None of X-ray Team commented on the grisly scene inside the villa. They’d all seen the gruesome condition of Brody Kinney’s remains and the bloodstained and bruised knuckles of Charlie’s right hand—it was all too clear what had happened. Still, the sight of Charlie with his wife brought a smile to their faces, despite the situation. He’d fought hard to come this far, and they were all grateful that he’d finally been rewarded—if only partially.
Meghan reluctantly agreed to remain behind in the villa and Jen-Jen volunteered to stay and watch over her, promising to tend to her wounds and explain just who these strangers were and how they’d come to know her husband. Before leaving for Holloway’s villa, McCoy and Kalani dragged Kinney’s body into one of the bedrooms and wrapped it up in a comforter so that Meghan didn’t have to see. Meghan graciously thanked the two men as they followed Charlie and Victoria from the room.
•••
A few minutes later, outside the door to Holloway’s villa, Charlie stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Victoria, mentally preparing to face the elder Holloway. On either side of the door were Kalani and McCoy, who had agreed to stay out of sight until they were needed. This final confrontation was deeply personal for Charlie and Victoria, and the two other X-ray operatives had made the decision to let the pair handle it on their own. Kalani and McCoy would only intervene in the event of an emergency.
“You ready for this, Vee? Charlie?” Kalani asked, genuinely concerned for his friends. Neither Charlie nor Victoria had spoken in the last few minutes. Charlie hadn’t even said goodbye to his wife, only hugged her tight, kissed her atop her head and left without a word. Kalani hadn’t voiced his opinion aloud, but he believed that Charlie couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye to her again—it seemed like he was promising Meghan that he would be coming back.
For a tense few seconds, neither of them responded. Charlie slowly glanced to his right and caught Victoria’s eye. To Kalani, it seemed as if a silent conversation was happening between them. Finally, Victoria gave a small nod.
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Charlie said simply, his voice hoarse.
Charlie gently inserted the master key into the lock, waited for the bolt to disengage and then traded the card to Kalani for his newly reloaded Walther. Taking a deep breath, he slowly eased open the door and let his weapon lead the way into the room. Victoria stayed close at his heels, her pistol also at the ready. Strangely, what awaited them inside was far from what Charlie had been expecting.
No scene of carnage awaited them. There was no room full of computer equipment or a command center with weapons and gear strewn about. The atmosphere seemed almost peaceful—or it would have, if it weren’t for Spencer Holloway sitting in a lone armchair facing the door, his hair disheveled and his hand atop a pistol on the armrest. He smiled uncomfortably at the pair as they slowly and cautiously entered the room, weapons trained on the aging criminal mastermind. Oddly, Holloway didn’t lift the gun; his hand simply rested atop it loosely, almost as if he’d forgotten about it entirely.
“Good evening, detective,” he greeted. Overdramatizing a gasp when he turned to look upon his daughter, he said: “And Victoria, how beautiful you have become. You remind me so much of your mother.”
Victoria took a quick step forward. “Don’t you dare speak another word about my mother!”
Charlie placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Vee, it’s not worth it. He’s not worth it. He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”
“Vee?” Holloway sneered. “Pet names, detective? How adorable!”
Charlie was finished wasting time. He scanned the room for Violet and Katie, but couldn’t see them anywhere. Irrationally, Charlie began to worry—even though they could have simply been in one of the villa’s numerous rooms.
“Where are my daughters?” he asked, calmly taking a step forward and letting his gun hand fall to his side, so as not to obstruct his view of Holloway’s eyes.
“Little Violet and Katie?” Holloway mocked, in a bizarre, singsong voice. “Oh, you didn’t hear about them?”
“Tell me where they are,” Charlie demanded in a deep growl, growing ever more furious with each wasted second. “Now.”
“They’re dead, detective,” the old man leaned back in his chair and grinned wide, looking at both the detective and his own daughter in turn. “You have failed.”
Without warning, Charlie leveled his weapon at Holloway and nearly pulled the trigger—but something stopped him. He’d seen something in the old man’s eyes and it had stayed his hand, if only momentarily.
Pleasure.
The impulsive urge to gain instantaneous revenge upon the person who had brought harm to his family was exactly what Holloway had wanted to inspire in Charlie. It was another test—Holloway had been bluffing. His daughters were still very much alive—there was no doubt in his mind. Grimacing, Charlie lowered his weapon once more.
“Try again,” he challenged.
Holloway laughed. “Very good, detective. I am impressed,” he commended.
Holloway stood and picked up the pistol but held it loosely in his hand, hanging limply at his side, still giving off the impression that he’d forgotten he even had it. He turned his back upon Victoria and Charlie and began to lazily wander toward the seating area at the far side of the villa. The pair exchanged wary glances before cautiously following him, weapons once more leveled at the old man. Holloway stopped on a large rug not far from the massive window, and turned to face them.
“You saw right through me, didn’t you, Walker? I should have known you wouldn’t be fooled so easily. You haven’t made things easy on me these past twenty-four hours.”
“I haven’t made things easy on you?” Charlie barked, not believing the arrogance of this psychopath. “Do you think I’ve spent the last day trading pins and eating fucking turkey legs? I’ve been through hell—and you put me there.”
An insane glint worked its way into Holloway’s eyes. “You call this ‘hell’, detective? You aren’t fooling me. You aren’t fooling anyone—so stop trying to trick yourself. You enjoyed this! Playing these games with me. Finally getting the chance to show the world your gifts, thwart the villain and save the girl—you live for this!”
Charlie was finally beginning to understand the deep-seated insanity that had taken hold of Spencer Holloway’s mind. The old man was intelligent, but he was also lost in a fantasy world—a world where epic heroes and villains clashed and the lines between the two were black and white. Holloway obviously considered himself the villain; his sole purpose in life was to challenge the people he considered to be heroes. In Spencer Holloway’s book, no one in existence qualified for the opposing role more than Charlie Walker: the man who’d gone through a terrifying ordeal to stop Holloway’s only son—nearly sacrificing his own life in the process to save a woman he’d never even met.
“You think that this is why I’m a police officer—for the fame and the glory? For the thrills?” Charlie asked, incredulous.
Holloway cleared his throat. “The world is a shallow place, detective. No matter what lies people choose to believe, there are only three motivators for human actions: wealth, attention and pleasure. Your salary is a pittance compared to the money you could make—so you don’t do it for the money. What else, is left, then? I watched the news reports after you killed James. I saw you standing on those steps, shaking hands with the mayor, smiling for the cameras. You enjoyed it—you enjoyed your fifteen minutes of fame. Attention and pleasure! My, how deep the rabbit hole goes...”
“I do what I do because I’m fortunate enough to have been given gifts that can help better the lives of others. Innocent people don’t deserve to be victims of sadists and psychopaths like you. That is why I do what I do—I stand between people like you and the rest of the world.”
Holloway laughed aloud—a frantic, terrible sound. “Excellent speech. For a moment, I almost believed you! In reality, you are no different than I. In fact, we are one and the same. We are a different breed of monster—and we use what we have solely for our own advantage. There are no more good people left in this world. There are only those who can admit to what they really are and accept it—and those like you, who lie to themselves.”
Charlie knew that he’d never be able to convince the lunatic of anything else, and any more attempts to do so would be in vain. Every second he wasted speaking to this maniac was another second that he was apart from his daughters. This had gone on long enough. Victoria had remained silent the entire time, letting Charlie handle the situation whichever way he decided was best.
Ignoring the ramblings of Spencer Holloway, Charlie shifted gears. “Call me a liar. It doesn’t matter. I’m not here to argue about moral standings with you. Where are my daughters? Tell me now, or I will shoot you and search this place, myself.”
“Everything in due time, detective,” Holloway sneered.
Losing his patience, Charlie closed the distance between himself and Holloway in a heartbeat. Before the old man could react, Charlie batted the pistol from his hand and grabbed him by the lapel. Roughly, he jammed the barrel of the Walther into Holloway’s forehead. Victoria gasped, but did not intervene—her weapon held firmly in a two-hand grip, aimed directly at her father. She waited patiently to see what Charlie would do next.
“Where are my fucking daughters?!” Charlie yelled, inches from Holloway’s face.
“Daddy!” breathed a small voice from behind him.
Charlie’s eyes widened, his grip on Holloway loosened and his gun fell to his side, all but forgotten. His heart beat faster than it had at any point in the last twenty-four hours, and he could barely hold onto his pistol as he slowly turned toward the source of the tiny, fragile, beautiful voice.
Violet’s voice.
When he turned, he saw his daughters—the older girl holding the hand of the younger, watching over her, as any big sister should. Charlie gasped and fell to his knees. His girls were safe. They were unharmed, and they were here! The three people he loved most in the world were finally safe and he could breathe easy at last. The girls rushed to him and leapt into his outstretched arms.
He squeezed his girls tightly; his mind overwhelmed by the relief flooding through his body. After all of the obstacles he’d overcome—the pain he’d experienced and the terrible things he’d done—he didn’t regret a thing. Everything had become worth it in a fraction of a second. Meghan and the girls were worth everything he’d been through and everything he’d done—and he’d have done it all a million more times if it meant that they would be safe. Charlie felt a lone tear roll down his cheek as he held his children.
For a while, he refused to let go of his girls—they held him just as tightly and didn’t mind the contact. He couldn’t help but smile at the simple fact that these two miracles were unharmed after everything they’d been through. All of his worries—everything that had been eating away at him—vanished, and he was finally whole once more.
“Are you guys okay?” he whispered, gently.
“We’re okay, Daddy,” Violet reassured him in an equally soft whisper. “Did you find Mommy?” she asked.
“I did. She’s waiting for us next door with a friend of mine. She’s safe. We’re all going to be just fine.”
That was when he heard the shot ring out—a single thunderous roar that caused him and his daughters to jump. A lone shell casing bounced onto the rug as the shot reverberated off the walls and ceiling of the cavernous villa.
Charlie looked up to see Victoria standing in the same place she had been, gun smoking in hand, still aiming somewhere over Charlie’s shoulder. Reflexively, he stood and wheeled around, shoving his girls behind him. Directly before him, Spencer Holloway stood, his face ashen with a dark spot of blood spreading through the fabric of his shirt—directly in the center of his chest. Somehow, Holloway had retrieved the gun that Charlie had swatted from his hand and Victoria had shot him to prevent him from using it.
For a brief moment, Charlie and Holloway locked eyes. The old man looked shocked, devastated and afraid—he knew he was dying. Charlie’s gaze was intense, filled with anger and free from any traces of mercy—Spencer Holloway had dragged him through hell; he harbored no regret that this man was about to die. The detective held the man’s stare for another few moments, until something abruptly changed in Holloway’s eyes. A malevolent expression overcame the dying genius and it was almost too late before Charlie realized what was about to happen.
As Charlie had anticipated, Holloway was bringing up the weapon that he still held. Charlie, not realizing what he’d done, had stood between Victoria and her father, effectively blocking her shot. Doing the only thing he could, he lashed out with a devastating kick, catching Holloway in the chest just beneath his bullet wound and staggering him backward, off balance. The old man stumbled a few steps until he came into contact with the massive window that was behind him.
“No!” he screamed, slamming directly into the window with tremendous force.
Unfortunately for Spencer Holloway, the windowpane against which he fell was the very same one as he’d thrown his Scotch bottle at. Already severely damaged and lacking any structural integrity, it easily gave way beneath the elderly man’s weight. Losing his hold on the pistol, Spencer Holloway disappeared through the shattered window with a crash and fell away into the night.
•••
Strange, he thought. This is how it ends.
Time slowed to a crawl as Spencer Holloway suddenly found nothing beneath his feet save for fourteen stories of open air. In the last few seconds of his life, he gazed skyward, knowing that this would be his last glimpse of the heavens before he began his infinite incarceration in the deepest bowels of Hell.
Nobody saw the elderly man plummeting from the top floor of Bay Lake Tower among a downpour of shattered glass. Refusing to give into fear during these precious final moments of his life, Spencer Holloway simply stared toward the heavens with a smile on his face and awaited the inevitable end. He was finally at peace—his defeat had come at the hands of his most worthy opponent and there was no shame in it.
When the crushing impact came, it was nothing short of apocalyptic. The aging genius’ frail body was no match for the ground with which he collided so forcefully. His gruesome end came so violently and destructively that not even his smile remained recognizable upon his obliterated face—a gruesome end for the monster named Spencer Holloway.
Death had finally come to collect the bounty on this damned soul.
Serenity.
•••
Charlie was thankful that the riotous noise of the numerous emergency vehicles masked any possible sound of impact that the girls may have heard. More chaotic cacophony added itself to the atmosphere as Kalani and McCoy burst into the room, clearly drawn by the sounds of the confrontation that had just taken place.
Violet and Katie had gasped in shock after witnessing their captor plunging to his death, but Charlie and Victoria merely remained silent—both of them viewing the old man’s death as the conclusion to a terrible chapter in their lives. Victoria no longer had to live with the knowledge that her father was a threat to the people of the country and Charlie was finally able to relax—his family alive and safe from any threat that Holloway had posed.
Kalani and McCoy approached, but remained deadly silent. Along with Charlie, they turned to face Victoria, but none had any idea what her reaction would be. She’d just witnessed her biological father fall fourteen stories to his death—but he had been a monster and she’d spent years hunting him. When Charlie caught her eye, she looked back at him and did the last thing he would have expected.
She smiled. She laughed. She came to them and knelt before the girls, making sure they were okay. She asked if they were hungry or thirsty. She distracted the girls from the current situation—made them feel comfortable and happy and within moments had them laughing and talking as if nothing bad had happened at all.
Spencer Holloway had been dead wrong—there were still good people left in the world and his own daughter was one of them. Victoria Holloway was one of the finest people that Charlie had ever known. He couldn’t find the words he needed to express his gratitude toward this remarkable woman and her team. Before he could speak, Victoria beat him to the punch.
“Let’s get these angels back to their Mommy,” Victoria suggested, looking into Charlie’s eyes with a bright smile.
Speechless, Charlie took one last look toward the empty window frame and followed Victoria and the others from the room.