Whiteout - Ken Follett [147]
He held it in his right hand and put his finger into the trigger guard. He pointed it at a spot exactly between Daisy’s eyes. All he cared about was that this monster should never threaten him and Sophie and their family ever again. Slowly, he squeezed the trigger.
The gun clicked on an empty magazine.
***
KIT was lying flat on the inside roof of the overturned car. He felt bruised all over, and his neck hurt as if he had twisted it, but he could move all his limbs. He managed to right himself. Nigel lay beside him, unconscious, possibly dead.
Kit tried to get out. He pulled the handle and pushed at the door, but it would not move. Something had jammed in the crash. He hammered madly at it with his fists, with no result. He jabbed at the button of the electric window, but nothing happened. He thought frantically that he might be imprisoned until the fire brigade arrived to cut him out, and he suffered a moment of panic and despair. Then he saw that the windshield was crazed. He shoved at it with his hand and easily pushed out a big section of broken glass.
He crawled through the windshield. He was careless of the broken glass, and a shard cut the palm of his hand painfully. He cried out and sucked the wound, but he could not pause. He slithered out from under the hood of the car and scrambled to his feet. The wind off the sea blew madly in his face. He looked around.
His father and Toni Gallo were running along the drive toward him.
***
TONI stopped to look at Daisy. She seemed to be out cold. Craig and Sophie appeared scared but unhurt. “What happened?” Toni said.
“She was shooting at us,” Craig replied. “I ran over her.”
Toni followed Craig’s gaze and saw Stanley’s Ferrari, dented at both ends and with all its windows smashed.
Stanley said, “Good God!”
Toni felt for a pulse in Daisy’s neck. It was there, but weak. “She’s still alive—just.”
Craig said, “I’ve got her gun. It’s empty, anyway.”
They were all right, Toni decided. She looked ahead to the crashed Mercedes. Kit had climbed out. She ran toward him. Stanley followed close behind.
Kit started to run away, along the drive, heading for the woods; but he was battered and shaken by the crash, and he ran erratically. He was never going to make it, Toni could see. After a few paces he staggered and fell.
He seemed to realize that he could not escape that way. Scrambling to his feet, he changed direction and turned toward the cliff.
Toni glanced into the Mercedes as she passed it. Nigel lay in a crumpled heap, eyes open with the blank stare of the dead. That accounted for the three thugs, Toni thought: one tied up, one unconscious, and one dead. Only Kit was left.
Kit slipped on the icy drive, staggered, regained his balance, and turned around. He took the perfume spray from his pocket and held it out like a gun. “Stop, or I’ll kill us all,” he said.
Toni and Stanley stopped.
Kit’s face was all pain and rage. Toni saw a man who had lost his soul. He might do anything: kill his family, kill himself, destroy the world.
Stanley said, “It won’t work out here, Kit.”
Toni wondered if that were true. Kit had the same thought, and said, “Why not?”
“Feel this wind,” Stanley said. “The droplets will disperse before they can do any harm.”
“To hell with it all,” Kit said, and he threw the bottle high in the air. Then he turned around, jumped over the low wall, and ran full tilt at the cliff edge a few feet away.
Stanley jumped after him.
Toni caught the perfume bottle before it hit the ground.
Stanley leaped through the air, hands stretched out in front of him. He almost got Kit by the shoulders, but his hands slipped. He hit the ground, but managed to grab one leg and grip it tight. Kit fell to the ground with his head and shoulders jutting out over the edge of the cliff. Stanley jumped on top of him, holding him down with his weight.
Toni looked over the edge, down a hundred-foot drop to where the sea boiled among jagged rocks.
Kit struggled, but his father held him down, and eventually