Nick of Time (35 page)

“Are we having fun yet?” Matt grumbled.

“Just remember that this adrenaline rush is what SWAT is all about,” Luis drawled, his tone heavy with irony. “Want me to take over on the trigger for a while?”

Both the spotter and the shooter were equally trained as marksmen. If this had been a more intense standoff, a switch might have been in order. As it was, with the windows closed, and no one appearing to be in any kind of a hurry, stress hadn't become an issue. “Nah,” he said. “I'm fine.”

“He said he wouldn't be taken alive,” Luis said. “What's your bet?”

“I bet it's easier to talk about than do,” Matt said. “I give it even odds.”

“Assault units, get ready!” The voice in their earpieces startled them both. “Perp's got a knife and he's moving for the old woman.” The warning came from Muhammad Dali, the Voice of God for this operation, the one who passed along the orders from Commander Donnelly. Matt pressed his cheek to the stock of his rifle, but kept both eyes open, focusing past the scope to the side of the house that was his responsibility. Luis, meanwhile, settled into the eyepieces of his tripod-mounted binocular spotting scope. All they needed was a target and an order to take it out. Matt felt ashamed by the thrill he felt at the thought of his first kill.

“It's getting damn dark out here,” Luis observed. “Why don't they fire up the lights?”

Matt didn't bother to answer. Below and to his right, he could see the side-three entry team on the far side of the dune, gathering for their assault. He knew without looking that a similar team was assembling on side one. It occurred to Matt that with this flimsy sticks-and-paper construction, people better choose their targets carefully and shoot straight. The walls wouldn't stop a BB.

The rain and the unpleasantness of the sand meant nothing. Nothing existed but the mission. If the balloon went up, Matt's orders were clear: take any shot necessary to keep the perpetrators from harming the hostage, or from getting away. One way or another, these assholes wouldn't kill again.

Chapter Thirty-seven

B
rad was six feet away from Gramma when a motor sputtered to life outside the house and the blackness beyond the curtains erupted in the brilliant white light of two noontimes.

“What's happening?” Nicki gasped.

“Generator,” Brad said. “They don't want us slipping out when they can't see. Plus, blinding us gives them even more advantage.”

Gramma seemed not to notice the lights and the noise. All she saw was the knife in Brad's hand. “W-what are you going to do?”

“Not what you're worried about,” he said. “Relax.”

The old woman's eyes grew huge as she realized what his intentions were. “Are you letting me go?”

“If you fight me or bite me or try to punch me, or even just mildly piss me off, I'm going to cut your throat,” he said. He let the words settle on her. “But otherwise, yes, I'm letting you go.” Leaning down closer to her, he could see the tears welling in her eyes.

As he reached for the cord that bound her hands, it almost looked as if he was kissing her cheek as he whispered, “When you get out there, you tell them not to rush the place, you understand? You tell them that we need some time. You tell them that if I see a face—if I
think
I see a face—I'm going to shoot it. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Gramma said. “Yes, I understand perfectly.”

“You tell them that this isn't about you or about me or about Nicki. You tell them that the reason I'm letting you go is because I don't want your grandkid to end up without anyone. I've been there, and it sucks.” He felt his throat thicken as he said those words, and he got to the business of slipping the blade between Gramma's flesh and the rope that held her right wrist in place. The cord cut easily and fell to the floor. “Remember what I told you about lashing out at me.”

“I-I remember,” she stammered. She didn't move.

When the second rope was cut, he helped her stand. The effort made the room spin. When she was on her feet, he moved close again, and whispered even more softly than before, “I've got one more thing I want you to tell them when you get outside . . .”

* * *

Muhammad couldn't contain the enthusiasm in his voice as he shouted, “They're coming out! He's releasing the grandmother! He's releasing her!” Matt smiled. Muhammad's voice could not have been pitched higher if he was doing play-by-play. There were some other voices in the background, and then the young cop was all business again. “Side one assault team, get ready,” he said.

It wasn't Matt's side of the building, and protocol required that he not be distracted from his quadrant of responsibility, but this kind of drama was hard to resist. He watched as the sergeant in charge of the side one assault team stepped partially out into the open from behind his dune, as two other team members took up positions behind the dead Bronco. He could see right away that the release itself would be blocked from his view by the peak of the roof.

He returned his eyes to the back door and settled in again. “Well, that changes a lot of things,” he told Luis.

* * *

It was the noblest, most stupid thing Brad had ever done. As he opened the door for the old woman and ushered her out, he saw beyond the glare of the lights that the SWAT guys were moving up to receive her. Watching her walk out to them, he couldn't help but admire her spirit. Conscious of her audience, Gramma straightened herself and walked with as much dignity as she could muster out toward the lights. When she reached the truck, two black-clad gunmen darted out and dragged her back to cover.

Brad closed the door. “Well, it shouldn't be long now,” he said.

Nicki smiled at him over the back of the sofa. “Thank you,” she said. “It was the right thing.”

“Then how come it felt so stupid?”

“Don't you see?” she said. “We just bought ourselves all the time in the world. Without her, there's no reason to storm the place anymore.”

Brad couldn't contain the grunt as he lifted Nicki's feet and helped himself to the end of the sofa, where he put her feet back down on his lap. “Let's hope you're right,” he said. “Because from where I sit, they've got no reason not to shoot us both dead.”

* * *

Scotty bolted out of the Mellings' front door before anyone could stop him and jumped from the stoop into the sand, where he sprinted around the corner toward the bright lights that marked his house. Somebody yelled for him to stop, but then somebody else said, “Let him go.”

His head hurt from the effort, and he felt a little dizzy, but that was okay. He wanted to see his Gramma. He
needed
to see her.

There she was.

At first, he saw just a cluster of cops, backlit against the floodlights, but then, in the middle of them, he saw her. She looked stronger and taller than he remembered, and pretty pissed. He could tell from her body language that she was tired of being pushed around by these cops, and he told himself that maybe it was because she was at least half as anxious to see him as he was to see her.

They must have said something about Scotty on the radio, because he was still fifty yards away when she looked up, staring right at him, and muscled her way through the cops to head his way.

They met somewhere in between, and Scotty felt the air leave his lungs as Gramma enveloped him in a huge bear hug. He realized out of nowhere that he was crying, and while he didn't know why, he knew that he couldn't stop. No one had ever looked as beautiful as Gramma did in that moment.

“I'd never leave you, sweetie,” she whispered, so close to his ear that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “Never in a million years.”

Scotty tried to say something, but his voice wouldn't work. It probably would have been something lame anyway.

A black-clad cop cleared his throat and placed his hand on Gramma's shoulder. “Pardon me,” he said, “but they need to talk to you in the command post.”

Scotty let Gramma hold his hand as they walked back to the Mellings' house and stepped inside. He didn't even let go when other people could see.

The mood in the command post had lightened. All heads turned as they entered.

“Maury Donnelly,” the commander said, stepping forward and offering his hand. “We're very glad to see you, Mrs. Parker. Are you hurt?”

Gramma shook her head. “No, I'm fine, but that boy in there, Brad, he wanted me to be sure to give you a message as soon as I saw you. He meant what he said before: if he sees a face, he'll shoot it. I think he's serious. And he also said if you try to rush the building, he'll shoot the girl.”

Those were the first words Carter heard as Trooper Evanow ushered him into the room.

* * *

Brad fiddled with the pistol in his lap, turning it over, checking the action to make sure it worked. He dropped out the magazine and checked the gauge on the back. Ten rounds left. Nine more than he probably needed.

“You still planning to shoot it out with them?” Nicki asked.

“Only if they start it,” Brad said. He grunted against a stab of pain that lit up his right side.

For the first time—miraculously, foolishly, she realized, because all the signs had been there from the beginning—she saw that he was seriously suicidal. In her heart of hearts, she'd allowed herself to believe that it had just been tough talk, driven by his desire to come off as a hard-ass. “So, you're seriously trying to die?”

Brad gave her a wry look. “I'm seriously trying to get away, actually, but we seem to have run out of options. I'm not going back to prison.”

“So you're going to
die
instead?”

“It's not so bad. You said so yourself.”

Nicki struggled to a sitting position, and her head spun from the effort. “But you have a
choice,
” she said. “Do you know what I'd give to have a choice to stay alive?”

“I won't go back. I'd
rather
be dead.”

“Living is always better than dying.”

“Oh, come on, Nicki, open your eyes. I've been raped. I've been beaten till I couldn't stand.”

“Tell somebody, then.”

He wanted to laugh, but it hurt too much to try. “You mean walk down to the warden's office, like you'd walk down to the principal's office, and just tell him that you want Zippo transferred to a different table in the cafeteria? The guards
know,
Nicki. They know every goddamn thing, and half of them make money on the deal. To report another inmate, you have to give names. You give names, and somebody'll slip into your cell and cut your nuts off. Or cut your gut open so you can hold your intestines in your hand. Those assholes get away with what they get away with
because
the guards know. Because they
enjoy
it. Don't tell me that living's better than dying. Not until you know what you're talking about.”

Nicki hated the fear and sadness she saw in Brad's face. “Then why didn't you just kill yourself?” she asked. “Why did you go through the effort to escape if life has no meaning?”

“
Had,
” Brad said, emphasizing the past tense. “Life
had
meaning as long as I had a plan to get out of there. Now, that's gone. It's all gone. Everything.”

“So, the solution is to get yourself killed by the very people you hate the most? Why involve so many people? If that's your only solution, why not just do it yourself?”

“I guess I'm just too much of a pussy.” He wished that the subject had never come up. There was no way to make her understand.

“Oh, now there's an epitaph,” Nicki scoffed. “‘Too much of a pussy to do himself in.' Very classy. The history books will be impressed.”

“Are you kidding? Christ on a crutch, we won't get within a hundred yards of making the history books. We're nobody.”

“I don't believe that.”

“How
is
that view from your glass house? If life is so valuable, why aren't you back in New York with your father and his doctor friends, hooked up to your hormone pumps?”

Nicki felt her chest rattle as the airflow faltered. It took an enormous effort, but she swung her feet to the floor and leaned in closer to him, so close that she had difficulty focusing on his features. “Because for me, it doesn't matter. For me, no matter what happens, life is over. For you, there's a chance.”

“Jesus, I told you—”

“That prison sucks. Yeah, okay. Then maybe you shouldn't have killed those people. Maybe you should have chosen your friends better. Maybe, maybe, maybe.” She took no pleasure in watching her words hurt him. “On the other hand, maybe you're the one who's destined to make a difference in prison. I don't know, maybe there's some arsonist who you won't meet for another five years whose life is going to be turned around because he met
you
. Maybe
you're
the only one who can tell him the magic thing that will make life livable for
him
.”

Brad smirked. “A prison savior, right?” He laughed.

“Yes, exactly,” Nicki said, animated. “Why not? It's possible. You saved me, why can't you save someone else?”

He made a circular motion with his head to take in the whole room. “You call this being saved?”

“You know what I mean. You know how important you were to me when I was hurting. This isn't your fault, Brad. It isn't my fault, either. It's just the way things turned out. Believe me, I've learned how to rationalize my way through shit that makes no sense.”

“You think I haven't? You think that I haven't waded through my dung heap of a life and tried to figure out what went wrong? My list is a hell of a lot longer than yours.”

“But killing yourself is not the answer! If you do that, I'll have nothing. I'll have nobody.”

Brad opened his mouth to argue, but then he stopped. He looked away.

Nicki cupped his chin with her fingers and turned his face to her. “I love you, Brad. Even if I found a miracle cure and lived to be eighty years old, I'll never love anyone as much again. I know that. You were there for me. You've always been there for me. I'll never leave you. If you let them take you to prison, I promise I'll visit. I'll move there if I have to, but you'll never be completely alone.”

Brad felt the pressure of tears arrive in a rush, too fast to stop them. A sob escaped with the sound of a cough, and as he pressed his hands to his eyes to stem the tide, he realized that it was useless. Nicki pulled him into her arms and nestled his face in the soft spot between her neck and shoulder the way her mother used to hold her to make childhood pains go away.

He trembled under her touch as fear and sadness poured from him. The strength and humor were gone, leaving a terrified shell of the fallen God she adored. As she pulled him closer and felt the heat of him on her shoulder, she realized that this was the moment she'd been dreaming of. They were together alone, just the two of them, their souls bonded in an intimacy that transcended any of the carnal fumblings of the night before.

Still, she wished that she had made love to him. She'd deferred to fear and confusion, and now she hated herself for not releasing the white-knuckled grip she held clenched on her life. She'd turned her back on her one chance to make him truly happy, and now the chance was gone forever.

“I'm here,” she whispered. “I love you so much.” She rubbed his back, feeling the tautness of his muscles beneath his T-shirt, ignoring the stickiness of his blood.