And then she heard the siren. She scooted away from the door as if she’d never tried it. He’d never know.
“Jane!” Jake’s voice came from a few yards away. “I told you not to- Hey. You’re covered with mud. Are you okay? What the hell happened?”
“I’m fine. Tell you later about the mud. But I bet this door’s locked,” Jane said. “And they’re supposed to meet at eleven.” I think.
Jake rattled the door handle. Smiled. “So observant of you. Come with me.” He trotted down the sidewalk, beckoning her to follow.
“Down this alley,” he called over his shoulder.
She caught up with him, jogging alongside, their footsteps echoing against the brick buildings on each side.
“But why are we-?”
“There’s another door,” Jake said. “Gotta be. The secretary-Deenie, whatever her name is-told me the governor uses the side. Maitland, too. Maybe we can get in that way.”
“Look,” Jane said. A lone bulb illuminated a black metal door set flat in the side of the headquarters building.
They reached for the battered metal knob at almost the same time.
Jane got there first.
“Our father?” Cissy almost spit Matt’s words back at him. “He decided he didn’t care about us. He killed our family. You know what? You know what? We shouldn’t let him get away with it. It was all about money, and power, and ambition. And Moira. Our mother wasn’t good enough for him, so he dumped her. And us.”
Matt stared at the gun glinting in his sister’s hand. A gun pointed at their father. Why? We’re supposed to- “Think for a minute, Cissy. You’ll never get away with it. All I have to do is yell. Somebody’s out there.”
“Yell away,” she said. “By the time anyone arrives, it’ll be over.”
“You don’t want to do this, Kenn-Sarah.” Lassiter stepped toward her. “Matt’s right, we can be a family. I’ll make the call. Just like you asked.”
Make the call? What were they talking about? But his father was courageous. Strong. Matt could be the same. He held out his hand, gesturing for the gun. “Come on,” Matt said. “You don’t want to do this.”
He couldn’t understand the look on his sister’s face.
“You don’t want me to do this, Matt. But maybe you did it.” She waved the gun at him. “After all, you’re already a killer. You killed Holly Neff.”
“What?” Lassiter looked at him, taking a step back. “Who the hell is this Holly Neff?”
Matt had to explain. Fast. He struggled for the words. “She was-she was-she was going to ruin you, Father. She was setting it up to look like you were having an affair. She was telling the reporters a big lie. She thought I would love her for it, want the revenge. I needed to-”
But Cissy was still talking. Holding that gun. Pointing it at his father.
“This can go either way, brother dear. Because I can say you killed your father. And when the cops get here, you’ll be dead, too. I’ll have killed you, trying desperately, though, alas, not successfully, to protect the candidate.”
Cissy was actually-smiling.
“I’ll be a hero,” she said. “The valiant campaign staffer who tried to save her boss. No one knows who we really are, do they? By the time they figure it out, if they ever do, I’ll be long gone.”
“Sarah, honey, you-” Lassiter threw Matt a glance. Eyes wide, hand to throat, stutter-stepping backward. Matt knew he was pleading help me.
They were in this together. They could get out of it together. Matt would protect his father. That’s what a son had to do.
“Dammit. This elevator’s not working.” Jake punched the button again and again, but there was no light, no sound, no clanking. “We’ll have to go to the front-”
“Stairs,” Jane said, heading for a metal doorway. “Fourth floor.”
“You’re either in it with me, brother, or you’re dead,” Cissy said. “And don’t you see? I’m trying to protect you! If he quits the campaign, right now, that means no one will ever know what you did! It means you and I leave town together. Or-we don’t. Your call.”
With a roar that came from his very soul, Matt threw himself at his sister, knowing about the gun, knowing it was a risk, knowing he might-
“No!” Sarah saw her brother’s body come toward her, his bulk and his arms and his hands, waving, he was trying to stop her, but she’d just been tormenting Owen, wanting to scare him. She would never have actually shot-
“No, Matt, stop! I wasn’t really going to-”
Her body recoiled with Matt’s weight-she saw the bookshelves tilt by, then the ceiling, shuddered from the recoil of the gun, too, suddenly hot in her hand, then felt Matt heavier, heavier on top of her, and he wasn’t moving anymore and-
She scrambled to her feet, frantic, panicked, suffocated, pushing Matt’s body away, saw her father come toward her- Is that my own scream?
Then he was-her arm was twisted, twisting?
He was taking her gun? No! She needed to get it back. This wasn’t supposed to-
And it fired again.
75
“You hear that?” Jane yanked open the stairwell door, Jake not two steps behind her. She was winded, running up the three flights in high-heeled boots. Hearing the sound-unmistakably a gunshot, then another-propelled them both down the hall.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“A speakerphone?” Jane frowned even more, confused by the sounds coming from an open doorway. They were steps away. Breathing hard, she showed him a door, whispering. “That’s Lassiter’s private office. The only office on this floor.”
From inside the room, a man’s voice, anguished, called out. “Send an ambulance, now! Someone’s been shot! I’m trying to-”
Jake grabbed her, whirling, pinning her flat to the corridor wall, her back pressing tight against the bricks. “Do not move,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear. She saw his gun come out of his jacket. “I’m not kidding, Jane. Do. Not. Move.”
Two more steps to the door. Jake needed to call for backup. But there wasn’t time. Still, if someone inside was calling 911, they weren’t afraid of the cops. One good sign, at least.
Weapon drawn, Jake pressed himself against the brick wall directly outside the open door. He cocked his head at Jane. Get back. Get back!
He could hear cries from inside. A man’s voice. A woman’s. “Ambulance is on the way, sir.” The flat monotone of the operator crackled over the speakerphone. “Two minutes.”
Jake pointed his gun into the room and immediately stepped inside. “Police, freeze!” he yelled, scanning the wood-paneled room in an instant, corner to corner, ceiling to floor. Windows, closed. Desk, empty. Glass-fronted shelves. Lassiter posters. American flag. “Police! Do not move!”
Two bodies on the floor. And Owen Lassiter, kneeling. No one else.
“Hello? Sir?” The dispatcher’s voice, concerned, crackled through the silver speaker of the desk phone. “Is someone else there?”
The candidate, his white shirtsleeves splattered red, bent over a woman lying face up on the jewel-toned pile of the oriental rug, a cascade of blond across her face, pearls dangling, bare legs stretched out toward the door. She wore one black shoe. Lassiter held tan cloth of some kind against the woman’s chest, the light-colored fabric rapidly changing to crimson.
A man’s body lay nearby, splayed, motionless. White male, no gun in anyone’s hand, Jake catalogued. A desk blocked Jake’s view of the man’s face, but he could easily see the darkening bloom in the center of a once-pale-blue shirt. The man’s khakis were streaked with mud. Mud? His loafers were muddy, too.