Cross Cut (34 page)

“There’s also the event at the cabin. I thought it highly unlikely Andonian’s gang had anything to do with it. As we all know now, Melissa was never their concern. The person wanting to damage me went far beyond the petty gang feud against me.

“The evidence at the cabin suggested nothing untoward happened. One foreign car made its way in and out of the vicinity, obviously Agent Cordell’s, as she planned to get Melissa to further safety. No doubt she acted under guidance from yourself, whom she neither feared, nor saw any reason to doubt when you convinced her Melissa was in danger. You directed her to the cabin, which was no trouble, considering it was you, not Andonian, who placed the tracker on Ader’s car. Then, when it was too late for them, you subdued them, and drove away in Agent Cordell’s car. As for how I followed you here, I used the same trick you did.”

Ryder somehow rested her Beretta 92 inside her sling and dipped into her blazer pocket, throwing the GPS tracker to the floor. She looked to her left for a moment, and likely realized Kacie’s state.

“Very well,” Dr Bishop said. “I admit the setback, but not defeat. If you want to shoot me, you’ll have to take the risk that my hand won’t jerk this blade across the bitch’s neck.”

Ryder steadied her right arm and blew her fringe out of her eye line. “Give it up. Do you think I came here alone? You’re not getting away.”

Dr Bishop grinned menacingly. “I’d say that you did. If you were with the police or FBI, then you, as a mere civilian, wouldn’t be the one standing there. Now, keep your finger off the trigger, descend the stairs, and wait by the wall as I make my way out.”

“How do I know you’ll set Melissa free?”

“You don’t.”

I watched from the floor as this stalemate played out. Neither of them budged an inch, and I couldn’t struggle anymore. Melissa still looked out of it, and I didn’t hold much hope for Kacie. Ryder could end it now, and shoot Dr Bishop in the head. She had the accuracy, and I had to think the chances of the knife being pulled back were slight if the bullet killed her instantly. Ryder, however, wasn’t willing to take that chance.

Dr Bishop stepped closer to the stairs, pushing Melissa along, with the blade still across her neck, breaking into the skin. My vision was clearing, and I could see minute flickers of uncertainty in Ryder’s eyes. She may have concocted a long winded scenario to find Melissa and Kacie, but it was safe to say she hadn’t planned for this. And if she hadn’t come with backup, I had to wonder at what a fool she had been.

The pair stared off for a while as Dr Bishop drew closer and Ryder backed up a step. As I continued to watch my eyes were diverted by a break in the light from the trap door. A faint shadow appeared, looking down into the basement.

Without any thought I yelled, “Watch out,” thinking Ryder was in danger. The lack of sirens, voices and trailing footsteps led me to believe it wasn’t any form of police authority moving upon us.

It turned out I was wrong. The person descending the trap door was an FBI agent. But that didn’t console me when I realized it was Agent Gibbs.

“Drop it, Ryder,” she said.

Ryder didn’t move. She probably realized that would be fatal. The moment she turned her head, Dr Bishop could have made a move on her.

She remained still, her eyes more uncertain, as if she had no grasp on the situation, which was understandable.

To my surprise, Dr Bishop was paying more attention to Gibbs. She looked beyond Ryder and said, “You—”

“I’m with Higgings. Cops are onto us, let’s go,” Gibbs said.

“No,” Dr Bishop said. “I give the orders, and I had no idea Andonian had bought you, not until tonight. If Higgings brought you here, bring him in here to help clean this up. There’s gasoline in the storage room down the next hall.”

Higgings—was she referring to the prison guard, Zeus Higgings—surely not. Why would she be?

But then it hit me. If what Ryder had said was true, that Dr Bishop entered Leavenworth under false pretenses to keep a check on Lee Lynch, surely it was just as likely someone else had, too. Perhaps a prison security guard, who eventually shot Lee Lynch when he tried to escape—someone with decent aim to shoot him dead from inside the prison past the first security gate—the same kind of aim required to shoot Andonian from three hundred feet. The same audacity that would have been required to allow Agent Gibbs to be standing here right now. It was unraveling now. Every act past and present had brought Ryder here. She knew everything, had considered everything, yet that still didn’t seem enough.

“What are you doing with the girl?” Gibbs said.

“I think I’ll leave her in here with everyone else. Take Miss Ryder’s gun and throw it to me.”

Gibbs moved one step short of Ryder and held her own handgun close to Ryder’s head. Ryder gave in all too easily. Her right arm relaxed and dropped to her side. Gibbs was behind her, almost breathing down her neck, gun pointed directly at the back of her head.

In a brief moment, Ryder closed her eyes, and, to my surprise, pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening as the bullet went through the stairs. Dr Bishop, startled in reaction, fumbled with Melissa’s body. Before my brain had even confirmed the echo of the gunshot, a second one came from Agent Gibbs.

In that moment, as the echo filled the room, I processed everything. Ryder fell forward and keeled over some three steps below.

Dr Bishop drooped backward. A red mist flew out from the back of her white coat before she hit the floor, breaking Melissa’s fall.

40

Sitting out in the street on Wilshire Boulevard, a paramedic kept pestering me with a navy blue blanket. Try as he might, I refused it. I looked up at the three storey building and hated myself. All this time Dr Bishop had been keeping Kacie and Melissa here, in the same building as her practice, in an unused storage cellar to the rear, and no one was the wiser.

I watched the gurneys go on by; one holding Kacie Cordell, who was still alive, but in a critical condition with extensive blood loss. Melissa was conscious, but still feeling the effect from whatever Dr Bishop had drugged her with. And then there was Dr Bishop herself, still alive with a gunshot wound similar to Ryder’s. Seen as Ryder had survived hers, I expected Dr Bishop to live.

Ryder was sitting beside me, partially deaf after Agent Gibbs had pulled the trigger beside her. Gibbs herself was talking to other FBI agents on the sidewalk, when two familiar BI agents joined the scene. Mantle and Johns shot me a look, gave sympathetic nods, and joined in on the whispers.

And if that wasn’t enough, shortly after a car pulled up on the other side of the road. It was Sully, still using the same rental car as opposed to his own. I shook my head at him.

“You gotta get your monies worth,” he said.

I shook my head again, more violently. “Nerks to money. Will somebody please tell me what the hell just happened.”

Sully scratched his head. “Don’t think you’ll like it, but, we kinda used you as bait.”

I looked at Ryder and raised my voice. “So all this was a set-up for Bishop? Even Gibbs being crooked?”

Ryder was still clutching at her ear, when Gibbs came forward.

“Yes,” Gibbs said, “back at the office, Ryder came up with this scheme when I was alone with her. She convinced me the only way to save Agent Cordell and your friend was to convince Dr Bishop that she was in the clear. After that, we expected she would make a final move. As it happens, she wanted to take you too.”

“But why—why the hell couldn’t you just have done this earlier?” I asked Ryder. Even though she was struggling to hear, she seemed to understand me.

“There was no evidence anywhere that she was involved in anything,” Ryder said loudly, compensating for her hearing. “The only way to do it was to trap her. I couldn’t risk telling you, it was better if you acted in ignorance. I’m sorry, but for Melissa’s sake—”

“But—” I hesitated, for Melissa’s sake. “What was stopping us from finding Kacie and Melissa another way?”

Ryder groaned. “If we followed her day and night—even I would have never suspected she was keeping them at her workplace. That was an oversight I am not proud of. It was troublesome; if she even thought remotely that I suspected her, she would have done something. I had to keep her confidence and vanity in check. The one way I saw as a possibility was to make her think that I thought the corrupt person in the LA FBI department was someone else, which was difficult and risky, considering Dr Bishop would have to be fully convinced, especially when it would be the first she was hearing of it. If she was fully aware of Andonian’s workings, she would have suspected something, but I was willing to risk it. So, at the office, myself and Agent Gibbs staged that little drama.”

“Yeah, but what about Mantle and Johns?”

Gibbs interrupted, saying, “Quite ingenious. The message on my phone was actually instructions, telling them to play along.”

“Everything else was legit, though? About Laura Harles murdering Lynch?”

“Yes,” Ryder said.

I turned to Sully, and then to Gibbs. “Was it Zeus Higgings who shot Andonian? Bishop mentioned him inside.”

Sully nodded. “I made some further phone calls after you left the hospital. Apparently, he left his position straight after shooting Lee Lynch. He has history in the army too. He was in Afghanistan in 2001.”

Gibbs leaned forward. “We tracked a credit card transaction in San Francisco three nights ago. After that, it was more than a hunch that he was here for a reason. When I came into the basement, I sort of ad-libbed, dropping Higgings’ name so Bishop would figure I was on her side for a moment.”

“That was dumb,” I said. “I mean, if Higgings killed Andonian to shut him up, why would he have saved you?”

“Yeah, well, excuse me. It’s not my fault Ryder ignored advice and went ahead first—”

She was cut off mid sentence by a thud down the street. I turned my head, not really knowing what the fuss was. Sirens were screaming and paramedics were running down the street.

“Melissa—” Ryder shouted. “Is it Melissa?”

Sully shook his head. “That’s—they’re running to an ambulance.”

“Jesus,” Gibbs said, “that’s the ambulance Bishop went away in.”

Gibbs and Sully ran off in the paramedics’ direction. I left Ryder out on the sidewalk, and tried to keep up, but my legs were telling me otherwise. From a distance, I saw the ambulance, turned over on its side in the middle of the road. Gibbs, along with armed support, checked the back doors. When there was no sign of the doors opening, Gibbs called out to an officer to open them. Of all the possible outcomes, it would be suffice to say no one expected the carnage inside.

With the ambulance the way it was, the right wall was now the ambulance floor, and Dr Bishop was sitting cross legged upon it. The gurney and equipment were sprawled across the floor behind her, and two paramedics lay beside her, their necks completely lacerated. Blood trailed across the floor and ran to the edge of Dr Bishop’s feet. The walls had two distinct spray marks, red, rising upward. In one hand, Dr Bishop held around her wrist the handcuffs applied to her. Her other hand was free, with a dislocated thumb. Judging by the state of the paramedics, she had used the sharp ends of the free handcuff to slash at their necks.

With the handcuffs still present, the FBI and local police were cautious. It’s okay pointing a gun at someone, but in a tight space, with the law dictating not to open fire unless provoked, there was little else to do. They ordered her out of the ambulance, but she just sat there, half the time motionless, with her eyes closed. Then, she would just smile outward, at no one in particular. The blood across her face exaggerated the smile beyond a level of borderline psychotic behavior.

Eventually, she rose and walked out. When agents restrained her, she didn’t move a muscle.

She looked at Ryder, now beside me, and said only these words, “You and I, we keep going to the bitter end,” and she smiled. Her tongue came out slightly and cleaned away the blood on her lips.

It wasn’t until after inspection we realized what had gone down. Dr Bishop had opened the sliding window leading into the driver’s seat, and then attempted to strangle the driver, causing the ambulance to sharply turn up and onto the sidewalk. After hitting a hydrant, the ambulance spun back into the street, and tipped over onto its side.

A part of me wondered if Dr Bishop intended to escape driving the ambulance. The other part considered that she was just insane.

As a psychiatrist, I’m sure she’d argue either way.

41

A week went by, and the damage caused by Dr Bishop was still visible and within us.

Kacie Cordell remains in hospital. She recovered from the blood loss, but has continuing problems with infection, given the environment in which she received the wounds. Melissa visits her daily and takes her flowers.

Their relationship is now out in the open, and I wish them well, choosing not to question why they kept it secret. I considered that Kacie wanted to keep it from her colleagues, whose opinions on anyone related to Ryder are always divided. I later realized there might have been another reason, which will appear soon.

Ryder still has the sling and refrains from taking appointments. She keeps to her routine of pier fishing, although, I have no idea how she manages with a single hand.