The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [141]
He found the hunting knife strapped inside his cast and advanced for the stairs.
Sirens wailed behind him. Men were still screaming. Someone was yelling about the front door.
Let them all come. Let them all fucking come.
BECKETT SAW SOMEONE out of the corner of his eye. He dropped Tess and reached for the shotgun. He didn’t see the knife hurtle through the air, until it drove through his shoulder.
He stared at it without comprehension. J.T. had arrived on the landing.
With a roar he charged.
He caught Beckett around the middle, and they went down with a crash. Something warm filled J.T.’s mouth. He opened his lips, and blood spilled down his cheek. The rusty flavor made him angrier.
Beckett fisted his hands and drove them into the small of J.T.’s back. J.T. got a fresh mouthful of bloody bile. He reared back and caught Beckett beneath the chin with his head. Then he reached up for the handle of his knife and gave it a twist.
Beckett staggered back with a sharp cry of pain. Vaguely J.T. was aware of the thick shadows beneath the man’s eyes, the gaunt lines of his chin. Beckett had lost twenty pounds since his prison break, and he looked it.
He didn’t feel it though. He felt only the heady thrum of adrenaline in his ears. The sirens, the screams, the noise. It fueled him.
He grabbed the baton he’d strapped inside his arm and started swinging.
J.T. leapt out of the way the first time. He rolled the second. The third swing cracked him on his already cracked ribs. The pain rocketed through him beyond description or color. He fell to his knees.
Above him the baton rose again. He could hear the whistle. Feel the draft.
He commanded his body to roll. One more time, closer to the stairs. His muscles took a long time responding.
The baton whistled down.
And the shotgun blast sent Beckett halfway across the second-story landing. Tess stood with the gun in her hands and the powder staining her cheeks. She pumped in another cartridge.
A low, wet groan escaped Jim’s lips. As J.T. lay there, his eyes barely able to focus, he watched her walk over to him. There were no tears on her cheeks. No emotion in her eyes. Her face was pale, her face was calm. He thought of Marion as Tess pointed the shotgun at Jim’s fallen body and pulled the trigger.
Through the haze of dissipating smoke, her brown eyes met his.
“It’s over,” she whispered hoarsely, shotgun against her shoulder. “Massachusetts might not believe in the death penalty, but I do.”
Jim didn’t move again. Tess let the gun slide to the floor. She cradled J.T.’s bloody head on her lap and waited for the police to make it up the stairs.
JUST SOUTH OF Lenox, the cop turned his wailing car into a gas station. A backup patrol car came to a screaming halt behind him.
The woman who was about to pay for her gas stared at them. The man who was unscrewing the gas cap of his Mercedes stopped. The two young kids who were out looking for a good time hunched down lower and wondered if they’d hidden the marijuana far enough beneath the seat.
The cops searched for the pay phone.
An older woman with a somber face and liver-spotted hands appeared from around the side. A little blond girl clung to her neck. She looked at the policemen somberly.
“Edith?” one of the officers asked.
She nodded and he approached the pair slowly, since the girl was obviously scared. The girl perfectly matched the posters all over the war room. He knew. For the last few nights, the officer had gone to bed so tense, he’d dreamed of that face.
“I want my mommy,” she whispered in a tiny voice.
“I know, sweetheart. You’re Samantha Beckett, aren’t you?”
She nodded slowly, her grip still tight around Edith’s neck.
He gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. We’re gonna take you to your mommy, Sam. We’re gonna take you home.”
EPILOGUE
THE NEW ARRIVAL caused a bit of a stir. She stood in the doorway of the Nogales bar with the long, slender lines of a beautiful woman. Male heads turned instantly, some ancient instinct coming alert. Cue sticks halted