Anything was possible.
The remaining portion of the door burst open, the middle hinge holding the remnants in place. Eric's attention shifted to the spot, his jerky movements causing pain to radiate up Robinson's side.
A silhouetted figure stood at the opening. “Hey, boys, I've got a gift for you.” Amanda's voice with a touch of crazy melded in.
Amanda walked through the door, her posture stooped as she dragged a lifeless, mirror image behind her. Each step vibrated their less than solid ground. She stopped once they'd reached the center of the room, in front of himself and Eric.
“That's...” Eric’s gaze probably flicked between what was Beth and Amanda.
For one crazy second Robinson couldn't tell the pair apart. Then a toothy smile lit the standing version of the detective, slightly off-centered and not as bright. Not the sassy grin he'd come to dream of, kiss, love.
“Creepy, right?” Beth said. Gone was the highlighted tresses, manicured nails, chunky jewelry and baby belly. Instead, she sported Amanda's long hair, lighter touch with makeup and comfortable jeans and t-shirt. Brown contacts perfected the picture.
It was like watching Amanda in a mirror. Only the other side was cracked. Beth released Amanda's hand. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud, stretched toward them, but still out of reach. Robinson's heart climbed into the farthest reaches of his brain and tried to keep going. He watched for the rise and fall of her chest. The fading light did nothing to aid him. He inched forward under the guise of shifting. Eric followed suit.
She couldn't die on him. Robinson needed her harassing, sassy attitude. The strength she thought no one noticed. The loyalty she couldn't shed even when mad. That hot-headed temper that often rivaled his own. Her forgiveness when apologies weren't offered.
He'd spend the rest of his life proving they belonged together, if she let him.
Beth pulled a water bottle from her back pocket, uncapped it and took a sip as if they were at the park. “Relax, Robbie. She's not dead. Yet.”
“Why are you doing this?” Robinson tried to wiggle his now numb hands. Anything to keep his mind from the fact that Amanda hadn't moved—might never do so again. They might all die right here.
Would anyone ever figure out why?
Beth moved toward Eric. “Thirsty, Lawyer Boy?” She tipped the bottle and the liquid splashed over Eric's head, droplets hitting the back of Robinson’s neck in the process. The heavy smell of gasoline ate the oxygen. Eric stiffened. A hiss came from the other man.
Robinson shifted his legs.
“You're too nice to do anything about this.” Her voice held the edges of a cackling laugh.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Something wet grabbed the back of Amanda's hand. A dripping noise pierced through her head like a sharp knife thrown at warp speed. A heavy, putrid smelled lingered. The edges of a sardonic laugh met her ears, through the hurricane of pain.
Where was she?
Robinson. Beth's house. An explosion. The back of her head split in two. Catsky had hit her. Amanda had bought into Beth’s crying act and been rewarded with a solid object to the back of the head. Didn't get more stupid than that.
Something hot simmered near her heart.
“That's what I thought.” A female voice—Beth's—said. “Too nice.”
Amanda tried to lift her eyelids. They didn't budge. She tested her fingers. Encountered something warm and firm. The tip of a finger met her palm for a moment, pressure applied and then released in a staccato pattern. Repeat. SOS.
“I'm not.” Robinson said. A grunt filled the room as the warmth left her hand. A tortured groan followed behind.
Amanda's eyes snapped open in time to see legs sail over her and connect with something above her head. Instinct had her rolling into a crouched position. The room spun as Beth—at least she thought it was her—spewed a string of curses and crashed into the remains of a rocking chair, in the corner.
“Move, Nettles.” Robinson was above her, bent at the waist. Eric was strapped to his back. Both men looked ashen, dried blood on Eric's face. He had his eyes closed as he hung in the balance, legs curled toward his body. Sweat dotted Robinson's upper lip, his worried gaze trapping her. “Now.”
Somehow, she forced herself upward and spun toward the door without stumbling, even though a serious earthquake was going on inside her skull.
The click of a gun safety made her pull up short, inches from the exit. Robinson bumped into her, sending her stomach running for a safer host. Amanda worked to keep the bile from rising.
One breath in. One out.
Catsky came into view, his gun trained on the three of them. “I'm not the hateful sort, but I'd recommend backing up, unless you feel like a bullet between the eyes.”
“He's not that good a shot.” The words left her mouth, bounced around the room and came back with the normal amount of sass she used on a day-to-day basis.
A dangerous emotion skittered across his face. He stepped closer, the gun inches from her face, now. “Some of us aren't perfect, Nettles. Some of us don't run around pretending they know every little bit of danger that's lurking on the streets. Even Dentzen thought you were hot stuff. How is it that you wrap everyone around your finger and they become blind to the mess you really are?”
Amanda pressed into Eric and Robinson still at her back.
“Get out of here, A.J.” Robinson's words whispered across her cheek, his lips a breath from her skin.
“I'm not leaving you guys.” She whispered.
“Don't do that. I need you to pretend this is another day at work.” His voice held conviction, the words choppy. “We're just victims—people you're trying to save. Don't let either of them get inside your head.”
He was right. How could he be so calm?
“Disconnect.”
Wouldn't happen, not in a million years.
“You can still do the right thing, Catsky.” Amanda infused a calm into her voice. One she wasn't close to feeling, in any portion of her soul. “Think of your wife. Of your kids.”
The gun lowered a few millimeters. Anger passed over his features. Sweat dotted his forehead. “You think I haven't?”
Beth recovered and moved forward. The gun in her hand didn't register until a shot rang out. A spray of something warm and wet hit Amanda's face. Catsky crumpled in front of them, his eyes a sightless picture looking up. His gun dropped to the floor. It skittered to a halt, farther inside the room, behind and to the right of where they stood.
Three steps ought to do it.
“Don't even think it.” Beth’s free hand pulled something from her front pocket. “I just proved I've got great aim.”
“Why are you doing this?” Amanda asked.
The flick of a lighter foretold the yellow flame coming from Beth's fisted hand. “The easier question would be why I wouldn't.”
The smell of gas made sense now. She meant to burn them alive. Amanda stepped forward. Beth held her ground, excitement dancing in eyes that had always held warmth, laughter or caring.
“Help me understand.”
“I shouldn't need to.” Beth placed the flame near the edge of the doorway. Fire erupted across it and to the far edge of the room, then back around. It would seal them off inside in ten minutes or less. Wouldn't take long for the whole thing to spread and kill them, after that.
A few choice words left Eric's lips.
“I didn't know that you were my sister. I didn't know any of it.”
Beth shook her head. “Ignorance is bliss, right?”
“You could have told me.”
Something savage flashed in her eyes. “Your negotiating skills are subpar, at best. Dentzen finally did something right when he fired you.”
Amanda had cracked tougher cookies, but life had never depended on it. She stepped farther into the room, away from the men. In the opposite direction of the gun she sought. “How far along were you when you lost the baby, Beth?”
The gun in the ot
her woman's hands followed her movements. “Wrong question.”
“Boy or girl?” Two more steps and Beth didn't have clear view of Robinson and Eric, just her peripheral vision.
“Death is death, male or female.”
Another step to the right, in the shape of a circle. “Was Guy upset about it?”
A half snort-laugh erupted from the other woman as she followed. “Guy saves his more feral emotion for the football field. At least he did.”
“What did he do, Beth?” And what had the other woman done to him?
“Nothing. He was always the perfect gentleman. Supportive. Wanted to try for another when I was ready, if I was ever ready. Made it kind of hard to admit it wouldn’t be possible.”
Eric and Robinson took a small, soundless shift backward. The crackle of the fire, around them, was gaining speed.
“You don't know what it's like to be invisible. To have life rushing around you like normal, but you're stuck in one spot.”
“You're right. I don't know. I can only try to understand what losing a baby must be like.”
Beth drew her bottom lip inward. A moment of indecision gripped her face before disgust took over. She gave a mirthless laugh. “You're just like Sandra. Never able to see what's really there. Always pointing to a cause with an easy fix. Or no solution at all.”
Amanda swallowed the ire spreading inside her veins like spilled paint on a canvass. There would never be a day she'd consider herself anything like her birth mother. “So, you moved past the miscarriage.”
“Stillbirth.” The gun fell a centimeter.
A pinprick met the edge of her eyes. Amanda would never know the horrible devastation holding a breathless child must cause. The heartache. The healing that wouldn't be easy or quick.
The fire kicked up around them, the heat radiating inward, smoke swirling in the room. Robinson had made it closer to the gun, the fire gobbling at its edge. Robinson's lips moved. Eric shook his head.
“And Guy was understanding. And you were the only one mad at everything until the anger swallowed you whole.” She moved closer to Beth. Her heart beat against her eardrums. From the corner of her eye, she could see Robinson watching her, shaking his head.
“Not my first loss. Funny how history repeats itself. The biggest reason your mom and dad lost the battle to keep me? Sandra found out I was pregnant. Doesn’t show great guardianship, does it? Somewhere out there, the only living child I have, doesn’t know squat about me. Just like everybody else in my life.”
“That’s not true.”
Beth closed the distance between them, the weapon slamming into the underside of Amanda's chin. Jarred her teeth together. Sent pain flashing through one of her molars. The cold metal dug into her skin. “Seeing what you want again, dear Amanda? Never thinking you might be part the problem.” The last word pushed past Beth's lips with a bit of spittle.
“How?” Toe to toe with the woman who was her mirror image, with the right clothing and contacts, she locked eyes with Beth. The woman should have been her closest confidant growing up. Her playmate. Someone she fought with, shared clothes and secrets with. All of that had been stripped away by selfishness. What remained was a hurt time might never heal, because the truth was too little, too late.
Robinson and Eric made a slow descend toward the other gun, their movements controlled. More smoke gathered inside the room, building a haze between men and women.
Amanda swallowed, the weapon mirroring the motion of her throat. “Tell me how, Beth? How am I the problem? Tell me so I can make it right.”
“You can't.” All feeling left the other woman's eyes. “You think Robinson’s sister would have been in a coma that long? She would have been with her family a long time ago. Her husband wouldn't be dead.”
No. Pin pricks hit the back of her eyes. Amanda fought the sensation. Eric’s hand reached toward the weapon.
Beth started to turn, the gun still under Amanda’s chin.
“How can you hate someone you don't even know?”
The other woman’s attention centered on Amanda. “If you had an answer to that, we wouldn’t be standing here. You’d be out of job—well, I guess you are, anyway.”
“Is that all you think I care about?”
“No.” A sardonic smile lit Beth’s face. “You’ve proven you care a great deal about certain things and people. The rest of us aren’t on your radar, unless there’s a crisis.”
Beth's focus switched to the men. The gun left Amanda's chin as the other woman aligned it on them. Amanda lunged for her. Beth fired two rounds. Robinson shifted their collective weight toward the fiery wall, the bullets missing their mark.
Amanda toppled to the ground on top of the other woman. She reached toward the gun. Beth held it out of range, the barrel in her grip.
A scream filled the room, pain echoing through the guttural sound. It sent a chill through her. Flames burst from Eric's skin and leapt onto the back of Robinson's head.
“No.” Her heart launched into her throat. A cough sent it higher. Her lungs burned.
Beth slammed one fist into the side if her head. Stars erupted in her vision with a crazy, out of tune dance.
“Stop, drop and roll, buddy.” Robinson brought them to the ground and maneuvered to his side. “Roll!” He shouted through clenched teeth.
The screaming didn't stop. They were going to burn to death.
Another fist aimed for the same spot on her face. Amanda landed one of her own to Beth's right temple. The other woman stilled. Rising, Amanda tore her jacket off and headed in Eric's direction.
Robinson rolled them toward her and she threw the garment over Eric's face and patted. A hot lick of fire caught her palm. Pain radiated up her arm, drawing a hiss from between her lips. She pulled her hand back. Shook it. The orange-yellow glow still climbed Robinson’s neck, leaving a bubble of blackened skin behind. She used the sleeve to extinguish them.
“Behind you.” The words flew from Robinson's tight lips.
Beth rose and headed toward them.
Amanda scrambled for the gun, two feet behind Robinson's foot. A hand grasped her ankle and pulled before she could get close. She grasped Robinson's leg on her way past. Sent her free one flying toward Beth's midsection. The other woman stumbled back a few steps, but caught herself before falling.
Then she was right back on top of Amanda, both legs within her grasp this time. She shoved Robinson’s pant leg up, his ankle holster a beacon of light. It had twisted and faced away from her. The Ruger LCP wasn’t inside.
Damn.
A hard yank loosened Amanda's grip on Robinson. Her forearms scraped across the jagged floor. The other woman shoved a knee into Amanda's back and pulled both legs toward her head. Breath left her lungs quicker than bouncing on a balloon with a giant hole. Her spine protested the position. The cold metal of a gun pressed against her head. Amanda tried to grasp it, but failed.
“You never even saw me. I saved your life and you never even noticed.” Beth dug her knee in deeper.
Amanda clamped her lips over the screech of pain, filling her throat. “I don't know what you're talking about.” Her jaw ached as she spit out the words. She reached for the gun, again. Came up with a fistful of Beth's hair, instead. Amanda yanked. The hold on her legs slackened. She pulled harder, her fingernails protesting the motion.
Beth tumbled to the floor with a screech. The gun flew toward where the crib had once sat, in the corner. It teetered near the jagged hole, there.
Amanda sat on top of the other woman.
Beth wiggled beneath her, her legs trying to find purchase on Amanda's torso. She placed a knee near the other woman’s sternum and applied pressure. Then she grabbed her legs and stilled them at her side. Her back screamed as she pulled in a deep breath.
“You and Robinson would have died that day on the highway. That guy wasn't trying to get out of his car. He was trying to get to the gun he'd lost in between the door and seat.” Another shove-wiggle from B
eth. “Two shots. Dead.
“I saw it. I jumped inside the car. Started focusing his attention on me.”
Then Robinson had jumped to the plate. Pushed the man against his seat and held him until the paramedic—Beth—had talked him down. Once they'd removed the guy safely, Amanda had thanked her and gone on her way. How could she have missed something so obvious? That the woman in front of her had been the foster sister she thought about on occasion and wished well?
Her hair had been short. Her face a little rounder, as if she'd gained weight.
A tortured scream started again. Robinson broke free from his ropes, the fire chewing through the thick material. He ditched the makeshift handcuffs and tore his coat from his body. He threw it over Eric while beating his own, new fire into submission.
One giant shove and Amanda was on her back. Strong fingers found her windpipe and squeezed. The sounds around her faded to silence. The hatred pouring from a woman she'd considered her sister, before she'd ever known the truth, was centered, in her focus.
“You were too absorbed in each other to notice.”
Amanda gripped the other woman's forearms and shoved. Nothing happened. She had to get free. Had to live.
“Don't do this.” The words came out in a low, soft pitch.
“It's already done. Three more bombings, including that stupid coffee shop you all love so much.”
“You could…” She gulped what air she could suck in. “Have said…something.”
“Oh, I tried.” The grip tightened. “Again, you were too busy to notice me, let alone talk.”
Her vision narrowed to a small tunnel, encompassing only the angry look sandwiching Beth's eyebrows. Turning her from the sweet woman she portrayed, into something else.
Air.
She clawed at any available skin. The tunnel got smaller so that a grayish black was all she saw. Her head bashed against the floor once, then again. Spears of intense, sharp pain exploded in her brain like an IED in the center of a group of kids.
DISCONNECT (The Bening Files Book 2) Page 42
