Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [109]
“No, it’s not okay. He’ll kill him. I know he’ll kill him. What am I going to do? It’s all my fault. He’ll kill him!”
A slight pause, then Agent Cobb said, “You mean that he’ll kill you, Becca? You’re afraid that he injected some long-waiting poison in your arm?”
“Oh no. He’ll kill him. I’ve got to do something. ”
“Do you mean he’ll kill your father?”
“No, no. It’s Sam. He’s got Sam.” And then she started crying, deep, tearing sobs that jerked her wide awake. “Oh, no,” she said, staring at all the appalled faces. “Oh, no.”
“It’s all right, Becca,” Agent Cobb said. “You’ll be fine now.”
Thomas said very slowly, “So that’s what McBride had to say to you. Krimakov kidnapped Sam and had McBride call the director to find you and have you call him.”
“No,” she said. “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Valium, she thought. She had just killed Sam, just killed her father, God knew who else, all because of one Valium.
Adam was on his feet. “Where’s your address book? I’m going to call McBride, find out what’s going on here.”
“No,” she said, jumping up to grab his arm. “No, you can’t, Adam.”
“Why not?”
TWENTY-FIVE
The room was dead silent.
“No, you can’t have my address book.”
“Fine. I’ll call information.” Adam walked toward the phone. “We’ve got to know exactly what’s going on here.”
Becca didn’t say another word. She ran out of the living room, grabbed her purse from the table in the entryway, and made for the front door.
“Becca! Come back here!”
She heard Adam yelling but didn’t pay any attention. She heard her father’s voice, then Special Agent Cobb’s voice. She didn’t slow. She was out on the narrow front porch before Adam reached the entryway.
She heard all of them shouting at her, running after her, but she knew she had to get away. No one else was going to die. Not Sam. Not her father. She had to stop it. She didn’t know how she was going to do it yet, but she would think of something. She should have thought of something before—maybe even been a bit on the subtle side. Yes, you fool, you should have calmly left the living room, pretending to go upstairs or go to the bathroom, whatever. But no, she’d lost it—here she was running away with people chasing her, FBI agents everywhere. But that didn’t matter, either. She had no choice. If she could prevent it, no one else was going to die. She ran.
There were no sidewalks in this very nice neighborhood, just big lawns, thick curbs, and the road. She hit the road. She was fast, always had been since she’d been on the track team in high school. She put her head down, turned off all the voices, and ran. She felt the breath pumping in and out of her lungs, felt herself filling with energy, with power, expanding, moving faster, faster. Her feet in Nikes were unbeatable.
She ran right into Sherlock. Both women went down.
Becca was on her feet in an instant. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go.”
“Stop her!”
Sherlock grabbed her ankle and pulled. Becca went down on the edge of a lawn, hitting her hip on the curb. A shaft of sharp pain went through her, but she ignored it. She was ready to fight, ready to do whatever she had to, but Sherlock had somehow managed to straddle her, how she didn’t know, but she’d been fast, too fast, and now she was holding her arms down. How could she be so strong? How did she get her in this position so quickly? Sherlock was leaning over her, her curly red hair bouncing against Becca’s face. “What’s going on here, Becca?”
“Get off me, Sherlock. Please, you’ve got to let me go. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You can’t hurt me, so don’t even try. Tell me what’s happened.”
Becca started struggling, but then it didn’t matter, and she stilled because Adam was there, not even panting hard, standing over them, staring down at her, his hands on his hips. “Thanks for bringing her down, Sherlock. That wasn’t very smart, Becca.”
Sherlock didn’t like this one bit. She looked at all the men running to the scene, even the two dark-suited FBI guys who’d been parked discreetly down the street. “What’s going on, Adam? Oh yeah, given that I