Judith got to it first. Turning it toward Alex, she caught the side of Alex's hand with the electrode. Alex screamed and fell back, cupping her hand to her chest.
Tears flowed down her face like water from a faucet. Why hadn't she told someone where she was going? Fight, she told herself. Fight. But she couldn't. The pain overwhelmed even the most basic instinct for survival.
She felt the prick of the needle in her shoulder before she saw Judith's hand holding the syringe. Alex pulled her knees to her chest, fighting to maintain her dimming will to live.
"It's too bad you up and ran off, Alex. Someone from the force might've missed you otherwise."
Alex shook her head, trying to block out Judith's words. But they sank through, and Alex knew she was right.
"Now no one will know any better. You'll be missing a few more days. Then you'll show up dead somewhere. They'll realize the guilt of the murders finally got to you. All very neat with a bow on top."
A thick, drunken buzz began to settle over Alex. She shook her head to fight it.
Judith patted her head. "Don't worry. You won't lose consciousness. I'll be right here until it's all over."
Chapter 34
Alex caught glimpses of Judith as she moved around the room, but her eyelids were like bricks, dragging her eyes closed. Each time she opened them, it felt as though she'd been sleeping, and yet she had no idea at what speed time was passing.
The next time she woke, Judith was slapping her face. "I might've given you a bit too much," she admitted. "You're not as big as I'm used to."
Judith pulled Alex into a sitting position. "We're going to the basement," she explained as though she were helping Alex instead of trying to kill her. "You're going to need to stand."
Alex shook her head and fell back.
Judith put the stun gun in her face. "Every time you don't do what I say, I'm going to give you a little jolt."
Clamping her eyes closed, Alex ignored her.
"Fine," Judith said, her tone smug. "You'll learn."
The cool touch of metal made Alex flinch. The stabbing shock that followed made her vomit.
Judith clucked her tongue disapprovingly as she rolled Alex to her side. "Doesn't look like your last meal was very big."
Alex rocked, holding her stomach and fighting the pain.
"Open your eyes," Judith demanded, tilting Alex's head toward her left shoulder.
Alex opened her eyes and saw redness on her arm, where the flesh felt burnt. But the pain had dulled, as though her limit for it was a circuit that had just been blown.
"Now, sit up."
Too weak to fight, Alex sat up.
Judith pulled Alex toward her and then led her toward an open hatch under the rug where the floral couch had been.
Down the hatch, Alex could see a short wooden ladder. Below it was a crawl space. A mound of dirt was surrounded by a square cement area not larger than twenty feet by twenty feet.
"Let's go," Judith commanded.
Alex fought for her footing as Judith shoved her toward the hole. In the back of her mind, she heard heavy thumping like footsteps overhead.
Judith pushed harder. "Not a word."
Alex sensed anxiety in Judith's voice and felt a breath of hope. Halting, Alex turned toward the door. "In here!" she screamed with every bit of strength she had left.
Judith pulled the stun gun out and connected the current to Alex's injured shoulder.
Groaning, Alex collapsed. But the pain wasn't what she had expected. She had shifted slightly before Judith reached her. Instead of the electrifying shock, Alex felt only a brief jolt.
Heavy pounding shook the door. "Police, open up!"
Alex saw the stun gun drop to Judith's side as she turned to the door. Fighting the sharp pain in her shoulder, Alex pushed Judith backwards.
Judith fell off balance but caught herself. The stun gun dropped to the floor, but Judith had the real gun pointed at Alex.
With Alex's arm injured, Judith seemed especially strong. She grabbed Judith's wrist, struggling to point the gun into the air. A shot went off.
Judith twisted toward her, connecting her knee to Alex's stomach.
Doubling over, Alex held her stomach and counted to three. Then, in a last burst of strength, she drove her right shoulder into Judith, shoving her backwards.
Judith let out a shriek as she tumbled, knocking against her desk and rolling onto the floor. The gun dropped from her hand.
Grabbing for the gun, Alex felt numb, her limbs heavy, her senses dull.
Judith scrambled back up and was at her desk as Alex tried to lift the gun.
Alex's vision was blurred, as though she were looking at everything through water. As the image cleared, she found Judith lunging at her, a letter opener tight in her fist.
At the edge of the crawl space, Alex steadied herself from falling. Judith was coming fast. Unable to focus, Alex pointed the gun and pulled the trigger twice, hearing the pop, pop. But Judith was already in midair and her dead weight fell forward, knocking Alex backwards. Alex tumbled into the crawl space, slamming her head at the bottom. She tried to make a sound, any sound, but couldn't.
Eyelids heavy, Alex closed her eyes, as the sharp pounding in her head grew to a dulling pain.
Chapter 35
The angel's long white dress floated in front of Alex's face. "You need to do it," the angel said, handing her the gun. "If you don't, the bad man will hurt these boys and it will be your fault. Do you want that to happen?"
Alex shook her head.
The angel wrapped Alex's small hands around the gun and pointed it at the bad man. He wasn't moving. But the angel insisted she had to shoot him. He would come back, she said. With the angel's help, Alex pulled the trigger.
"Good girl," the angel said.
Alex caught a glimpse of the angel's face and recognized Judith Richards as she lunged forward with a letter opener. Alex pointed the gun again and pulled the trigger all by herself.
Alex opened her eyes, blinking hard at the harsh overhead light. She tried to move but her arms and legs were bound. As she struggled against the restraints, pain knocked her back.
"It's okay, Alex. It's okay."
Alex stared at the face, the familiar face. But instead of terror, she felt calm.
"It's me. It's your partner."
She choked back a sob as Greg touched her face. Turning his attention to her restraints, he loosened them. "You were thrashing so much, they had to tie you down. You pulled out stitches in your shoulder three times."
His words spun around her head along with a million questions, tangling her thoughts. "Judith," she finally whispered.
Greg pulled his chair up to her bed and held her hand. "Judith's dead. You shot her."
She frowned, looking around the room. "Where's James?"
"He's on his way. He's been here the whole time—Brittany, too. They went to talk to the doctor. They'll be right back."
"How did you—"
"Shh. Don't talk. You need your rest."
She squeezed his hand. "Tell me."
"After you called, I checked up on that Hennigan guy. Turns out he was good friends with Judith's ex-husband who had also worked with her at Stanford. It didn't take us long to track down Hennigan. He hadn't even left for London yet. He had a lot of interesting things to say about her. Seems the main reason she and her hubby split up was because he thought she was mentally unstable. Then I found her name on Alfred Ferguson's parole sheet."
She nodded.
"Turns out she even offered to help Androus coordinate the kidnapping so long as he allowed her to watch."
"How... how do you know that?"
"She's got a series of journals kept in hollowed-out psychiatry textbooks. Everything's recorded there. We're just starting to go through them. Androus wasn't her only victim."
Alex cringed at the idea of Androus as a victim. "Alfred, too. And those patients who shot each other in her office—she helped one of them."<
br />
Greg nodded. "And she did the same thing in 1986 with another patient here in town. The whole thing got botched, though, and the kid and his supposed killer were found dead in the back of his van. The kid had been shot in the head and the killer in the mouth. His shooting was deemed suicide back then, but it turns out she killed both of them."
"She did this four times?"
"That we know of."
"I still don't remember that night at Loeffler's. She said I was there."
"I know. Brittany said you may never remember."
She tried to accept that she might never fully understand what had happened. At Loeffler's, or at the warehouse.
"From what we can piece together so far, we think you drove over to Loeffler's, drugged and half-asleep from the Restoril. Judith had already killed Loeffler by the time you arrived. Before you were even in the door, she injected you with something. We're checking out her medicine cabinet to find out exactly what. But whatever it was, combined with the Restoril you were already taking, it knocked you out. Maybe she figured she could pin the whole thing on you."
"No, she planned to kill me." Alex sat up in bed, stiff, like she'd been beat up by a gang. "But when she realized I couldn't remember anything, she decided to play with me. She was taunting me to remember."
Greg gave a light shrug. "She was one sick pup."
Alex swallowed. "I killed her?"
He nodded slowly. "She managed to get the gun and take a shot at Lombardi, though. Just missed him. You should hear Lombardi talk about his lucky coat now. You'd think it's Superman's cape."
Everything around Alex felt fuzzy and distant, and she couldn't shake it. "Lombardi?"
"We were all there—James, Lombardi, and me."
Alex exhaled, tears running down her face. She tried to stop them but couldn't. There were too many to hold back, and they'd been too long in coming.
"It's all over," Greg said. "Most of the charges against you have been dropped." He grinned. "James is still working on getting the rest dismissed."
"James?"
Greg laughed. "Deputy Chief Doty put him on it full-time."
"You're kidding."
He shook his head. "Told him he ought to better prioritize family and maybe this would get him on the right track."
"How many charges are left?"
"I think it's down to twelve."
"Twelve?"
"Breaking and entering, impersonating a police detective, resisting arrest, automobile fraud. There are a few more."
She put her head in her hands. "Oh, Jesus."
"Ah, it'll be good for him. But Doty insists you apologize to Gamble yourself."
"Oh, no. I'd forgotten all about him. Is he okay?"
"He's back on desk duty."
"I really hurt him, huh?"
"Nah. He just decided patrol was too dangerous." Greg winked.
Alex laughed.
Then, she heard the familiar sounds of Brittany and James arguing in the hall and it made her smile. She thought about James and his damn job. But he was still her brother. She'd have to work on forgiving him. He and Brittany were all she had left, and family was too important.
She thought about Nat Taylor losing his wife and then being tried for her murder. "What about Nat—"
"James is having that case reexamined, too."
She looked up and sniffled. "How did you know about Nat?"
"You mumbled about him all the way here in the ambulance. Brenda was by, too. Said you'd better rest up. Something about a baseball player."
Alex smiled. But even the knowledge that some of Judith's wrongs could be righted didn't stop the tears.
"Did you know two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey?"
She wiped her face. "Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance."
Greg frowned. "Ick." He paused and added, "A tiger has striped skin not just striped fur."
"Cats' urine glows in the dark under a black light."
"Hey, I told you that one."
"I know. And I still hate cats," Alex said.
"Me, too."
Alex tasted the tears as they fell down her face.
Greg put his head against hers. "It's okay to cry," he whispered. "Shit, any of us would after what you went through. It'll make you feel better."
She smiled and wiped her face. "They're not tears, Roback," she growled.
"Oh, yeah. What are they?"
She paused and said, "My contacts are acting up."
Greg laughed. "Okay." He stood and kissed her cheek, staring down at her as though he was amazed she was alive.
She blinked hard and stared back. "I mean it—they're not tears."
"Right—contacts." He smiled in a way she had never seen before and touched her cheek. "And I promise not to tell anyone that you have perfect vision."
"Better not," she warned and closed her eyes again, the touch of his fingers warm on her skin. Maybe she would have to rethink her no dating cops rule.
The End
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The acrid taste of ash was gritty on her tongue. Heat trapped her like a burning timber on her chest. The one thing missing was the shriek of the smoke detector. It sat silent above, the unlit light a dull red through the smoke. There would be no alarms, no quick response of fire engines. They would have made sure. And yet, despite that, Megan Riggs felt an almost giddy sense of relief. It was over. They had come and now she would test the plan she had mapped out day after day and week after week. The only thing causing the dense thunking in her chest as she rolled off the bed and onto the floor was Ryan. She had to get to Ryan.
She waved at the smoke that clouded her vision. She focused on movement, letting her mind roll over the realities.
She refused to die. For Ryan's sake, for Mark's sake, she wouldn't give up. Sweat already beading on her lip, she swallowed another mouthful of thick, smoky air and pushed forward. She pulled the gun from the spot between the mattress and the old rotting box spring and checked that it was loaded. Then she towed herself along the floor with her moist hands, wiping them on her side as she went. In the distance, she heard the wail of the Devereaux's baby downstairs and the commanding shouts of Jack directing his family out of the lower level of the house. She couldn't go out the main door. That would make it too easy for them.
She quickly tied a discarded T-shirt from the floor over her face to ease her breathing and moved like a choking lizard. She and Ryan needed to be long gone before the fire department got here.
Flames had begun to eat her blue-and-yellow floral wallpaper on the far side of her bedroom, and she scrambled faster to escape the chunks of fiery plaster falling from the ceiling. Heat singed her leg as a flame caught the pant leg of her sweats. She spun around and pounded the fire out with a shoe from the ground, breathless and shaking.
Pressing forward, her fingers found the backpack she'd prepared for such an occasion under her dresser, and she yanked it toward her, continuing across the room on her stomach. Ryan. She had to get Ryan.
Her hands were black from soot and it was already clinging in her throat and nose. The smoke seemed to sink lower with each motion, and she knew it wouldn't be long before it smothered her. She reached for the doorknob and prayed the heat hadn't warped the door.
It was cooler than she'd expected. The fire must have been started in the living room. Tucked in the small bedroom at the back of the house by the bathroom, Ryan would be safe. He would be okay. Losing Mark had been bad enough. She couldn't bear to lose them both.
Curving her fingers along the un
derside of the door, she pulled it open. The door stuck and then released as a rush of smoke covered her. She guarded her nose and mouth with the T-shirt, coughing, and pushed herself onward.
Closing the door behind her to slow the spread of fire, she scrambled on her hands and knees down the short hallway. The heat scalded her skin and face.
She couldn't take any risks. She had the training for this sort of situation. It'd been fifteen years since she trained to be an agent—fifteen years since she'd been made to shoot and run and swim and complete the obstacle course, but she had been convinced it would all just come back. And it had.
The smoke's dark clouds were illuminated by the flames, which were beginning to lick the floor beneath the bedroom door behind her. The heat and smoke made it hard to see shapes, so she followed the floor with her palms. The thought of her five-year-old son sitting in his bedroom, terrified, made her almost desperate to scream out to him. But she wouldn't. She wouldn't risk letting someone know that she was alive. "I'm coming, baby," she whispered instead.
She longed to hear him whimpering in the distance, awakened from one of his terrible dreams. His room was too far. She had always hated how the two bedrooms were laid out at opposite ends. But of the apartments she'd seen, this had been the best. Her meager salary didn't afford her much in the way of choice. She'd anticipated this moment, needing to get to him in an emergency. She would do it.
She reached Ryan's room and saw him, facedown on the floor.
"No," she said in a sob, pulling him toward her.
"Ryan." She turned him over and lifted his head onto her lap and felt for the pulse in his throat. It was there, strong and solid. Thank God. He'd fallen from the bed, maybe passed out from the smoke, but he was alive. Now she needed to get them out of here.
She paused, wondering if her plan would work. She caught herself and forced the doubt from her mind. She'd practiced this from start to finish dozens of times. Only she'd never had Ryan with her.
Ruthless Game (A Captivating Suspense Novel) Page 31
