But it was too late. She flew back into the room so violently it was as if an explosion had happened. It was the sound Will had heard many times when a door was kicked down. A man came right behind her. He kicked her in the stomach and turned toward Will and Cheryl Beth.
He was tall, bald, and had a face that almost looked like a mask. But it was no mask: it was a younger man with an older face, one sculpted and creased by God-knew-what. Except for the dark eyebrows, he looked like Mister Clean. His clothes were Indian Hill preppy: expensive chinos and a light-blue shirt with a Polo logo.
Mister Clean was carrying a sawed-off shotgun and pointing it their way.
“Ah-ah-ah,” he said.
But it was too late. Will had his Smith & Wesson out and leveled at the man’s chest.
“Get the fuck in there, little whore.” He grabbed Jill by the hair and shoved her to the sofa, all the while keeping the shotgun pointed in Will’s direction.
“You weren’t easy to follow, Detective Borders, using your siren and all, but I did it, all the way from the marina. I sat outside waiting for you, and when I realized you didn’t have any of your cop buddies nearby, I decided to come on in. And what do I find: my little red-haired sex slave.”
Jill was crying and shivering, bent over with pain, her face hidden by her hair.
“And this must be the famous Cherry Beth I’ve heard so much about.” He stepped closer. For the first time, Will noticed the black backpack he was wearing. “This is going to be even better than I fantasized, and I fantasize a lot.”
Will kept the gun steady. It wasn’t the first time he had been on the wrong end of a shotgun. Thanks to years of training and experience, his insides were calm. Suddenly the dread of the next MRI, the possibility of another spinal-cord tumor, didn’t matter. The notion that he would join his father on the wall of police officers killed in the line of duty was over in a second. He had civilians to protect. Not only that, he had Cheryl Beth.
“Put down the gun, Mike. You’re under arrest.”
The man laughed, high-pitched and raw. “No, Detective Borders, you are going to hand me your gun, stock-first, please. That, or I’m going to blow off redhead’s head.”
“You might want to reflect on that, genius,” Will said. “You shoot her, I shoot you, multiple times, end of story.” He studied the man’s weapon: It appeared to be an Ithaca Auto & Burglar Gun, 20 gauge, with no stock and no more than a foot in length. It was rare but still lethal.
“You like my gun? It’s a collector’s item, very expensive. I stole it from my dad’s cabinet. An armed society is a polite society, right? Now…hand…over…your…fucking…gun!”
Will said quietly, “That’s not going to happen.”
Mike’s rubbery face held the exact same expression as the day when Will had first encountered him in Music Hall, on the way to meet the mother. Will realized that he had been talking to the wren in the miniskirt that day about her friend in pain and he had mentioned Cheryl Beth’s name. That’s where Mike must have misheard it.
“One way or the other.” Mike smiled. It was an ugly sight. “I have some things with me to make this fun. Had to bring duct tape. I was all out of handcuffs. But I’m going to make you watch, Detective Borders, make you watch your friend get raped, watch red get raped. As many times as I want. ‘Impotent’? You’ll find out. Then, I’m going to kill you as slowly and painfully as I can figure out. When all that’s done, I’m going to burn down this hole and disappear. Part of the art is knowing when to stop.”
Will would have shot him as he talked, but the shotgun was no more than two feet away. He wouldn’t survive the blast. He had to play for time, hope that Dodds would be there soon.
“Tell me why?” He felt his right quads getting tighter.
“Why?” Mike shrugged. “Killing each other is the only thing humans do really well. But to kill with style, that’s an art. To watch and listen as they beg and bargain and then scream. It makes me feel like God.”
“Every psycho says shit like that,” Will said, watching the man’s gun hand. He was half an hour past his Baclofen dose. All he needed was for one leg to start jumping. “Why Kristen Gruber? Why the nursing students? Why Jill?”
“Is that your name, sweetie? I hope you have some lube in the house, because you’re going to need it. So is Cherry Beth.”
Will wanted to look at Cheryl Beth, intuit what she was thinking, but he kept his focus on the man with the gun.
Mike cocked his head. “There’s never one single reason. I went after Kristen to get back at my dad, but she let me down. It could have been perfect, but it was spoiled. With Jill-what a cute name-I saw her and wanted her. Same with the brunette on the bike trail, only I didn’t realize I’d get three for the price of one. That was close to perfection. I have a thing for girls on bicycles, what can I say? Those pumping legs. But that wouldn’t make great art, would it? I want models that look vulnerable on the outside and yet are strong inside. What’s the expression? Strong at the broken places? The man I took to the graveyard? It was perfection. That’s why I chose you, Detective Borders. You and your cane.” He paused. “That, and you got in my way.”
Will looked at him unimpressed. Then it was as if someone had inserted a key into his quads and they unlocked. His leg relaxed.
“Did the girl in Athens, Georgia, get in your way?”
“Very good, detective. She was my first. I made mistakes. But I learned. No, she didn’t get in my way. She was in one of my classes and I kept having a vision of killing her. One day I did. All the shrinks and medication my parents spent money on never changed me. Death is my art. I won’t be stopped.”
“But you’ve got to know when to stop.” Will started to wonder whose arm would tire faster. Mike looked very steady, those muscled arms doing well by him. Will was conscious of the instability of the rocking chair.
“You said it yourself, Mike,” he went on. “You’ve got to know when to stop. If you would have stopped with Gruber, we might never have caught you. Now it’s too late. How does that make you feel, Mike?”
Mike’s face tensed at the phrase he had probably been hearing from his father since he was three.
“Hand me the shotgun. Stock first.”
Mike’s face was growing redder with rage when Cheryl Beth said, “Mike!”
He swung his torso toward her, dropped the barrel of the shotgun forty-five degrees, and almost got out a reply. Then the room exploded and he lurched back, a red stain on the shirt where the polo logo once sat. Jill screamed. Mike screamed and struggled to regain control of the gun. It went off, an even louder blast, the load of shot hitting the floor. Cheryl Beth held out the.38, ready to fire again.
Two seconds had expired as Will shot him three times, nearly point blank, in the torso.
The shotgun dropped harmlessly from his hand as his body swayed backward and collapsed by the door. Will kept the gun trained.
His ears were still ringing even though the only sound in the room was Jill’s screaming. Cheryl Beth stood and started to the door. “I should help him.”
“No,” Will said. “Stand back. He might have other weapons.”
He was up, his legs miraculously working without the cane, walking slowly to the sprawl of a human being on the floor. Mike Buchanan lay face up, very pale. One leg was twisted beneath the other. His arms were clutching at his chest, which stuck out unnaturally because of the backpack he was still carrying.
Will bent down and got on his knees. He tried to ignore the sharp pain that immediately struck, patting down Mike’s shirt, pockets, pants legs, and shoes. He was clean. He nodded and Cheryl Beth was instantly on the other side. She checked his pulse and opened up his shirt. A blood pool was emerging from underneath him.