“Don’t worry, he knows he’s got to be here by seven.” Gordon.
Talia: “Can he even speak? He looks like a zombie.”
“Try Dave again.” Jerry.
“He’ll be here,” Gordon said. “Do you have to worry everything to death?”
Talia said, “God, I can’t wait until this is over!”
Max pictured their words, like hard gunshot pellets, cold and shiny. So much for true love.
He saw Gordon walk away from Jerry and Talia, phone to his ear. Gordon cursed, came back to the little group.
Then his phone sounded—New Age music. Gordon answered, impatient. “Yes?”
Gordon had been pacing, but now he stopped. He stared intently at the floor. Pressed the phone harder into his ear. “Are you sure?”
He listened. Max watched him listen. It was like watching a movie.
Surreal.
He needed to stay alert, ready. He needed to hold onto his anger, let it build.
Gordon was pacing now, talking into the phone in a harsh whisper. Max couldn’t make out the words. But he felt the tension. He could feel that something had changed. Something had changed in a definitive way.
Gordon held the phone away from himself, looking at it in dismay. His face was gray in the fluorescents. He looked ten years older.
“There’s a problem?” Jerry asked.
Gordon’s gaze wandered to Jerry. “Yes, there’s a problem. Somebody walked in and shot Jared.”
“Jared?”
“The front desk man.”
“At the Desert Oasis?”
“Yes! Where else would he be? The police are on their way.”
“Holy—”
Gordon spoke over him. “He was shot by a twenty-two. Two to the heart. You know what this means?”
Jerry and Talia stared at him, openmouthed.
Max knew.
“Shaun,” Gordon said. “One of my employees overheard what she asked him.”
“What?” Talia demanded.
“She asked him where I was. She asked him if Max was here too. She’s coming.”
For a moment, everyone was quiet. Then Talia said, “This is getting too weird. I’m outta here.” She shouldered her purse and started toward the back door, her boots clacking across the floor.
Jerry ignored her. “Maybe this is still salvageable.”
Gordon turned to him. “Where’s the Cadillac, Jerry? Where’s Dave? We don’t have a shooter. Somebody’s been shot at my facility. You honestly think this can still work? Really?”
Again, Max watched the action unfold. Just like a movie. And he realized he felt nothing for these people—not even hatred.
“So what now?”
“What now? We abort the mission, Jerry. We get the hell outta here!”
“But what about Max? He knows!”
Gordon didn’t spare Max a glance. “He’s a druggie. An alcoholic. A nutcase. Who’s going to believe him? And anyway, it’s time to fold the tent. I don’t know about you, but there are options. I’m part owner of the rehab center in Switzerland—”
Then Max heard it. A knock on the door.
“Who’s that?” Gordon said.
“It’s probably Talia,” Jerry said, striding to the door. “Locked out.”
He opened the door and a woman and a girl—she had to be all of eight years old—walked in.
“You’re early,” Gordon shouted.
The woman stopped, shocked. The girl stared at him.
Gordon stood over a small-caliber gun sitting on a rolling table. Max didn’t like the way Gordon was eying the gun. He had the look of a cornered animal, and Max knew cornered animals were dangerous.
Max decided it was time to move.
He shoved the rolling table across the floor of the soundstage, then went for the woman and the kid.
He reached them in six steps. Jerry jumped back, terrified. He yelled to Gordon, “Shoot him! Shoot him!”
Gordon looked at Jerry.
“The gun! On the table,” screamed Jerry.
Gordon scurried over to the table and picked up the .22. He aimed it at Max.
Max wasn’t worried. The gun was small. Gordon was agitated, scared. He was yards away. Max doubted he’d be able to hit the wall, let alone a human being. “You don’t want to shoot anybody, Gordon,” Max said. “You said yourself—it’s over.”
Gordon looked down at the gun. His hands were shaking, but he raised it. Pointed it at Max.
The little girl shrieked. Max whipped around to look at her, and that was when the gun went off.
Max looked down at himself. He was all right. He looked at the mother and the girl. They were all right. He looked at Gordon, who lay on his back on the soundstage floor, a look of sheer surprise on his face.
Gordon had shot himself in the head. The .22 had done its job, bouncing around inside his skull. Gordon appeared to be dead, but Max wasn’t going to wait around to check his pulse. Jerry was screaming, and Max had no idea how he would react to his brother’s death. Max yanked the heavy door to the outside open with one hand, and shoved the mother into the girl. He pushed them through the doorway, and pulled the door closed behind them.
The mother said, “What are you—”
“Move!”
He pushed them along. They stumbled across the pavement, up the ramp. “Which one’s your car?” he demanded.
The woman stared at him, her face was white with shock. She seemed unable to move.
Max put his hands on her shoulders, more to steady himself than to calm her. He looked in her eyes. “Do you know who I am?”
She stared at him. “You’re…you’re Max Conroy.”
“Do you trust me?”
“I…yes.”
The child stared up at him.
“Listen. You’ve been set up. These are bad people. They want to kill me, and they probably want to kill you. You’re witnesses. Get in your car and drive away now. Please.”
The girl tugged at her mother’s arm. “Mom…”
“What’s going on?” the woman demanded.
“I don’t have time to explain. Get in your car and drive out of here and don’t stop until you get home. Do that for me.”
She stared at him.
“Mom,” the girl said. “We’d better do what he says.”
The woman glanced at her daughter, uncertain. “I…”
And that was when a piece of stucco shattered above his head and almost took off his ear.
There she was, at the top of the ramp. Pushing past the side mirror of a big white truck, the light bouncing off the gun in her hand.
The woman. The woman they called Shaun.
Max shoved the door to the soundstage open. “Get inside!” he yelled, shoving the mother, shoving the girl. “There might be a bathroom. If there is, go in and hide.”
They stumbled through the door and he pulled it closed.
If Shaun wanted them, she’d have to get past him.
ANOTHER SHOT, LOUD in the walled ramp area, which echoed like a vault. Max clung like a limpet to the wall and slowly eased around the side of the cargo truck.
“You might as well come out,” the woman said. “I’ll shoot you clean.”
Liar!
Max resisted the urge to tell her what he thought of her.
After that there was silence. He couldn’t hear her, couldn’t see her. He had no weapon. His heart was pounding so hard he thought she could hear it. Could hear him breathing…
He did the only thing he could think of. He dropped to his knees and crawled under the truck.
The woman was stealth itself. But he saw her walk down the ramp. Saw her feet in the white athletic shoes. Whisper-quiet. There were three vehicles in line, and he saw her pause in front of the first two, crouch down, and look under. His truck was next.
TESS HEARD TWO gunshots, spaced apart. They echoed, as if in a chamber. She came around the building, her 9 mm clasped in both hands and ready. She saw the long ramp down to the back entrance of the Diane von Furstenberg store, walled away from the parking lot, a loading dock partway down, and the two vehicles she’d seen on her first pass through: a box truck down at the end and a new Range Rover. The car closest to the top of the ramp and to her was a 1990s Nissan Stanza.