A Rush to Violence (34 page)

She listened. She waited. But what was unfolding in the next room terrified her. If there was any mention of Emma—

The first gunshot surprised her. The second didn’t. She heard two bodies collapse to the floor and knew they were Michael and Grace. Just like that, Laura killed them. Now, she’d go for Emma. Camille raised her gun to the side of her face and started moving quietly down the hallway. This time, Sam was behind her. He also knew what was coming and had his own gun drawn and lifted.

“I suppose you think I’m a horrible person,” Laura said. “But I don’t regret it. I never really liked or loved either of them, anyway. Grace was an idiot with a paintbrush, but no palette, if you get my drift. It was empty. Michael fucked his way all over this city and made a mockery of the Miller name. I’m glad I did it.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Tyler said. His voice was grim. “I didn’t think you’d do it.”

“But I did. And look at Grace. Look at her bleed out. For such a tiny little thing, who knew she had that much blood in her?”

“Laura, are you all right?”

“Probably not.”

“Can I have the gun?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“What makes you think I’m going to hurt myself?”

“I think you’re in shock.”

“Why would I be in shock?”

“Because you just killed our brother and sister.”

“That doesn’t shock me. Does it shock you?”

“In a way, it does.”

“You wanted them to live?”

“I wasn’t expecting them to die.”

“I thought you were on my side.”

“I have been from the beginning. But tonight we lost most of our family. That never was part of the plan.”

“Plans change.”

“This radically?”

“I didn’t kill Scott. I didn’t kill Sophia. Emma did. I had nothing to do with
those
plans, Tyler. Emma had it all figured out.”

Camille and Sam stopped just before entering the room. They listened.

“All I did was kill these two. They weren’t part of the team. If I let them live, guilt and grief would have taken over, they would have confided in someone and that person would have talked to someone else because we’re the Miller family.
The
Miller family.
That
Miller family. You can see how it would roll out. Eventually, somebody would go to the police, tip them off and the police would be on our doorsteps. I had to kill Michael and Grace to prevent that from happening. I needed to get in front of this.”

“You don’t think the police will come after us now?”

“Of course, they will. They’ll have their suspicions and they’ll come with questions. But we’re smart enough to dodge them.”

“I don’t think we are. This is going to implode, Laura. If it had just been Camille and Emma, we would have been set. The initial premise worked because it was simple. Camille and Emma would be found dead. Murdered. Once the police learned of Camille’s past, they’d assume it was a revenge killing. She may have left that life sixteen years ago, but revenge doesn’t die. People don’t forget, especially family members, one of whom could have been trying for years to find her for whatever she did to piss them off. When they did find Camille, they made her and her daughter pay with their own lives. That was the original plan. It was solid and it was plausible. Now we have this.”

“Actually, you’ve got something worse,” Camille said, stepping into the room with Sam, their guns and lasers already trained on Laura and Tyler. “Now what you have is me. Drop your gun, Laura. Do it now. Don’t be a fool. I’ll kill you as fast as you killed them. Drop it.”

But Laura didn’t. She was standing across the room, just behind the felled bodies of Grace and Michael, looking weirdly elegant in her couture Dior dress that once belonged to their mother and which she’d worn to wow the crowds at Anastassios Fondaras’s party.

Blood had pooled around her black high heels. There was something off in the way she looked at Camille. Even though Laura’s surprise was clear that her sister and another man were here, that isn’t what Camille noted first. What struck her was how unhinged her sister looked. There was a wildness in her eyes she’d never seen before. She looked at once caged and empowered.

Laura took a step back. Her gun was at her side. Camille knew that with a quick flick of her wrist, she could shoot either one of them. She also knew that Laura was a good shot. Along with so many of the Miller siblings, taking up shooting was something they did not only as a sport, but because the closed society in which they lived took the sport seriously. Being able to shoot and to hunt was something they were expected to do well. Laura was nothing if not competitive. She could do each well.

“Drop the gun, Laura,” Tyler said. “Do what she asked.”

But Laura ignored him. “So, you’re a blonde now, Camille?”

“Obviously, Laura.”

“It doesn’t work for you. It looks cheap. You look butch.”

Camille didn’t respond.

“How did you get in here? Did Michael let you in?”

“He did. And we heard all of it.”

Sam came forward and held up a pen that wasn’t a pen. Camille looked fleetingly up at it as he pressed a button on its side. “And we recorded it,” he said.

She had no idea he recorded it. It was a brilliant move on his part.

“You recorded this?” Laura said.

Sam pressed another button and Laura’s voice, reduced by the pen’s tiny speaker but nevertheless clear due to the digital technology, rang into the room: “All I did was kill these two. They weren’t part of the team. If I let them live, guilt and grief would have taken over, they would have confided in someone about it and that person would have talked to someone else because we’re the Miller family.
The
Miller family.
That
Miller family. You can see how it would roll out. Eventually, somebody would go to the police, tip them off and the police would be on our doorsteps. I had to kill Michael and Grace to prevent that from happening. I needed to get in front of this.”

Sam clicked off the pen and put it in his pants pocket. “Where’s my daughter?” he said.

Laura’s eyes widened. Tyler turned to look at Camille.

“
Your
daughter?” Laura said.

“That’s right. M
y
daughter. Where is she?”

Laura looked at Camille. “So, this is him? After all these years, this is Emma’s father?” She studied him for a moment. “Actually, I see the resemblance. Same eyes. Same skin. And he’s good looking, Camille. A little too masculine for my taste, but I have to say, well done.”

“Where is she, Laura?” Camille said.

Quickly—too quickly for her to react because it was clear in which direction Laura’s arm was going—Laura lifted the gun at her side and pointed it not at them, but through the double doorway to her right. She pressed the trigger and the laser flashed on, thus preventing them from taking her out because both Camille and Sam knew where that laser was pointed. If they shot her now, her reflexes would squeeze that trigger.

“She’s right there, Camille, with a little red dot dancing on her throat. She’s still unconscious after what Grace did to her—she could be drowning on her own blood for all I know—so at least she won’t feel anything should you force me to shoot her.” She leveled her sister with a glance. “Now, how about you put down your gun before I go through with it? You know I can shoot. And she’s right in my sights.”

“And you’re in mine,” Camille said.

“And mine,” Sam said.

“So, at least two of us die,” Laura said. “That’s fine. Tyler and I are screwed anyway. After this, we’ll be tabloid fodder for months, which I’d frankly prefer not to see, face or hear. Socially, this family is now officially ruined, which I can’t bear to witness. So when I kill Emma, at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that I took her away from you, just as you took so much away from us, Camille. Her death will haunt you for the rest of your life because you’ll know it’s not really me who killed her. It was you.”

She looked over at Emma, who was indeed in her sights. She was leaning against the massive dining room table in the next room. Not moving. Couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. Red dot on her throat.

Then, unexpectedly, her shoulders slumped a little. “I can’t do this,” she said.

“Then don’t,” Camille said.

“What am I thinking? That you deserve this?”

Her answer was swift. She pulled the trigger at the same moment five shots blasted from the two other guns trained on her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

With the front door hanging open and the windows smashed, Pamela Decker’s house was filling with smoke so quickly that Marty knew the same was happening in the basement. No windows survived that blast. If he didn’t get his family out now, the smoke would kill them.

As much as he wanted to nail Pamela Decker and Carr, the latter of whom he knew in his gut also was upstairs, he turned around, put his hand on the banister and saw that his arm was bleeding from the glass embedded in it. His neck was moist, as was his back. How badly was he hurt?

Didn’t matter.

He fled down the stairs. Smoke stung his eyes. Glass cracked beneath his shoes. He ran into the kitchen and went to the door that he hoped led to the basement. “It’s me,” he shouted before opening the door. “Don’t shoot. I’m opening the door.”

“Marty!” Gloria said. He could hear coughing. Retching. “The smoke. We don’t have much time. Hurry!”

He looked over his shoulder and into the entryway. In spite of the car alarms and now the arrival of the police, whose sirens had just joined the cacophony of noise outside, he knew that whoever was upstairs just heard him call down to his family. Now they knew he was in the kitchen. They’d either come after him or run out while they could, which would be difficult given the police presence, but not impossible considering the chaos outside. He needed to be prepared for either situation. Anything could happen.

He opened the door. Orange-tinted smoke, illumined by the fires outside, poured into the kitchen. It wafted over him, burned his eyes and seared his throat. He turned his head away from it and when he did, he heard movement on the staircase in the entryway. He held his gun so it was pointed at the staircase and then called down into the basement. “Come on,” he said. “I need you to move. It’s safe.”

“Brian was shot,” Gloria said. “He’s dead. We can’t lift him. He’s too heavy. Jack needs your help to get him out of here.”

“We can’t leave him down here,” Barbara Moore said. “We can’t just leave him behind.”

Marty closed his eyes at the news that his friend was dead. He felt sickened by it, enraged by it, but knew that he couldn’t let Brian’s death derail him now. He needed to keep his mind clear. He had to protect those who were alive. He’d deal with his emotions later.

Behind him, he heard them coming down stairs. Slowly. One step at a time. They’d have guns. From where he stood now, they’d see him at the door. If he went down the basement stairs, they could shut the door and lock them inside. The smoke would overcome them. Kill them. Fewer witnesses to tell the truth.

Where are the police?

He looked through the kitchen window and saw exactly where they were and what they were doing. The fire department had arrived. The police were clearing the streets so the trucks could move forward and put out the two cars that were on fire. That was their priority. Soon detectives would be here. They’d find the red door. They’d know the situation because Mike Hines briefed them on it. But would they arrive in time? He couldn’t count on it. Right now, this was all on him.

“Listen to me,” he said. “You need to get Brian up here on your own. I can protect us on this end. If I come down there, I can’t. Anything could happen. They’re still in the house.”

“Dad, we can’t lift him.”

It was Beth. He thanked God she was still alive. “Beth, I need you to try. I need all of you to try. To get us safely out of here, I need to be here. Trust me on this. Jack, step it up and direct them. There are enough of you down there to do this.”

Behind him, a creak on the staircase. Then came the unexpected—Carr’s voice: “It’s not going so well for you, is it, Spellman?”

Marty moved to the stove, crouched low beside it.

“Who would have thought today would have ended like this?” Carr said. “I gave you seventy-two hours to bring in Camille. You had plenty of time, but you were in a rush. When people are in a rush, they make mistakes. If you had listened to me, it would have turned out differently. Your friend would be alive. You would have found Camille. And then we would have left you alone. All we wanted was Camille. Why did you complicate it so?”

“You abducted my family.”

“So we did, but you left us no choice. First, you broke our deal by hiring men to protect your wife. Then, you broke it again by involving your ex-wife, who went to the Moores, one of whom died as a result of their agreeing to help. Don’t you see? None of this had to happen if you had listened to me. You brought this on yourselves.”

Behind him, through the open basement door, a footstep landed heavily on the basement steps. He heard Gloria say, “Lift him higher by the shoulders. Beth, help me with his legs. We go slowly. One step at a time.”

“Resurrecting the dead?” Carr asked.

Marty ignored the comment. Before he acted and took them out, he wanted to stall them a bit longer so everyone could get upstairs. In the meantime, he wanted answers. “You’re having an affair with Pamela Decker, aren’t you, Carr?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“That’s also my answer. Are you interested in how I know?”

“I’m not interested because it’s not true.”

“I’m interested,” Pamela said.

It was the first time he’d heard her voice. She sounded different from what he imagined. Her voice reminded him of Kathleen Turner’s, only somehow deeper. It was husky, had an edge. “I know because when Carr abducted Eliot Baker, he was called home, probably by you. He told his driver to take him there. When he opened the car door, Baker heard a woman on the sidewalk say she was on Ninety-Third Street and on her way to wherever she was going. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out that Carr lives here. So, I have to ask you a question, Pamela. Kenneth Miller was good to you. He gave you more than you ever could have dreamed of. And yet you screwed him? Why? He gave you twenty million dollars. Wasn’t that enough?”