between them and freedom, was Jeremy, haggard and wild-eyed, both arms raised, his hands wrapped around the gun.
He had it pointed straight at Chloe.
Jeremy was so focused on her, he barely noticed Roberta running past him. In her rush to flee the building, to get away before the police arrived, she tripped over the corner of a rug, her left stiletto flying off her foot. She hit the floor, but wasted no time getting up, and didn’t bother to retrieve her shoe. She kicked off the other one, opened the front door, and ran off into the night.
On the front step, arm raised as if ready to knock, stood Miles.
He took about five seconds to take it all in. The Winnebago at the bottom of the stairs. Debris everywhere. A dead man under the vehicle.
A man standing with his back to him, only a few feet away, pointing a gun at someone.
Chloe.
The man glanced over his shoulder momentarily, long enough for Miles to recognize him. He’d watched the news. He’d read countless online stories. He recognized the man as Jeremy Pritkin.
A man who was determined to kill the very people Miles had set out to save. A man who was willing to destroy his own flesh and blood to save his own skin.
And now he was going to kill Chloe.
Instinctively, Miles started to run toward Jeremy, to jump him, tackle him, anything to keep him from shooting Chloe. But he’d only taken a step when he spotted one of Roberta’s discarded shoes.
Saw that sharply pointed, four-inch heel.
He bent down, grabbed the shoe by the toe, grasped it firmly, and charged Jeremy.
The man heard him coming and made half a turn, just in time, from the corner of his eye, to see Miles swinging the shoe at him, overhand, cutting through the air like it was an ice pick.
If Jeremy had been able to raise his hand in time, or fire off a shot, he might have been able to stop Miles from driving that spiked heel right into his skull.
One Week Later
Epilogue
New Haven, CT
Miles could hear the car approaching the house before he saw it. He slid off the stool at the kitchen island, where he’d been sipping on one of his fancy coffees, went to the front door and opened it.
Chloe’s Pacer was coming down the driveway. The car had sounded ragged enough when Chloe had driven Miles to Springfield in it, but it was sounding even worse now. A hole in the muffler, most likely.
The car came to a stop near the front door, and when Chloe killed the engine, it continued to cough and sputter a few times before finally giving up. Miles walked over to the car as Chloe opened the door.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself,” Chloe said, lifting the door slightly as she closed it to make sure it latched. “How’s it going?”
“It’s been a long week,” he said. “But I don’t have to tell you.”
He glanced into the back of the Pacer. The rear seat was folded down, and there were several soft-sided travel bags there.
“Going somewhere?” Miles asked.
“Kinda,” she said. “I was going to talk to you about that.”
“Come on in,” he said. “Pick a pod.”
When she got to the kitchen, she did exactly that. “I want something with mocha,” she said. She found one she liked, inserted it into the machine, and while it percolated, she turned and noticed a stack of what looked like contracts and other documents on the island.
“’Sup?”
“Legal shit.”
“What kind?”
“My will, succession plans. Lots of things to sort out before I retire from the company. I want to do some other things before my health forces me to step down. Get it all organized now. An orderly transition.”
“You got someone picked to take over?”
Miles smiled. “Gilbert.”
Chloe nodded. “Makes sense. How’s he doing?”
“Caroline’s funeral was yesterday. He and Samantha will be okay. Better, actually. I think he’ll make a good leader. He’s stronger than I thought. I made a big mistake with him. I’m going to try and make it right.” He waved his hand over the paperwork. “Dorian and I are going through a list of good causes. I want to set up a fund for Huntington’s research. That’s where a lot of the money will go.”
“Dorian?” she asked. “I thought she was gone.”
Miles nodded slowly. “I’ve been rethinking that.”
“Up to you,” she said. “What about me and the other four? Guess we all gotta fend for ourselves, huh?”
“No one’s health is at risk. None of you have my genes. But I was thinking, if you need anything...”
“Look, I don’t need your money. Give it to research. And anyway, me and the others are looking at getting a shitload from Pritkin’s organization. That lawyer you suggested, he’s forming a class action. We’re heirs, right? And we can prove it. The dude may be in a coma but we can still get his DNA.”
Miles’s face fell. “I had to stop him.”
“And thanks for that,” she said. “Listen, by the time this is all over, I’ll be able to buy myself a second Pacer.”
That made Miles laugh. But he quickly turned serious. “How you dealing with that?”
“What? That the biggest scumbag in the world is my biological poppa?”
“Yeah, that.”
She shrugged, but it was a fragile shrug, lacking her usual flippancy. “I’m blocking it out. I’m going to imagine it’s someone else.”
The words hung there for a moment before Miles said, “How’s Nicky?”
“Good. Her mom’s a ditz, but she’s got other family up near Albany, so she’s gone to stay with them for the time being. For a while there, they were talking like she’d get charged with killing that Broderick guy, but then everyone came to their senses about that. And my lawyer says I got nothing to worry about with the guy we ran over, or the one whose eye I sliced open.”
“No one should have to go through what you’ve gone through,” Miles said.