by Lisa Henry
He opened his mouth to tell her bad news, that Mac didn’t actually love him. But he stopped himself. Some part of him was afraid Flora would agree. That she’d say yes, she’d had to settle for taking Agent McGuinness’s fuck toy instead. And he didn’t need anyone backing up his theory that he’d never be good enough for Mac.
Like it fucking matters if we’re both dead anyway.
He tried to focus on the upside: at least his nose had stopped bleeding.
He jerked on the cuffs and tried to roll onto his back. “So what is it, like a you-kill-me-and-make-him-watch kind of deal?”
Flora stepped around so she was standing by his head. Her shoes were fuchsia—or maybe more of a fandango . . . no, fuchsia—and there was a small run in her panty hose. “Something like that. See, what I really want is for Agent McGuinness to learn how it feels to lose everything. To me, the business was everything. And once Jimmy was in jail, I had to scale back the business, or risk the FBI figuring out I was the one running it.” She nudged him again. “It’s so hard, to maintain a career and a marriage.”
“Well, I guess you don’t need to worry about the marriage anymore,” he said helpfully.
The toe of that fuchsia shoe was sharp. Henry curled up and coughed when it caught him in the ribs.
Flora leaned down and twisted her hand in his hair. Wrenched his head back. “Don’t you even joke about that, you little fuck.”
He didn’t have the breath to protest. To remind her that J.J. had fucked anything that moved, including fifteen-year-old Sebastian Hanes. He’d never considered himself particularly old-fashioned or moralistic, but come on. Flora should have been as glad as anyone that Jimmy was dead.
Except he’d always prided himself on seeing what made people tick. And with Flora, it was love. It was fucking twisted, but it was still love.
“He liked me.” His voice strained as she pulled his head back further. “J.J. liked me. He promised he’d look out for me.”
Maybe her love for Jimmy could save him if he could convince her that they had it in common. It was a gamble, but it was all he had.
“Don’t lie to me.” Flora released him. “I know exactly what you were to him, Sebastian. You were a hole.”
He felt as though he’d been doused in freezing water. For a moment he couldn’t even breathe. Fifteen, he wanted to say. Fuck you, I was fifteen. He couldn’t push the words out. Couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Jimmy had told Flora the truth about him, and here she was, avenging his death. How the fuck could Jimmy Rasnick be worth that kind of devotion?
How could anyone love a man like that?
“Your mother was a junkie whore, and you aren’t any better,” she added tightly.
He tucked his chin against his chest.
“I don’t actually imagine you’re worth much to McGuinness. Which is why it’s not just you who dies tonight.” Flora tapped her foot in front of Henry’s face. “McGuinness is going to lose everyone.”
“Oh, come on.” His voice shook. “You don’t want to do that.” Not his niece. Not my sister. “The FBI will be on you like white on fucking rice. Which is a stupid saying anyway, because white doesn’t go on rice. Rice is white the whole way through. Unless it’s brown, but you get my point. Anyway, while I’m rambling on, you’re shedding hair and skin and assorted bits of DNA all over this place.”
Which for some reason didn’t seem to bother her.
Flora smiled when he looked up.
Oh shit. Why did Henry suddenly get the impression that there’d be nothing left of the McGuinness family farm except for ashes? And whatever bodily remains could be identified through dental records.
“Come on,” he said again, thinking of Viola and Cory. Mac’s parents too. “Nobody here has anything to do with what happened to Jimmy.”
“I think we’ve already established that’s not the point.” Flora jabbed him in the ribs with the toe of her shoe again, and Henry flinched away. “I’m a little disappointed in you. Everyone I spoke to said you could charm the birds out of the trees.”
“Well, not so much with a gun pointed in my face.”
“Really? That’s when I find people are their most poetic.”
He was struck by a vision of Remy. Had he begged? Had he cried? “I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
“What game? We’re just talking.”
“That game! The talking game! Fuck you!”
He figured he was about to get a face full of high heel, and he didn’t care.
Just then, he heard the splutter of tires hitting wet gravel.
“Ah.” Flora sucked in a sharp breath. “Looks like the guest of honor is here.”
Henry lay there, breathing hard, as Flora stepped toward the door. Car doors slammed. A moment later the front door opened, and Mac entered with his hands up, followed by a short, balding man who had a gun trained on him.
“Henry!” Mac moved toward him. In an instant, Flora and Chuck were between them, Flora with a gun on Mac, Chuck facing the other way with his gun on Henry.
“Not so fast, Mr. McGuinness,” Flora said. “Aren’t you even going to say hi?”
“If you’ve hurt him, I’ll fucking kill you,” Mac snarled.
Henry couldn’t believe they were actually going to do this. That Flora had actually done the supervillain-revealing-the-evil-plan thing, and now Mac was actually doing the tough-guy-captive thing. Everyone in this room watched way too much TV.
Except this pain was real—too real for a TV show. The pain of imagining Remy begging for his life. Of imagining Mac’s family dead. And Vi . . . That was a pain too large to process.
Time slowed down.
Once, when Henry was thirteen, he’d said, “This is stupid!” and Vi had scowled at him over the top of the book she’d just read him a passage from.
“No, it isn’t!”
“It is! They always give this big long soliloquy before they die. That wouldn’t happen for real! Nobody would stop from killing them for a few minutes just so they could finish their stupid speech.”
“It’s just the way it works!” she’d snapped.
Vi, he wanted to say now, it’s real. Time stops and makes space for all my regrets to come flooding in. Like you.
He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
Couldn’t.
He might as well be a cliché too, for now. “Mac, I’m okay. Just do what they say.”
Until the moment’s right. And then fuck them up like the hero I know you are. Because I still can’t believe you took a bullet trying to save me. And I can’t believe you showed up at St. Albinus and kicked an old lady in the face, even though you’d warned me I shouldn’t be there and that you weren’t going to have anything more to do with that investigation.
You know what I’d tell you now, if this were a TV show or one of Shakespeare’s plays, and I had a couple of minutes allotted for a dramatic monologue before I die?
I’d tell you that you were right. I can’t do this alone. I can’t keep pretending. Can’t keep running.
I’d tell you I do want you to have all of me—Henry, Sebastian, Toby Seacoal, Richard Falstaff, Brad the Contentious Archeologist—everyone and everything I’ve ever been. If I had another chance, I’d give you all of my secrets. And you wouldn’t know what to do with them any more than I do, but I know you’d try your best.
And Agent McGuinness, I’ve seen your best. It’s pretty damn good.
Not bad. Henry would have written it down if it hadn’t been for, well, the circumstances.
He stared around Chuck’s gun at Mac, who was staring around Flora’s gun back at him. He felt disproportionately devastated by the fact that he’d never see Mac’s flappy arms again. His brain was really, suddenly, inordinately fixated on the flappy arms. Another boom of thunder, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Forced them open again.
Then, just when the audience thought the monologue was over, I’d keep going. I’d tell you I don’t actually have that man
y secrets. I lie a lot, but that doesn’t really protect or hide anything. Three-card monte—you can distract the mark, keep him from finding the red lady, but that doesn’t mean she’s not there.
I’d probably also tell you I love you. Because that would add some drama to the scene. Even if I don’t know for sure whether it’s true or not, I have a feeling it is because I can’t imagine what else a person would have to be in order for me to love them.
Either I love you, or I can’t love anyone.
Flora’s brittle laugh pulled him back from his thoughts. “McGuinness, I don’t think you realize how little control you have here. Frank, you can go. Chuck, take Henry upstairs.”
Suddenly everything was too fast again: his heartbeat, the tremors wracking his body, and the fear itself that was racing so quickly through him that he couldn’t even process it.
Chuck grabbed Henry by the neck and hauled him to his feet. Started dragging him to the staircase.
“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you to stand guard no matter what.” Flora glared at her goons. “Our Mr. Page is very good at disappearing.”
“Mac!” he called frantically. Chuck shoved him. “I . . .” Damn it, he couldn’t say it. Even though this was the only chance he’d get.
Because what if Mac didn’t say it back?
You could always put it down to the fact that he’s got a gun trained on him.
But Henry was still too scared.
Mac was watching him, and looking . . .
Shit, no, don’t look sad. Look angry. Look like you’re about to kick some ass.
“It’s been . . . a treat,” he finished, as Chuck pushed him up the stairs.
Mac and Cheese.
Shit, I can’t just . . .
But there wasn’t a lot he could do with a gun pressing into the small of his back.
So he let Chuck take him upstairs.
At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, Viola retreated from the banister railing she’d been leaning over and ran back into the sewing room.
“The bad guys have Mac and Sebby!” she whispered to Cory, who was in the dumbwaiter. “They’re bringing Sebby upstairs.”
“Come back!” Cory hissed.
But the bad man—Chuck—and Sebby were already in the hall. Viola didn’t want to make noise getting into the dumbwaiter. She stood against the wall, holding completely still. She didn’t even breathe.
“Get in there!” Chuck snapped.
Viola heard something hit the floor in the bedroom. Then the bedroom door slammed.
“What’s happening?” Cory whispered.
“Shhh!”
She finally peered around the wall, through the crack in the door. Chuck was standing outside the bedroom, his arms folded, rocking back and forth on his feet.
Viola crossed to the dumbwaiter. “He put Sebby in the bedroom. Now he’s standing out in the hall, guarding him.”
“What do we do?” Cory’s voice shook.
Viola glanced around the room. The window on the far wall might be out of sight for someone looking in the door.
“You can go out the window.”
“Wh—what about you?”
“I have to stay here and help Sebby.” Had to help keep him safe, like Mac had said.
“No way!” Cory stuck her head out of the dumbwaiter and glared at Viola. “If you’re staying, I’m staying too.”
“But it’s . . .” Dangerous. Viola knew it was dangerous. She also knew how it felt to be told that over and over again by adults who assumed that because of her accident, she couldn’t be useful to anyone. She and Cory were friends. They were in this together. “We need a plan.”
Cory stared at her for a moment. Suddenly, her eyes widened. “What’s Sebastian wearing?”
Viola furrowed her brow. “I didn’t see him.”
“But this morning. You saw him this morning. What was he wearing?”
Viola tried to remember. It came to her suddenly: “A suit.”
“And what are you wearing?”
Viola looked down at Cory’s grandpa’s suit.
“And your hair is pinned up,” Cory went on. “And you look exactly like your brother.”
“Oh!” Delight overrode Viola’s fear for a moment.
Cory nodded. “People will see what they expect to see. And they don’t expect to see you here. Sebastian’s the only one they know is in the house.”
“Cory.” Viola took Cory’s shoulder. “You could go out the window.”
“I could go across the roof to the bathroom and knock on that window,” Cory whispered excitedly. “Then Chuck would have to go investigate. And you could run past him.”
“I’ll go downstairs. I’ll let the bad woman see me. Then I’ll run out the back door.”
Cory nodded again, frantically. Then froze. “What if she shoots you?”
“Shhh. I’ll be fast.” Fear prickled Viola’s skin, but she didn’t have to believe it. In movies people got shot at all the time, but they didn’t get hit. Not when they were the good guys.
Cory crawled out of the dumbwaiter. She crept across the room and picked up the umbrella they’d been using as a prop. As if on cue, lightning flashed and thunder cracked. Cory went to the window and, during the next clap of thunder, slid it up.
“Cory, be careful,” Viola warned. The roof was pretty flat, but it might have been slippery from the rain.
Cory glanced back over her shoulder. “You too.”
She climbed out the window and onto the roof, disappearing into the downpour.
A flash of lightning illuminated the room, the crack of thunder right behind it. Mac remembered that you were supposed to count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder to calculate how many miles away the storm was. No point with this one. It was right on top of him.
Henry must be terrified.
He hated storms.
For the first time, Mac hated them too.
He regarded Flora Rasnick narrowly. He wasn’t scared of her, not yet. Because he knew she wouldn’t shoot him, not until she’d hurt him every other way that she could. And there was no way in hell that he was going to let it get to that. He would not give this bitch the chance to bring his parents and Cory into this. Or Viola. And he would not give her the chance to hurt Henry any more than she already had.
Not that he had a plan. Just a hope that blind fucking rage would see him through.
“What?” Her smile was more of a sneer. “You’re not ready to beg yet?”
“Do you know what your fucking problem is?” He glowered. “This is overkill. This isn’t how you run a fucking business. This isn’t smart. You’re a drug dealer, not a . . .”
Not a lead character in a Shakespearian tragedy. It was Hamlet, wasn’t it, who was always moaning about wanting revenge? And look how that turned out. A body count higher than Full Metal Jacket. Revenge was for fools. And if some guy wearing tights and a ruff knew it over four hundred years ago, why the hell didn’t Flora Rasnick realize it?
Ah. Staring death in the face and thinking of Shakespeare. Henry was definitely a bad influence on him.
“This isn’t smart,” he repeated lamely.
The man with Flora dragged a kitchen chair into the center of the room and motioned for Mac to sit. He did, grimacing as his arms were pulled behind him and cuffs were snapped around his wrists. He tugged on the cuffs, but they’d been looped through the spindles at the back. Of course.
“You good with this?” he asked the guy. “You good with getting the lethal fucking injection for this? If it was just me, you’d probably get life. But you bring my family into this, you kill innocent people for this, and I promise they’ll want you to die.”
The guy chuckled. “Gotta catch me first.”
“Eric,” Flora said, “why don’t you teach Agent McGuinness some manners?”
The big guy shuffled around in front of Mac, grinning as he clenched his fists.
Eric.
It was good to know the nam
e of the guy who was going to beat the living shit out of him.
Viola waited by the door, counting slowly backward from ten to zero, over and over again. It helped her stay calm, even though she was scared.
She was scared Cory had fallen off the roof. Scared the bad woman would kill Mac.
“McGuinness is going to lose everyone.”
Viola’s hands shook.
You can’t be scared now. You have to be brave for Sebby.
And then, faintly, she heard a tapping from down the hall. It got louder and louder, until it could be heard over the rain even by somebody who hadn’t been listening for it. She peered around the doorframe and saw Chuck looking toward the bathroom.
Viola could still hear voices downstairs. The bad woman’s, mean sounding, and Mac’s, angry.
The tapping came again, and Chuck glanced around, then walked down the hall to the bathroom.
A moment later, there was a cry of pain. Then a loud whack, another cry, and then silence.
Viola ran out of the sewing room.
She paused by the bathroom just long enough to see Cory, soaking wet, crouching by Chuck’s prone form. She was clutching the umbrella like a spear. She held up a set of keys, triumphant.
Chuck groaned on the floor.
Cory met Viola’s gaze, and Viola nodded. She went down the stairs, treading as lightly as she could. Halfway down, she could see the bad lady through the rails. She was pointing a gun at Mac, and the other bad man stood in front of Mac, fists clenched.
The man looked up and noticed Viola on the landing. His eyes widened, and he drew his gun.
Viola ran down the last few stairs.
“Stop!” the man shouted.
The bad lady turned. “What the fuck?”
Viola raced out of the living room and into the kitchen, heading for the back door. She heard the man bellow, “How could he have gotten out?”
“You stay here,” the bad lady yelled. “Watch McGuinness. I’ll go after Page.” Her high heels clicked across the floor, coming closer.
Viola yanked open the door and ran out into the storm. The cool rain felt good, even though there was too much of it. She ran across the yard.
There was a loud bang, and then another.
She looked over her shoulder. Through the sheets of rain, she could just make out the woman standing in the doorway, and the sharp flashes of her gun as it fired.
