He told himself to move, but his body didn’t respond. Darkness beckoned, and from it, Anna.
IN HIS HURRY, Marshall hadn’t seated the shotgun properly, and the stock had twice punched his shoulder like a giant’s fist. Adrenaline muted the pain, but the mistake had caused him to miss two easy shots on the woman.
It didn’t matter. When he’d played ball, he could clock a sprint to first faster than anybody. He raced after her, holding the Remington one-handed.
The path between the buildings was narrow, maybe three feet, and by the time he’d hit it, she was rounding the corner. He leaned into his run. There was a rattle of wood and metal, and he burst into a back patio just in time to see her drop to the other side of a wooden privacy fence. He charged it dead-on, planted a foot and let the momentum carry him enough to grab the top one-handed, then rocked over and down to the concrete of an alley. He raised the Remington, but she was already spinning down another path, heading back the way they’d come.
A mistake. As long as she’d zigzagged and used the cover, he would have had to run her down. But now she was heading back toward the street. Jack had said she was the smart one, but the silly cooze wasn’t thinking, because the street was wide and clear, and a magnum slug was accurate to a hundred yards.
Marshall took the corner with his left hand against the edge to keep his velocity, and then poured it on for the length of the path.
Rehearsed the moves in his head: break clear, stop, spread his feet, seat the shotgun properly.
Anna Reed had maybe ten seconds to live.
A FIST HIT HIM AGAIN, this time in the cheek, and Tom’s head snapped sideways. The world was wobbly and wet.
“Fucker,” Jack said above him, his voice guttural. “Mother-fucker.”
A boot cracked one of his ribs. In his crib, Julian cried, his voice thin.
“I bet you wish you were back in your safe little life now,” Jack said. “I just bet you do.”
A strange calm had settled over him. Everything hurt, but the pain, like the fear, was too large to grasp. He almost welcomed the blows. Anna was gone. The harder Jack beat him, the sooner he would be with her again. That was all that mattered. His vision was screened by cotton, but when he looked at Sara’s face, he thought he saw a strange peace in it. Idly, he wondered why she had run in here, where she would be trapped. Trying for the phone on the night table, maybe.
He saw Jack bend over, push through the junk on the ground, then come up with the key. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Jack said. “There aren’t that many storage lockers in Chicago. I’ll find it eventually.”
The thought of Jack winning brought anger, and a keener pain than his injuries. But it wasn’t enough. Not without her.
ANNA’S FEET HURT, and her face where it was cut. She could hear the man behind her. She didn’t think he was any closer, but he hadn’t fallen behind, either.
Almost there. You have to make it. Tom needs you.
She tore down the path, one hand tracing the edge of the building. The street lay just ahead. Safety. The man’s footfalls grew louder as she burst into sunlight. She’d ended up right where she’d hoped to.
Funny, the way the thing had drawn her eye from the first moment she’d seen it, weeks ago. Like she’d known even then. It was heavier than she’d expected, and felt wonderful.
She turned around and leaned across the hood of her car, arms braced on broken safety glass, hating the seconds passing, the time she wasn’t able to help Tom. The fear for him and the frustration and the hatred all boiled up in her like a scream.
When Marshall came into sight, she let it go, and yelling words she didn’t hear, Anna pointed the gun she had taken from Halden and pulled the trigger again and again, until his chest was pocked with red, until he fell backward and slid down the wall with an expression of disbelief frozen on his features, until the pistol stopped kicking in her hand.
THE PUNCH SHUT HIS LEFT EYE with a sick feeling. The end was coming soon. Tom knew it, could see by the look on Jack’s face as the man squatted in front of him.
“Okay, Tom. Save me the trouble. Tell me where that storage locker is, and this will all stop.”
What difference did it make? Jack would find it sooner or later. And a bullet was all that stood between him and Anna.
Then he remembered that Jack had killed her, had killed Sara, had torn their life apart. Had taken everything that mattered to them. All for money. Bits of colored paper. He straightened as much as he could, his body barely under his control. Forced a smile, tasting blood from the broken nose. He coughed and then said, “Fuck you.”
The man stiffened, and Tom braced for a blow. But Jack chuckled, said, “You know, it’s funny. I kind of like you. You and her both. You’ve got spunk.” He laughed again, then reached out to pat Tom’s cheek in a soft slap. “It’s good that you’re being a man about this. Taking responsibility.” He stood up, stepped back. “Took you long enough.”
And as Jack moved out of the way, Tom saw what Sara had been going for. The flash of metal he’d seen earlier. A gun. A snub-nose pistol inches from her hand, just under the bed.
He blinked, shook his head. The gun was still there. He willed himself forward.
His limbs hung heavy. His body throbbed. He couldn’t move. Jack walked back to the wall Tom had driven him into earlier. Where he had dropped his own gun.
Tom stared. Knew he wouldn’t make it. He’d taken too much, been hurt too badly. And Anna. If he did kill Jack, he wouldn’t get to her. His sweet girl, gone.
Then came a series of cracks, gunshots, one tumbling after the other. They were loud and fast and obscene. But he barely noticed them. Because above them, he heard Anna. Shouting his name, over and over, like a prayer. She was still alive. His wife was alive.
Tom crawled forward, his ribs stabbing, world wobbling, but none of that mattered, he put it all aside, and then he had the pistol and was turning, spinning on his knees, just as Jack came up with his own gun.
WHEN SHE HEARD THE SHOTS from inside the house, Anna screamed. Her legs seized up. The empty pistol fell to clatter against the concrete.
Too late. She was too late. Nothing mattered now.
Later, lying awake at night, listening to the steady rhythm of Julian’s breathing, she would remember this moment, unspool it like thread. The moment everything changed. The impossible sunlight against her back, the shifting sounds of leaves, all of it going on as though nothing had happened. The way the world didn’t notice that it had ended.
Time lost its grip. She stood still, wanting to disappear, wanting to run into the house, but not moving. She could hear sirens growing closer, police responding to gunfire on this quiet residential street. A bird sang above.
None of it mattered.
A sound from inside drew her attention. Something was moving. A figure, a shadow in the dim light. A man with a pistol in his hand. Moving slow. Coming her way. She decided to stand right there and let Jack kill her.
And then she saw that it was Tom.
It was like being born again, the two of them newly made by the heat of a terrible fire. For a moment, they just stared at each other. Then, as police cars swooped down the block, all force and fury, she ran to him, and they came together, gripping each other to keep from falling, and she swore, in that moment, that she would never let go again.
Ever.
21
“… ACCORDING TO POLICE SPOKESMAN Patrick Camden, investigation into last week’s fatal shootings in a Lincoln Park mall has been closed. The two men responsible have been identified as Jack Witkowski, age forty-three, and Marshall Richards, thirty-nine, both killed in a shoot-out later that day that left several others dead, including a decorated police officer. After leaving the mall, Witkowski and Richards allegedly killed Sara Hughes, a single mother living nearby, and hid in her home for several hours.