Jed had the gun in his hand. He looked back at me, winked, gestured for me to keep going.
I glanced out the back window, preparing to make a break for it. The house was right up against a wooded area. I could go into those woods and just hope for the best. I didn’t have another plan. At least nothing that would help immediately. I took out my iPhone and flipped it on. There was service. I dialed 911 as I looked out the window.
One of the men was in the back on the left, covering the door. Damn.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
I told her quickly that there were shots being fired and at least two men hit. I gave her the address and put the phone down, keeping the line open. From behind me, I heard Danny Zuker shout, “Okay, throw the gun out first.”
I thought that I saw a smile on Jed’s face now. He was bleeding. I didn’t know how badly he was hit, if his current injuries were mortal or not, but Jed knew. Jed knew that his life was over no matter what he did and with that, there seemed to come a strange sense of peace.
Jed opened the door and just started firing. I heard another man call out in pain—maybe another one of Jed’s bullets had found its mark—and then I heard the hollow pop of automatic gunfire tearing into flesh. From my vantage point, I saw Jed’s body fly backward, arms dangling overhead as though in a macabre dance. He fell back into the house. More bullets hit him, jerking his lifeless body.
It was over. For him and probably for me.
Even if Jed had managed to kill two of them, three would still be alive and armed. What chance did I have? I calculated the odds in nanoseconds. Almost zilch. I had one chance, really. Stall. Stall until the police could get there. I thought about how far out we were, about that drive up the dirt road, about not seeing any municipal-type buildings within miles of this place.
The cavalry wouldn’t be arriving in time.
Still the Minors may want me alive.
I was their last chance to get information on Natalie. I could tap-dance a bit that way.
They were approaching the house. I looked for a place to hide.
Stall. Just stall.
But there was nowhere to go. I stood up and looked out the back door window. The man was there, just waiting for me. I sprinted across the kitchen and back into the bedroom. Malcolm hadn’t moved, but then again I hadn’t expected him to.
I could hear someone enter the cottage.
I threw open the bedroom window. What I was counting on here—and really it was my only shot—was that the man in back was watching the door. The bedroom window was on the side toward the right. From where the guy had been standing when I saw him from the kitchen, he wouldn’t be able to see this window.
From the main room, I heard Danny Zuker say, “Professor Fisher? We know you’re in here. It’ll be worse for you if you make us wait.”
The window shrieked when I opened it. Zuker and another henchman ran toward the sound. I saw them as I rolled out the window and started to sprint for the woods.
Gunfire erupted behind me.
So much for keeping me alive. I didn’t know if it was my imagination or reality, but I could swear that I felt bullets nipping at my side. I kept running. I didn’t turn around. I just kept . . .
Someone tackled me from the side.
It must have been the guy who’d been out back. He hit from the left, knocking us both down. I prepared a punch and delivered it hard to his face. He rocked back. I reeled back to deliver another one. Again it landed. He went slack.
But it was too late now.
Danny Zuker and the other henchman stood over us. They both pointed their guns down at me.
“You can live,” Zuker said simply. “Just tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you’re worthless to me.”
It was over. I could see that now. The man who’d tackled me shook his head. He stood and grabbed his gun. There I was, lying on the ground, surrounded by three men, all with guns. There was no move I could make. There were no distant sirens coming to my rescue. One man stood on my left, the other—the one I had decked—stood on my right.
I looked up at Danny Zuker, who stayed a step back. I threw up one last Hail Mary: “You killed Archer Minor, didn’t you?”
That caught him off guard. I could see the befuddlement on his face. “What?”
“Someone had to quiet him,” I said, “and Maxwell Minor would never murder his own kid.”
“You’re crazy.”
The other two men exchanged a glance.
“Why else would you try so hard to find her?” I asked. “It’s been six years. You know she’d never testify.”
Danny Zuker shook his head. There was something akin to sadness on his face. “You don’t have a clue, do you?”
He raised the gun, almost reluctantly now. I had played my final card. I didn’t want to die like this, on the ground beneath them. I stood up, wondering what my final move would be, when it was made for me.
There was a single gunshot. The head of the man on my left exploded like a tomato under a heavy boot.
The rest of us turned toward the sound of the gunshot. I recovered the fastest. Letting the lizard brain take over again, I dived straight toward the man I’d already punched. He was closest to me, and he’d be weakest from my earlier blow.
I could get his gun.
But the man reacted with greater speed than I anticipated. His lizard brain at work too, I guess. He stepped back and took aim. I was too far away to reach him in time.
And then his head exploded in another crimson haze.
The blood splashed me in the face. Danny Zuker didn’t hesitate. He leapt behind me, using me as a shield. He wrapped his arm around my throat and put the gun against my head.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
I didn’t. There was silence now. He stayed close to me, moving us back toward the house to keep himself protected.
“Show yourself,” Zuker shouted. “Show yourself or I’ll blow his brains out!”
There was a rustling sound. Zuker jerked my head to the right, making sure to keep my body blocking his. He turned me more toward the right—to where the rustling had originated. I looked out into the clearing.
My heart stopped.
Coming down the hill, gun still in her hand and aimed at us, was Natalie.
Chapter 35
Danny Zuker spoke first. “Well, well, look who’s here.”
My body had gone numb at the sight of her. Our eyes met—Natalie’s and mine—and the world exploded in a thousand different ways. It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life, this simple act of looking into the blue eyes of the woman I loved, and even now, even with a gun to my head, I felt oddly grateful. If he pulled the trigger, so be it. I had, in this single moment, been more alive than any time in the previous six years. If I were to die now—and, no, I didn’t want to, in fact, more than anything else I wanted to live and be with that woman—I’d die a more complete person, have lived a more complete life, than if I had died just a few moments earlier.