The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [171]
“Jesus Christ!” Nada and Kloska said, again at the same time, guns at the ready, but unsure where they should be pointing.
“Peter killed Bea. And Amoyo.” Wayne struggled to get the words out. The strings had bitten into the flesh around his mouth, causing a grotesque and bloody extension of his lips on either side. He had lost one prominent tooth and the ones that remained were painted red. “He was going to kill you.”
“No,” Peter said, and he coughed and a small amount of vomit surfaced on his lip, which he wiped against his shoulder. “If I was trying to kill you, why didn’t I already?”
“You are all coming with me right now,” Kloska said, but Wayne and Peter didn’t look like they could walk and Nada wasn’t yet interested in what the detective had to say.
“The only thing I can figure …” Wayne took a breath. “He didn’t kill you because you have a gun.” Another breath. “Figure it out, Nada. You always make the right play.”
But she couldn’t figure it out. She didn’t know. There was a crash from above, another critical part of the building’s upper support being consumed by the fire, inching closer to collapse. Kloska was right—they had to get out—but she was terrified of what would be waiting for her if she did. There were still too many people who wanted to take from her what she was unwilling to give.
“Wayne,” she said. “How did you find us?”
“Jameson used a credit card at the Coloss—”
“No, I mean in the chapel. How did you find us in the chapel?”
Wayne winced a few times, searching for both the words and the strength. Kloska shouted over them, “People, we are walking out of here right now,” and he tried to take a step toward Wayne, but Nada warned him off with the revolver.
“Shut up,” Nada said.
Peter said, “There are debit-card receipts and eyewitnesses that prove I was hundreds of miles away when the Beaujons were killed and that I was at work when David Amoyo was murdered.”
“How do you even know that?” Wayne said.
“Because I know where I was.”
“Because Rhodes manufactured your alibi.”
“Bullshit.”
“Shut up,” Nada said.
Peter didn’t. “Half a dozen people saw Wayne flee the scene of Amoyo’s murder. His fingerprints were all over the room. All over the body. They have DNA. His footprints in blood. Amoyo’s blood all over his car.”
Nada looked at Wayne.
“I don’t think I can prove I didn’t do it,” Wayne said.
Nada said again to Wayne, “How did you find us in the chapel?”
Wayne reached slowly into his pocket and barely held up his phone.
“How are you even getting a cell signal in the blackout?”
Wayne said, “It’s GPS. Satellite. It’s homing in on a chip from the Colossus that you must still have in your pocket.”
Nada shook her head. “I don’t have any chips on me. I don’t have any pockets. These aren’t even my pants.”
Wayne closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”
Nada stared at Kloska for a long moment, as if the answer were on his face. Her look, intense as it was, must have paralyzed the detective for a moment. Nada pointed the gun at Peter. “Pull your pockets out.”
Peter said, “What? No.”
Nada pointed the gun at Kloska. “You. Pull his pockets out.”
“What the fuck?” Kloska said, but he stepped over and kicked Peter’s knife away and dug around as Peter struggled against him, and he came out with a large wad of bills and change and keys, which clattered to the floor. And a single green casino chip with the silhouette of the Colossus of Rhodes.
“That’s gotta be … one of yours,” Wayne said to Nada.
Peter said, “It’s mine. It’s mine. I work there. I gamble there, too.”
Wayne waved his phone limply. “It’s hers. This says.”
“Maybe your batteries are low,” Peter said bitterly. “Take it up with Hassan.”
Kloska examined it, then held it up for Nada, who was not at all convinced that a casino chip in Peter Trembley’s pants was incriminating evidence, and who thought the more troubling revelation was that Wayne had some