The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [98]
He could see the shadowy outline of the bedroom door leading out into the hallway. Could he see the mirror hanging on the bathroom door?
He saw moving shadows then, like something liquid being spilled against the bedroom walls.
The air was gone from his lungs. He needed to stand up, to get his breath.
Could they see him?
He kept wondering whether their eyes had become used to darkness. The question was screaming inside his head.
The mirror on the bathroom door caught an image.
He saw a shape crossing past. It moved very quickly—running, darting to the left.
He had to do two things, almost at exactly the same time: fire and move away. Fire just to the left of the mirror door; move away in his wheelchair. At the same time…
The revolver flared in his hands. An instant later, his left arm reached back and pushed hard off the bedroom wall. All his arm strength went into the motion.
The second gunman crashed loudly against the hollow-sounding wall, then stumbled to the floor.
The flashlight! His thoughts were so loud it seemed as if he were talking to himself, babbling in desperation. There was at least one more of them. Maybe two.
Maybe one gunman was without a flashlight. A very smart one? The grand cocksucker himself?
Frightened tenants in the building were beginning to cry out from the relative safety of their apartments. A woman screamed close by, probably on the same floor of the luxury building.
Finally, Sarah began to yell for help. Her back was up against the closed bathroom door; both bare feet were wedged against the cold porcelain of the tub.
“Call the police! Somebody call the police! Please call the police!” Sarah screamed at the top of her voice.
A handgun roared like a small cannon inside the bedroom.
A terrible shock of pain poleaxed through John Stefanovitch’s body. He reeled violently to his left; he almost went over in the wheelchair.
One of the hit men was behind him.
The third man?
The fourth one?
He felt the same searing heat he’d experienced at Long Beach. The sheer force of the gunshot had almost thrown him from the wheelchair, ripped him from his seat.
A fire burned down the right side of his spine, searing into his flesh. He moaned softly, against his will, but he couldn’t control the sound.
The gun muzzle bloomed again. Behind him.
The pain that pierced his brain was excruciating. His eyes started to blur. He could see a bright tunnel of light. It was Long Beach all over again.
At that instant, the bathroom door flew open. Sarah was out in the clear. Her silhouette was cast against the wall. Then she disappeared back inside.
What was she doing?
“Sarah, no!” Stefanovitch shouted at the top of his voice.
Suddenly, a glass object crashed against the bedroom wall, near the closet. Another glass shattered. She was hurling things out of the bathroom. Distractions! Trying to help any way she could.
“Sarah!”
The gunman fired again, this time point-blank into the bathroom.
“Sarah? Sarah?… Sarah!”
Stefanovitch steadied his arm where the bright flash of gunfire had been. His hands were shaking. He aimed behind the last of the ghosting gun flashes. He squeezed the revolver tightly in both hands. Rage had taken over.
Both shots missed.
Chaos followed. Seconds later, all the appliances and lights in the apartment building came back on. The effect was startling temporarily, the shock jarring.
He saw the third gunman slip out the bedroom door. There had only been three of them… Had the last one been Alexandre St.-Germain? He couldn’t tell.
“Stef?” he heard Sarah cry out. Then he saw her coming through the widening crack in the bathroom door. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay,” he said, not wanting Sarah to know he’d been shot. He was having trouble breathing.
Someone was pounding loudly on the upstairs door of the apartment. Muffled shouts came ringing through the walls. “Are you all right in there? Mrs. McGinniss? Mrs. McGinniss?”
95
WITH A TREMENDOUS physical effort, Stefanovitch stubbornly started the Chair forward. Inside his head, there was