INTERLUDE

NOW

“And now we’re all caught up,” Grosky says.

“To my credit, I didn’t run,” Miriam says. “So I consider these handcuffs a bit of an insult. Why handcuffs instead of the zips?”

Vills grins. “Can’t saw through these.”

“Ah.” She sniffs. “So why didn’t you pick me up? At the hospital, I mean. I was a flower fresh for the plucking. Why did you wait?”

Grosky hmphs. “All this is a little . . . what’s the line from that movie? Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush? We didn’t want to make a splash. We knew we could find you again.”

“Congrats. You did. So now what?”

“I just gotta know. You’re saying what happened to Ashley Gaynes is . . . you’re telling us you . . . became the birds—”

Miriam shrugs.

“And they—you— ate him.”

“Everything but the leg.”

Her stomach lurches just thinking about it.

A sea wind comes in through the broken shack windows.

Vills says, “This is all wifty. She’s pulling your cock, Richie. Mine, too. Let’s get out of here. Leave her here. Call the police to come pick her up. Or just let her go. I don’t care, but I’m done.”

“No,” Grosky says, “we ain’t done yet. We have yet to make our offer—”

Just then, Vills’s phone vibrates and makes a chirp.

She takes it, tilts it toward herself like a poker player looking at his cards. Then she turns the phone face-down again.

Grosky gives her a look.

“It’s nothing,” Vills says.

“It’s something,” Miriam insists.

“Who was it?” Grosky asks.

“It’s nothing,” Vills says.

“It’s Tap-Tap,” Miriam says.

Vills’s eyes go wide.

Grosky laughs. “The Haitian? What? You fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”

“Forgot about him, did you? Your partner here is going to serve me up to him on a silver platter. Isn’t that right, Vills? She’s trying to hurry you out so Tap-Tap can roll in here and chop my legs off. Maybe my head. Because I owe him a body and I did not deliver. And she’s on his payroll. Watch. Necklace.” She tries to affect the Haitian sound: “Tap-Tap love dat gold.”

Vills starts to protest but Miriam continues. “You guys leave and maybe she’ll sneak back in here and put a bullet in my head. Right, Vills? Hey, lemme ask—what time is it?”

But neither of them budges. Neither of the agents speaks. Vills stares at Miriam. And Grosky stares at Vills.

Then Miriam says, “Hey, Richie. Wanna know how you die?”

That’s all it takes.

Vills moves fast. She’s got the gun in her hand, leveled at Grosky’s completely surprised, bug-eyed face.

But Miriam moves fast, too.

She knees the table forward. Vills oofs like a pillow with the air punched out of it and suddenly she’s leaning forward—

Just enough for Miriam to get the handcuffs and chain around Vills’s scrawny chicken-bone neck. Vills kicks and grunts. The gun goes up and fires two shots in the air, punching holes through the thatch and causing dust and sand to stream down right in her eye.

The gun hand flails.

Miriam ducks it.

And she brings her whole weight down, hunkering like a gargoyle, shoulder next to the table, both wrists pulling, pulling, pulling.

The gun goes off again, and Grosky staggers, a spray of blood kicked up from the meat of his shoulder.

Vills makes a sound like grrk!

And then her body stops moving.

The gun thumps to the floor.

Vills is just meat, now.

Miriam reaches out with a boot and pulls the gun toward her. She snatches it up and points it at Grosky.

“The cuffs. Undo them.”

Grosky stands, shell-shocked.

Miriam barks the order again. “Big boy! Cuffs! Undo them!”

He looks at his own bloody shoulder and then hurries over and fumbles around before fishing out the keys and slapping them down.

“She shot me,” Grosky says.

“She was going to kill you.”

“She was my partner.”

“Life’s hard. Wear a dick protector.”

“How’d you—”

“How’d I know? Because I saw the way you died. Because that’s how the visions work.”

“Oh. Ri . . . right. But how’d you know about . . . about Tap-Tap?”

“It was a guess but a pretty educated one. The vision of your death started with a text message. But don’t forget, I saw how she dies, too. After killing you and presumably me, she ends up back at the car. Which is what, about a quarter-mile from here?”

He nods.

“Tap-Tap is there. With Goldie and Jay-Jay. He shoots her in the head as soon as she walks up. The other two distract her, pulling up in a white Caddy. He’s hiding behind the back end of the car. Big as he is, he can still hunker down pretty small.”

“That . . . that means he’s there now.”

“It does.”

“Shit.”

“Mm-hmm. You want your gun back?”

He narrows his eyes. “Why would you give it to me?”

“Because I just saved your life.”

“I’m not really great with a gun.”

She shrugs. “I think you’re gonna need it pretty soon.” She tosses him the gun and he almost drops it. “Hey, lemme ask—what was all this about, anyway? Kidnapping me. Taking me out to . . . where are we?”

“On the . . . on the beach. A barrier island. Just outside Blowing Rocks. Near, ah, near Jupiter.”

“And you wanted me why?”

“I thought . . . I thought you’d be a helluva catch if what you can do is true. Way back when I started looking into the string of bodies behind you, I thought maybe you really were a serial killer. But we found your diary in the trash, and more and more I thought maybe this thing you do is real and . . . I figured your gift would be a real thing to behold. For the FBI. For the Secret Service, even—I mean, shit, imagine you touch the president of the United States and see if he’s gonna be assassinated? That’s a doozy.”

“Well,” Miriam says, “a fun idea, but count me out. Because, Agent Grosky, I don’t work for anyone. Not anymore. Now give me my box. You wanna go kill Tap-Tap or see if you can get him arrested, go for it. Me, I’m walking the other way.”

She grabs the metal box.

And she leaves the agent standing there and bleeding.