Anne Guillory didn’t scream when the bullet pierced her ribcage, but Pierre did. The agony in his voice sounded like he was the one who’d just absorbed a 125-grain hollow point round. He hurdled across the room, oblivious to placing himself in the path of another shot, and threw himself over Guillory even as she was crumpling to the floor.
Landing on top of her while trying to cushion the fall, he wrapped himself into a tight protective shield. He used his entire body to create the widest possible range of obstruction.
“Get up,” Abellard ordered him. “Get the fuck up!”
Pierre didn’t hear him, or made no sign of it. Guillory’s breath was coming irregularly. The bullet had pierced her right lung, limiting respiratory function to a minimum. Pierre pressed his ear to her heart, then raised his head to face Abellard.
“I need to take her to a hospital!”
“Fuck that. On your feet.”
Guillory released a pocket of suppressed air from some wounded place inside, sounding more surprised than injured. Pierre frantically placed his lips on hers and forced oxygen into her lungs.
“I said on your feet!”
“She’s still alive. I need to get her help right now!”
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere till I see Marceline Lavalle.”
A stunted breath caught deep in Guillory’s diaphragm. She released a wet gurgling noise like a tire slowly deflating. A froth of pinkish blood appeared at the corners of her mouth. Pierre wiped it away and resumed his frenzied attempt at resuscitation.
“Where is she?!”
“The carriage house,” Pierre moaned, glaring up at Abellard with tear-streaked eyes. “She was in the carriage house ten minutes ago, I swear it!”
“Show me.”
“I need to get her to a hospital!”
“No one’s leaving, so shut up about that. Do what I tell you or you’re getting the next one.”
“For God’s sake!” Pierre pleaded. “You can have money, whatever you want. There’s a safe upstairs with over six hundred thousand in it. Just let me help her!”
Watching it all happen, Monday raised herself from the chair by inches. Abellard stood at quarter profile to her, focused on the two people on the floor but not completely showing his back.
Monday knew too sudden a move was likely to attract his notice. The hallway opened up less than three yards from where she stood. If she could reach it, buying even a second or two of blockage from Abellard’s firing range, she might be able to make it to the front door.
A broken exhalation escaped from Guillory’s lips, followed by a pooling of blood that trickled down her cheek. Pierre Montord looked down at her, his face a mask of disbelief, and knew he’d just witnessed her final moment.
He buried his face in the pale flesh of Anne Guillory’s neck. His shoulders heaved in a silent sob, quickly followed by another until he resembled a human oil derrick hopelessly pumping an empty deposit from which life would no longer flow.
“What’s it gonna be, man?” Abellard said in a calmer tone, looking down at the two prone forms.
Pierre emitted a guttural cry and pitched himself off the floor. It was a suicide effort at best, a flying leap directly at an armed man. Abellard retreated with surprise but his finger closed on the trigger almost lazily.
The bullet caught Pierre in the neck, jerking his head back even as his brawny frame continued its forward momentum. His knees hit the floor first, upper torso following. Abellard backed away to avoid being struck by the falling body.
Ears ringing from the shot, Monday saw her chance and took it. She bolted over the arm of the chair and ran toward the hallway. Abellard caught her movement in his peripheral vision and swiveled. The revolver rose in his hand, four rounds still in the chamber.
“Stop!”
She took two more steps, accelerating. It wasn’t enough. The hallway was still five paces away. Even if she got there, then what? The dividing wall would offer protection for only as long as it took Abellard to catch up with her. She’d never make it out the front door. Even if she banked a quick right and raced up the stairway, he’d shoot her down. There was no place to hide, but she didn’t stop moving.
Abellard took aim as Monday dashed across the carpet. He didn’t rush.
Guillory and Pierre had died too quickly. He couldn’t even say with any certainty they’d suffered. This one would be different. This bitch had known Marcie all along, probably polluted her mind with bad ideas from the start. Hell, she was probably the one who convinced her to break off their relationship.
Abellard lowered the gun from where it was trained on the base of her skull to her lower back. He found the spot he wanted. Not enough satisfaction to be had from blowing a hole in her head. No. Make her feel it. Destroy her spine with one shot.
Monday’s right foot rose from the floor as her left planted hard, pushing for maximum speed. Stretched into a sprinter’s pose, extending as far as she could.
She’d heard Abellard yell at her to stop. She knew he wouldn’t speak again. The next sound she heard would be a thunderous ignition of gunpowder propelling the bullet that killed her.
Eyes blurred, her mind flooded with adrenaline to a point where she didn’t recognize the tall dark figure who’d emerged into the hallway from the front door. She knew him, but couldn’t come up with his name for all the money in the world. Not just this second.
She saw his black-cloaked arm rise, in a similar motion to Abellard’s when he’d lifted the gun. The arm came hammering forward in a downward arc, the hand opening.
Something flew from its grip, flying end over end. Her senses slowed by stress overload to I’m-going-to-die-right-now speed, Monday saw it coming straight at her, flashing in the murky light.
It was sharp, incredibly sharp.
The Marrow Seeker grazed past her head close enough to slice off a single curl of amber hair. The shorn lock twirled silently to the parquet at her feet. She lost sight of the wooden blade as it rocketed past, pinwheeling at the speed of a helicopter’s rotor.
The knife continued its flight clear across the hall. All the way into the great room, where its razor-sharp tip embedded itself into the throat of an astonished Joseph Abellard, whose finger reflexively closed on the .38’s trigger and released a round that missed Monday by less than a foot before disappearing into the paneled wall next to her.
All seemed suspended for a moment in the gunshot’s fading reverberations. Then the revolver fell to the floor, and the man who’d fired it followed.
Abellard was dead before his face smacked against the damask rug. Monday didn’t see it. She was still standing in a rigid posture of shock, unsure if she’d been shot in the back or carved by a flying blade.
She looked up at the tall, dark form filling the unlit space in front of her. With a burst of recognition, she knew who it was.
Of course. Who else would it be? And where the hell had he been all this time?
Rusty hadn’t seen Abellard die either, but he wasn’t seeing anything at all.