The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [138]
“What the . . . ?”
“Kimberly, now!”
The girl dug her elbow into Andrews’s exposed side and lashed out with her foot. Twisted and off balance, Andrews released his hold on her instinctively, struggling to bring his gun up and around. Rainie whipped the metal chair into Andrews’s neck and shoulder. He howled as his gun and the chair both went flying and he realized too late he’d been duped by the oldest trick in the book.
“Bitch!” he roared.
“Kimberly,” Rainie cried out again. “Gun, now!” They needed to find a weapon. Now, now, now.
Her Glock, under the coffee table. Rainie scurried over on all fours. Andrews saw her movement, and cut her off with a brutal kick to her chin. Her jaw cracked. She collapsed on her back, seeing stars. Dimly she was aware of Kimberly diving across the room reaching for Andrews’s fallen gun. Andrews saw her. He had the chair. Raising it over his head, towering above Kimberly.
The chair slammed down. Kimberly made a heavy, wet sound Rainie had never heard before.
Andrews smiled in triumph. Then he flung down the chair and crouched for the 9mm Rainie could now see it lying just inches from Kimberly’s body. The girl had been so close . . .
One last chance. Rainie flipped onto her side, looking, looking, looking. The Glock, there against the brass leg of the table. Come on, Rainie. Dying is not preferable to living. Dying is not preferable to living! Damn, she’d be an optimist in the end. Reach!
The startling sound of a cartridge being ratcheted into a gun chamber. The sound of death.
“Bye-bye, Rainie,” Andrews said.
And Quincy said, “Hey Andrews. Get your fucking hands off my daughter.”
Virginia
Albert Montgomery was still feeling calm and controlled fifteen minutes later when Quincy returned to the dimly lit interrogation room. Four thirty-one P.M. The agent probably had just confirmed his daughter’s death. Albert wondered if he’d get to see him cry. He would like that.
His interrogator stopped in front of him.
“Howdy Albert,” the man said in a crystal-clear voice Albert had never heard before. “It’s my turn to tell you some things you don’t know. One, I’m sure Kimberly is just fine. And two, I’m not Pierce Quincy.” The man reached up and ripped off the salt-and-pepper wig it had taken Glenda and an FBI makeup expert two hours to apply. Then he stepped out of special shoes with two-inch lifts. And he removed his navy blue suit jacket, custom-tailored to mirror Quincy’s taller, broad-shouldered build. “The name is Luke Hayes,” the stranger said calmly. “And I’m a friend of Rainie’s.”
Portland
Andrews’s face paled. He snapped around toward the bedroom door, the gun in his right hand dipping down toward the carpet, but his left hand still on Kimberly’s shoulder. “Who? How? But you’re in Virginia!”
Quincy stepped into the living room from the adjoining bedroom. He had his 10mm out, but down at his side. His gaze was locked on Andrews. He’d wasted fifteen minutes relentlessly searching the lobby for a man talking on a cell phone before he’d realized his mistake. The man was already upstairs. The man was already in his daughter’s room. Plan B had always been the fire escape. Six floors up, rung over rung. Quincy should be tired. He should be exhausted.
He stood looking at this man who was heavily armed and crouched over his daughter, and he felt unbelievably calm. Time had slowed. All was manageable. The UNSUB finally had a face. And like so many killers before, the face wasn’t even that impressive. He was just a man after all, average height, average weight, average age.
“You killed Mandy,” Quincy said. He kept approaching. Andrews still hadn’t brought his gun back up. He hadn’t shot any of his other victims. Chances were that he wasn’t that comfortable with guns, Quincy decided. An ambush was one thing. A genuine face-off, another.
“Easy pickings,” Andrews snarled. But his voice wobbled. Behind him, Rainie was slowly extending her arm again, reaching for a pistol Quincy could just make out beneath the glass table. Quincy quickly