'Who the hell are you?'
'I beg your pardon?' Kit asked, hoping she sounded surprised, confused or stupid rather than scared witless.
'Who are you? And what the fuck are you doing here?' Whitten shouted.
'Oh,' she replied, looking about vaguely as if she hoped a suitable answer might materialise out of thin air. She couldn't see Nick anywhere, which was about the only thing she had in her favour at the moment. 'I can explain,' she stated.
'Damn right you will.' Whitten grabbed her by the elbow and started dragging her towards a sure and certain death.
Not without a fight, Kit thought, trying to shrug off his hand. 'I'm coming already,' she snapped impatiently, trying to sound a lot more confident than she felt.
Whitten let go of her arm and pushed her towards the stairs. 'Get up there.'
Kit looked up to find two other members of Drugs and Murder Incorporated staring down on her from the top landing. Dalkeith looked ropable, while Grainger was obviously trying to place where he'd seen her before.
Don't climb on anything, she thought miserably. She gripped the railing. It was bad enough that this was the kind of staircase her vertigo hated most, but the miniature internal affairs department in her ear decided to make its presence felt by making it appear that the stairs were moving in three different directions at once. On top of that she had a boorish, obscenely wealthy American threatening to shove her onto her face.
She was helped up the last three steps by Grainger who dragged her off her feet and propelled her into the office.
Thank god, Kit thought, as she collided with the desk.
'Who is she?' Dalkeith asked Whitten, as Grainger manhandled her again, into a plastic chair which nearly tipped over backwards with the suddenness of her arrival in it.
'I've got no idea,' Whitten stated.
'Do I know you?' Grainger asked, peering at Kit from a pair of mean little eyes that were much too close together on either side of his oft-broken nose. His breath ponged like he'd had three loaves of garlic bread and a slab of beer for dinner.
'No,' Kit replied, which was almost the truth. She wasn't going to remind him that he'd been this close to her just a little over 24 hours ago.
'She might be a cop,' Whitten suggested.
'I am not,' Kit declared.
'Shit,' Dalkeith observed. 'Make sure she's not wired.'
'I'm not a cop,' Kit insisted, as Grainger began rubbing his hands all over her body. She kicked him in the shins. 'Get your filthy hands off me, you pervert,' she shouted.
Their collective attention was shanghaied by the ringing of the red phone on the desk. Dalkeith snatched at the receiver and while he conversed with Malcolm Smith, who was apparently informing them of his imminent arrival, Kit tried to pretend that Whitten and Grainger weren't staring at her as if she had two heads.
With her back to the window overlooking the staircase, she had nothing to look at but a faded, curling-at-the-edges girlie calendar, circa June 1972, which featured a naked blonde with extremely large breasts straddling a Kawasaki motorcycle. Somebody had made a note to do something for or about 'Mum' on the 17th.
Dalkeith hung up the phone and asked Bill the guard to find something with which he could secure the intruder to the chair.
Dalkeith sat on the edge of the desk a few feet from Kit and fiddled absently with the ring in his ear while Bill the guard, who was obviously pleased to be of service, found some rope on the shelf behind him, pulled Kit's arms back and tied her hands firmly together and to the legs of the chair.
'Now, go open the back door. The boat will be here in a minute. And keep your eye out in case our friend here is not alone.'
'Yes Mr Dalkeith,' said Bill the guard, looking like he'd much rather stick around to watch whatever it was they were going to do to Kit.
'Who are you?' Dalkeith asked.
'O'Malley. Katherine O'Malley,' Kit replied. Licence to kill, especially scumbags like you, sadly revoked, she thought.
'Is that supposed to mean something to us?' Dalkeith asked.
'I don't think so,' Kit said, trying a smile to see what would happen.
'What are you doing snooping around here?' Dalkeith asked.
'Oh,' Kit said, as if she finally understood what he really wanted to know. 'I organised a date with Adele for tomorrow night, and I just wanted to confirm it with her.'
'You've got to be kidding,' Grainger said.
'No,' Kit answered, as sweet and innocently as possible.
Dalkeith's open hand whacked her in the face before she realised he'd even raised it to slap her. Not that she could have done anything about it.
'Ow! What did you do that for?' she complained indignantly.
Dalkeith slapped her again. 'Who are you?' he demanded.
She could taste the blood in her mouth. 'I told you. O'Malley. Katherine O'Malley.'
'You have more incoming.' It was Marek's voice. 'Oh, Christ Almighty! They've...'
The rest of Marek's blasphemous pronouncement was drowned out by the screeching metal of the riverside roller door being raised by Bill the guard. This was followed by a commotion at the side door near the bottom of the stairs which indicated that the rest of the bad guys had arrived.
Oh shit, now you're really in trouble O'Malley, Kit thought.
'Ian,' Geoffrey bellowed.
Dalkeith slipped off the desk and went to the door. 'What the hell? Where did you find them?'
'I'll have you know that this is kidnapping,' came the last voice in the whole world that Kit had expected to hear. It was the only voice in the whole world she wanted to hear but not now and not here, and certainly not being dragged along with its objecting owner up the stairs. If Kit hadn't already been rendered immobile by a well-knotted rope, the chill of dread that trickled down her spine would have paralysed her with disbelief, or fear.
When Alexis Cazenove, who should have been at home waiting for Kit to return from a hard night's work catching crooks, caught sight of Kit tied to the chair she tried to break free of the grip that Christo had on her arm. She didn't get very far. The threat of the dishy blonde boy's gun waving in her face made her pull her head back and behave more sensibly. For his part Christo looked like a '90s yuppie version of Wilmer, the snivelling, gun-toting hood in The Maltese Falcon.
This turn of events was completely ludicrous. If it wasn't so deadly serious Kit would have rolled round the floor in hysterics. As soon as someone untied her from the chair. Actually the rising hysteria was such a peculiar combination of silent but deranged laughter and numbing fear that it was cramping her chest and making it difficult to breathe.
'What are you doing here?' she managed to ask politely, as if Alex was an unwelcome third party at a romantic dinner for two.
Alex only had time to shrug before Christo dragged her out of the way to make room for everybody else who had come to join the party. The next guest, who was hurled unceremoniously through the door, was Hector who was followed by Geoffrey, who had obviously done the hurling.
Kit groaned. 'What is going on here?'
'That's my question,' Dalkeith stated, slapping her again to make sure she understood. 'What...' which was as far as he got before Christo interrupted with his two bobs worth.
'Hey, you're that reporter.'
'No I'm not,' Kit stated.
'She's not a reporter,' Geoffrey said. 'She's a policewoman.'
'I am not,' Kit protested, just as Adele made her grand entrance, red wig and all.
'What's she doing here?' Adele asked, pointing at Kit.
'That's what I was going to ask you about them,' Dalkeith said, jerking his thumb at Alex and Hector.
'They were tailing us,' Adele explained. 'We managed to fool them into stopping and then we helped them out of their car.'
'We caught her snooping around down there,' Dalkeith stated. 'She claims she had an appointment with you.'
'Well, sort of,' Kit volunteered. 'I had to leave Celia's wake in such a hurry I thought it would be polite to drop by and confirm our date for tomorrow night, Adele. Or should I call you Maggie in this company?'
'What the fuck is going on here?' Whitten exploded.
'Calm down Davis,' Dalkeith ordered.
'Calm down? You want me to calm down?' He took two steps towards Kit and slapped her across the face. 'Who are you?'
The left side of Kit's mouth felt like it was being attacked by a swarm of bees. Bleeding bees. She ran her tongue across her lips and tried to glare defiantly at Whitten although she couldn't see a damn thing through her watery left eye.
'She claims she's not that reporter that came to the agency that day, um, you know, the one I tried to run down,' Christo informed Adele.
'That's not what I said Christo. I'm just not a reporter,' Kit managed to stay. 'Or a cop,' she added glancing at Geoffrey.
'And I'll wager you don't work for Aurora Press either,' Adele remarked.
'No, actually I was working for Celia Robinson until you killed her.'
Adele actually laughed; Geoffrey looked like he was caught in a tiger trap; and Whitten began ranting about how he knew that little episode was going to screw things up and good.
'Oh, shut up Davis!' Adele commanded. 'So what are you, some kind of private detective or something?'
'Or something,' Kit acknowledged.
Adele was obviously intrigued by the notion. 'And Celia hired you, to do what?'
'Follow him,' Kit replied, nodding at Geoffrey. 'To find out about you.'
Adele laughed again but Geoffrey was not amused. 'That bitch,' he snorted.
'Kitty,' Marek's whisper echoed around what she realised was her aching head. The sound surprised her, she'd forgotten she had friends out there. 'Don't tell them everything. Get something from them.'
'That's all there is to this?' Dalkeith asked. 'Geoff's wife asked you to find out who he was screwing?'
'Basically,' Kit admitted.
'Enough of this shit,' Grainger shouted. 'Let's just get rid of them.'
'Oh, that's a good idea,' Kit said sarcastically.
'Jeez Kitty, don't annoy them into confessing.'
'Honestly!' Kit continued, ignoring Marek's advice 'I don't know how you lot have stayed in business. You keep making the same mistakes.'
'What do you mean?' Whitten asked petulantly.
'Who cares what she means? Somebody shoot her for Christ sake,' Grainger begged.
Christo raised his gun but Adele slapped his hand down. 'Don't be an idiot.'
Kit took that as a sign to continue. 'It just seems,' she said, 'that you keep knocking people off before you've found out if they know anything.'
'Like who?' Geoffrey asked.
'Like your wife, Mr Robinson,' Kit spat. 'I mean, god only knows why you actually killed her but you should have asked her who she'd been talking to recently.'
'I did not kill Celia,' Geoffrey stressed.
'Oh sure. You're just an accomplice before, during and after the fact. And the fact is that your floozy here, as Celia called her, did kill her.'
'How could you possibly know that?' Geoffrey asked.
'Hey! I just know. Believe me.'
'But you can't prove anything,' Adele smiled.
'Oh, I don't know,' Kit said suggestively. 'I have a lovely Scotch glass in my car that I lifted right out of your sticky fingers. And the cops told me they have a very clear print on the murder weapon.'
'Nice try, Katherine,' Adele sneered, 'but I wiped the bottle.'
Yes! Kit cheered silently, although the echo that bounced off her ear drum sounded just like Marek. 'Now get the other one to confess Kitty.'
'Why did you kill her, Adele?' Kit asked softly.
'Believe it or not, it was an accident,' Adele stated. 'I didn't mean to kill her. Well, that's not entirely true.' She ran her hand up Geoffrey's arm. 'I just didn't mean to kill her then. I called in, on the pretext of having to deliver something to Geoff, to see if I could somehow find out if she had any idea what her husband or her butler were up to. I managed to orchestrate a woman to woman type chat about the general problems we all have with men when I realised that she was conducting her own little show.'
'Why are you telling her this?' Geoffrey asked. 'Why are you telling her anything?'
'Where's she going to go Geoff? Who is she going to talk to?' Adele queried.
'I don't understand,' Kit stated. 'Or, having ascertained that Byron had no intention of blackmailing Geoffrey, did you think he was blackmailing Celia because of Geoffrey?'
Adele nodded and shrugged.
Kit shook her head. 'So, what was Celia doing?' she asked. 'Don't tell me she was pumping you for info about Geoffrey.'
'That woman was so civil,' Adele said, almost admiringly, 'that it took me some time to work out that she knew about me. When I realised there was probably no blackmail going on at all, just the likelihood that Celia's loyal little butler, in doing her bidding, would probably open a window on affairs that were none of her business I simply put a stop to her. Actually I just got very annoyed and hit her with the closest thing to hand.'
'She didn't know about you, Adele,' Kit said, flatly. 'At least not you specifically. And as for poor innocent Byron...'
'What?' Geoffrey snapped.
'Innocent Byron?' Dalkeith repeated flatly. 'You mean the guy wasn't following Geoff.'
Kit shook her head. Why was this so hard for everyone to understand? 'Of course not. I was. I'm the detective, remember.'
'So, what was Daniels doing?' Geoffrey asked, still not convinced that he'd made a huge mistake.
'Nothing Geoffrey,' Kit emphasised, 'except helping your wife compile lists of your known appointments, hangouts and acquaintances so that I would know where to find you at any given time.'
'What a complete cock-up!' Whitten erupted.
'That's it in a nutshell,' Kit laughed. 'Geoffrey's wife just wanted to know where he was putting it when it was up.' Kit pulled her head away from Grainger's threatening fist.
'Don't hit her again, Gerry,' Adele snapped, drawing on the cigarette that Geoffrey had just lit for her. 'She can't finish this very interesting story if you beat her senseless.'
'The boat's coming,' said Marek.
'Good point, Adele,' Kit said. 'There you all were, running around like a flock of headless bloody chooks thinking that Byron was accidentally going to blow all your sordid little deals with a blackmail plan that was, in actual fact, completely non-existent.
'So what do you do then? You get spunky trunks here,' Kit said, nodding in Christo's direction, 'to lure Byron to his death in a tacky little hotel room in what, or so I gathered from Geoffrey's agitated babbling yesterday, was supposed to look like a suicide.'
Dalkeith threw Geoffrey a positively murderous glance.
Kit tried to give the love of her life a reassuring one, and actually received a wan smile in return even though Alex was rigid with fear, which was understandable seeing she was still being held by the juvenile delinquent with the gun.
'The boat's here,' yelled Bill the guard from down below.
'But it seems things got a bit out of control, didn't they Mr Edwards?' Kit said, ignoring the interruption, as she tried to bait Christo. It didn't take much. He even let go of Alex.
'Hey, I didn't do nuthin. He did it,' Christo stated, waving the gun in Grainger's direction.
'Ah yes,' Kit said, 'Mr Gerald Grainger, alias George Ryan. That was quite a mess you made.'
'Shut the fuck up you smart-mouth bitch!' Grainger shouted, smacking Kit in the face again. 'Or yours will be the next throat I cut.'
Kit screwed her eyes shut and waited for the stinging in her mouth and cheek to subside. The whole left side of her face felt like it was stuffed with a throbbing butternut pumpkin. She hated to think what she looked like.
'See, see, I'm a gun man. I don't do knives,' Christo was saying.
'Give it a rest Christo,' Dalkeith ordered. 'Go and help Bill load the boat. And give me that gun, you little twerp.'
Oh great, Kit thought, with a mixture of relief and trepidation. Now that Dalkeith had the gun Alex was no longer the primary target. She was.
'I've had enough of this shit,' Grainger complained. 'Let's just get rid of them.'
'You see, there you go again,' Kit mumbled. 'You keep making mistakes. One after the other and they just keep getting bigger. You killed Byron because you thought he might have found something out. You killed Celia, I assume, without actually asking her if Byron told her anything he might have found out. And now you're going to do us.'
'If only to shut you up,' Grainger remarked.
'You have absolutely no idea what I know. Or who I've told.'
'Perhaps we don't really care,' Dalkeith said, rubbing the barrel of Christo's gun across the palm of his hand.
'Well, that would be stupid,' Kit said. 'Unless you're planning to leave the country tonight.'
'That's a good idea,' Whitten stated, pushing past Grainger. 'This is a fucking mess. You lot oughta learn not to shit where you eat. You can clean up your own yard. I am outta here.'
'Kitty, Kitty. Place him in the room,' Marek said urgently.
'Mr Davis Whitten,' Kit said, shaking her head slowly.
'What?' he asked turning back.
'I hope you've got a passport in a different name.'
'Now, why would I need that?'
'It's just that a hacker friend told me the Feds were keeping an eye on an American businessman who happens to have the same name as you.'
Whitten paled, and for a man his size that was no mean feat. The colour just drained right out of his face and disappeared down his neck. Kit couldn't resist looking at his feet to see if he was standing in a puddle.
'How can she know all this?' Grainger asked looking, for some strange reason, at Dalkeith and Adele. 'She's got to be a copper. We should all get out of here. You are a copper aren't you?' he asked finally turning to Kit.
'Oh yeah sure,' Kit remarked snidely. 'And the whole place is surrounded, which explains why I'm still tied to this bloody chair. And I suppose my comrades out there just let you drag my friends in here for fun.'
'Speaking of your friends,' asked Dalkeith, who was so cool it was unnerving. It was almost as if he was amused by the whole situation. 'What have they got to do with all of this?'
'Nothing,' Kit shrugged. 'They were supposed to be home taping tonight's episode of Murder She Wrote for me.' She glared at Hector who strangely enough appeared to be the most guilty-looking person in the room.
Adele actually laughed again. Kit couldn't believe the woman. But just like Dalkeith she appeared to be completely unrattled by the unexpected turn the evening had taken. They made a fine pair, which made Kit wonder what on earth Adele saw in Geoffrey.
'Why are you telling us all this?' Miss Enigma asked.
'You said it Adele. Where am I going to go? I might be trying my damnedest to reason with you, but I'm not stupid enough to think you're really going to let any of us walk out of here,' Kit said, trying to ignore the gurgle that came from Hector's general direction.
'Boxes on board, Kitty. Just annoy them for a couple more minutes. We're moving in.' About bloody time! Kit thought. 'So,' she continued, 'I just wanted to make sure, before you kill me, that you know what a bunch of complete fuckwits you all are. You've left a trail a mile wide.'
'That's your opinion,' Dalkeith stated.
'Hey,' Kit asserted, 'you're such an incestuous little bunch, it wasn't hard to put this together. Tell me Margaret, does your mother enjoy a glass of special Endicott punch every arvo with Geoffrey's ex? And speaking of ex-relatives Geoffrey, why don't you invite your brother-in-law, Captain Mal, up to join the party?'
Geoffrey collapsed with a groan into the only other chair in the office. Adele simply raised an eyebrow and then kindly helped her Tiger close his mouth by lifting his chin with her finger.
'You're obviously quite good at your job, Katherine,' Adele commented.
'I make a living,' Kit smiled at her and then addressed Geoffrey, who was staring at her as if she'd stripped him naked and was laughing at his dangly bits. 'I must say that the most interesting family connection in all of this was discovering that your floozy Mrs Adele Armstrong divorced her husband Bruce shortly before he reinvented himself as Ian Munro...'
Dalkeith's hand, the one not holding the gun, knocked the wind right out of her. Kit gasped for breath. When she managed to sit up straight again, Geoffrey's dumbstruck attention was still swivelling between Adele and Dalkeith. Obviously the stupid bastard had no idea.
Adele simply raised an eyebrow, shrugged, took a long drag on her cigarette and then squashed the butt quite brutally under the toe of her red stiletto. Along with Tiger Robinson's ego, no doubt.
Before Geoffrey had a chance to collect himself enough to say anything, Christo appeared in the doorway. 'Um, Boss?'
'Is that boat loaded yet?' Dalkeith snapped.
'One of the boxes is empty.'
'What?'
It was actually a chorus of whats, exclaimed by everyone in the room who cared that some of their merchandise had gone walkabout.
Kit glanced at Hector to make sure he wasn't going to fess up out of fear. She needn't have worried. The lad was doing a great impersonation of the Shrinking Invisible Man. Alex had moved into the corner next to him and was gripping his hand as her gaze darted in the direction of anyone in the room who made any kind of movement, sudden or otherwise.
'I'll check it out,' Grainger said sharply, barging his way out of the office.
'There's another thing Bruce,' Kit said, boldly going where probably only stupid people had gone before. 'Did any of you give a thought to AWOL Andy? Perhaps you'd better check the other laptops to make sure your drugs are still there.'
'Oh man!' Whitten exclaimed. 'She knows everything. Kill the bitch, Ian, and let's get the hell outta here.'
'No!' Geoffrey shouted. 'That will only makes things worse. We've got to stop this now. God this is awful.'
Kit stared at Geoffrey in surprise. The man was genuinely spooked. Obviously things had gone way too far for his liking. But then he wasn't a career crook like the rest of his little gang.
Like Dalkeith for instance, who was just sitting on the edge of the desk smiling at him. It was not a reassuring smile. It was contemptuous and mean. The guy looked like a Taipan about to strike. The respectable glamour-boy persona of Ian Munro Dalkeith had been stripped back to reveal the small-time drug dealing pimp who'd already done time for killing someone. This was a very ugly man.
Stay away from Dalkeith, he's a nasty piece of work. Kit remembered Liam saying that, and had wondered what it meant exactly. She wasn't wondering anymore and she was suddenly more scared than she had ever been in her life.
'Nobody's asking you to do anything dirty Geoff,' Dalkeith said calmly. 'We've taken care of all your problems so far, haven't we? Even the imaginary ones. We can't let these people walk out of here and that's all there is to it.'
'You're all fucked, and from several directions, whether we live or die,' Kit insisted.
'Hey, maybe you're right,' Dalkeith hissed in her face, 'but you and your smart mouth won't be around to know one way or the other.' He held Christo's gun by the barrel and pushed the butt between her legs.
Kit's automatic reaction was to clamp her legs together so he couldn't move the gun any higher. Knowing it couldn't do any damage, held like that, did not detract from the fact that it was not a pleasant sensation.
Dalkeith ran his tongue across his bottom lip and then, as if he'd made decision, he abruptly sat back, tossed the gun from his left hand to his right and waved it at Alex and Hector.
'Davis. Take those two down to the boat. You and Mal can drop them off out in the bay somewhere. And tell Gerry to check the stuff is still in the other boxes.'
'Oh shit,' Hector moaned, as Whitten grabbed him and Alex and pushed them across the office and out the door.
'O'Malley!' Alex cried out.
'It's OK Alex,' Kit called after her, wondering desperately what the hell was taking Marek so long.
'What about her?' Adele asked.
'It will be my pleasure to knock this bitch off myself.' Dalkeith turned his snake-eyed attention back to Kit, caressing her right cheek with the side of the gun barrel. 'Then I think I might torch this building. I've grown rather tired of it.'
Oh shit, Kit whimpered silently. Nasty? He really loves this stuff. Visions of a baby Ian pulling the wings off flies that strayed into his basinet dissolved when the adult piece of work stood up and straddled her left leg, bending at the knees so that his crutch rubbed against her thigh.
Kit tried to kick out at him but he just laughed, stepped back and aimed the gun directly at her. Then he unzipped his fly.
Oh god, oh god, Kit thought. Where's the fucking cavalry?
'I don't need to see this,' Geoffrey said in disgust, knocking his chair over as he stood up.
'Oh, come on Geoff,' Dalkeith glanced at him, as he reached inside his pants and started rubbing himself. 'Don't you want a bit?'
'You're a sick bastard Ian,' Geoffrey stated. 'Are you coming Maggie?'
'Just get it over with Ian,' Adele snapped at him, moving to follow Geoffrey.
Kit pressed her body back in the chair as Dalkeith closed in on her, his hand still in his pants, the gun aimed at her forehead. She was vaguely aware that Geoffrey and Adele were arguing their way down the stairs but her attention was focused on the gun, waiting for the end. It was like watching a slow motion replay, over and over, from every possible angle. It had already been an eternity, certainly long enough for her life to be flashing before her eyes, so why wasn't she seeing anything but one-eyed death staring her in the face?
A disembodied voice, like a phantom in a waking dream warning her of danger - like she hadn't realised that already for Christ's sake - was telling her to drop to her right when he gave the word.
Oh Nick. Thank you! The word. What word? She jammed her right foot up against the front leg of the chair.
'Too bad,' Dalkeith was saying, then something distracted him. A shout maybe, from downstairs.
'Now!'
Now? That was a good word. Kit lunged to her right, bringing the chair with her. As she went down she thought she saw Dalkeith flying backwards across the room. She crashed to the floor, screwing her eyes shut against the spear of excruciating pain that shot from one shoulder to the other.
Then all hell broke loose. All around her. There was noise seemingly coming from everywhere, not the least from inside her own head where she could still hear Nick shouting, 'Now! Now! Move in now goddammit!'
Kit opened her eyes. She stopped struggling uselessly against the ropes and stared at Dalkeith. The Armalite, she remembered, was a high velocity, high impact automatic rifle. Nick used to say if you were to shoot some guy in the leg, from as far away as 150 yards, he'd probably die of shock.
Ian Munro Dalkeith had not had time to be shocked. He had a small, neat wound bang smack in the centre of his chest, and would have been dead before his body slammed into the wall. And, judging by the mess that was splattered and smeared on that wall, a hollow point bullet had taken the back right out of him.
Kit lay there for another eternity, her cheek squashed against the floor boards, staring at Dalkeith and listening to yelling voices and shots ringing out all over the place. She felt hands on her body and kicked out at them.
'Kit, Kit, it's me Nick. Are you OK?'
'I don't know, Nicholas. How do I look?' she asked, squinting at him.
'Like shit warmed up, girlfriend,' he said, grinning as he undid did the ropes. She let him hold her for a moment, just to feel like there was something normal in the world, and then she struggled to her feet.
'It sounds like the Gunfight at the OK Corral down there,' she muttered, as she lurched towards the door.
'Yeah, round up time,' Nick said.
Kit started very gingerly down the stairs and then froze halfway down, when she heard a shout from the dock.
'Let me go!'
It was Alex's voice. Kit slipped, slid and finally stumbled down the rest of the stairs then hit the floor running. She reached the loading bay in about fifteen strides, shrugged off the someone who tried to grab her on her way through the door and ignored Marek's shout from outside to get back. She skidded out onto the dock, and straight into the middle a standoff between three armed coppers and Davis Whitten, who had his arm around Alex's waist and a gun to her head.
Kit stopped dead in her tracks and automatically held her hands out in front of her to show she had no weapon. She didn't need Whitten to shoot her for no reason at all, except maybe gross stupidity.
'Drop the gun, mate,' Marek was saying, as calmly as possibly. He was standing at the top of the ramp about ten feet away, his gun trained on Whitten. And Alex.
Smasher, in a crouch in the doorway to her left, and Dipper just behind her and to the right also had Whitten in their sights. Kit was standing in the best position to be shot by everyone.
'Don't do anything stupid Whitten.' It was Liam. He emerged slowly and unarmed from the warehouse and moved to stand next to Kit. 'Let go of the woman and put the gun down.'
'Screw you,' Whitten shouted, tightening his hold on Alex. 'Get out of my way. You're going to let me get on that boat, and you're going to let the boat leave or I will kill her.'
Kit glanced down the ramp. The Shirley Too wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. By the looks of it Jenny had rammed Captain Mal's boat with her own. She and Tony also had Mr Smith, Christo and Bill the guard nicely covered with their shotguns.
Kit looked back at Alex, whose face was frozen in fear.
'Get out of my way,' Whitten shouted at Marek.
A small sound above Kit's head made her glance up. It was a split second look but Whitten had followed suit, also catching sight of Robbo on the roof.
What happened next also took a split second. And about three hours.
Whitten moved suddenly, using Alex to cover himself from the overhead threat. In the same moment a shout snapped Kit's attention in the direction of Detective Alan Sargent who had materialised as if from thin air behind her. Even as she had turned away from him, however, she was aware that Whitten had stumbled backwards. Then she heard the report of the gun.
Whose gun? Kit spun back in time to see Whitten hit the ground, his gun falling from his hand.
Alex just stood there, stock still. Then she looked down at her right arm, an almost puzzled look on her face as she watched her white shirt sleeve turned red.
Kit launched herself forward, just as Alex's head lolled back and her knees began to buckle. Kit managed to break her fall but they collapsed in a heap on the ground.
'Oh shit, no. No!' Kit struggled out from under the dead weight of Alex's body, clutching at her and holding her tightly. 'No, No!' she screamed.
'O'Malley. O'Malley!' Marek was shaking her. Kit didn't even know she was crying until she realised she could barely see him through her tears.
'She's not dead, you idiot.'
'She's not?' Kit said, stupidly.
'She fainted. The bullet went straight through her arm. It hit Whitten in the chest. He's the one in trouble.'
'Good,' Kit spat. She held Alex gently, stroking her face. She's just fainted, Kit thought. It's OK. She's just fainted.
'What the hell happened?' she asked Marek. And then she remembered Sargent. His gun raised.
He was still standing exactly where he'd been when he fired on Whitten, and hit Alex as well.
'Look after her Jonno,' Kit said, getting to her feet.
'Where are you going?' Marek objected.
Kit looked around the dock. She knew it was here somewhere. Ah there! Dipper had pushed it out of Whitten's reach, and was now paying undue attention to the man who looked like he'd bleed to death long before any serious help arrived.
Kit bent down. Whitten's gun felt much too comfortable in her hand to be picking it up in anger.
To hell with it! she thought and rounded on Sargent, her right hand cradled in her left and the gun aimed at his head.
'Is this the kind of stuff up you had in mind Alan?' she asked, bending her right elbow and drawing the gun back towards herself as she advanced on him. 'Is it?' she demanded grabbing his shirt front, the gun, unwavering in her hand, still aimed at his forehead.
Sargent, who had shat himself three times over already, was incapable of speech.
'Oh Christ Kit, don't!' said Nick's voice in her ear.
Kit cocked her head slightly to one side and stared at Sargent as if she was trying to work out what species he was. 'Just whose side are on, you stupid bastard?'
'O'Malley.' Liam was just behind her. 'Give me the gun. Come on, Girl Scout, he's not worth it.'
Sargent managed to get his shit back together enough to start blustering. 'Get this stupid fucking bitch away from me.'
'Shut up you moron, or I'll shoot you myself,' Liam snapped. 'O'Malley, please,' he added softly. 'Give me the gun.'
Kit relaxed her stance and snapped the gun back away from Sargent's face, holding it level with her shoulder in a gesture of surrender. She let Liam take the weapon and then she clenched her fist, aimed for a point way behind Sargent's head, about three miles north of Sydney, and punched him in the mouth. He was down and out for the count before he knew what hit him.
'And don't call me a bitch, either,' she snarled.
Liam peered over her shoulder. 'I don't think he heard you Girl Scout. Where'd you get a right cross like that?'
'I doubt I could do that again if I tried,' Kit laughed.
'O'Malley?' The voice was weak, but it was Alex's.
Kit fell to her knees beside her.
'Am I going to die, Kit?'
'I don't think so, sweetheart,' Kit said, helping her to sit up.
'What's all this red stuff then?' Alex asked, uncomprehendingly. Marek had tied something around her arm but it too was now soaked with blood.
'It's a flesh wound Alex. They're very melodramatic things.'
'I'll say,' she mumbled. 'Do you think I'll be able to get the stain out of my shirt?'
Kit was about to point out that there wasn't a sleeve left to get a stain out of but it was too late. Alex passed out again.
'You OK, O'Malley?' Boscoe squatted down beside her.
'Yeah, thanks mate,' Kit nodded. 'We do need an ambulance though.'
'There's one on the way.'
'So where are the rest of the crooks?' Kit asked.
'We've got Robinson and that screaming hellcat in a divvy van out the front.'
'Hector!' Kit suddenly remembered. 'Where's Hector?'
'Right here, O'Malley,' Hector shuffled forward, wearing a look of extreme contrition and a lovely black eye.
'Who hit you?' Kit queried.
'That prick Grainger,' Hector stated.
'Good, he saved me the job of punching your lights out. What the hell are you doing here? I assume Alex was the friend whose car you were in.'
'Hey, it wasn't my idea. Really. I turned up at your friend's wake to give you the information just as Alex was leaving. She was going to follow that Adele woman. So I kinda went along for the ride. I sorta figured you'd probably rather she didn't go on her own anyway.'
'Oh sure, Hector. I'm really pleased you both got kidnapped and nearly killed.'
'Can I do anything to help?' Hector asked, nodding at Alex. Even though he was trying to change the subject he was obviously genuinely concerned.
'Yeah,' Kit said. 'You can start by giving me the shirt off your back. This thing is soaked.'
Hector ripped off his T-shirt and began tying it carefully around Alex's arm.
'Where is Grainger?' Kit asked, suddenly realising he seemed to be the only one unaccounted for.
'He's dead,' Boscoe stated. 'In the corridor in there. Found him face down in a bag of smack.'
Kit's attention snapped towards Hector, who was concentrating all his on the first aid task he'd been assigned. She tried to keep her expression passive as she turned back to the head of the drugs squad.
'Silly bastard,' Boscoe said knowingly, casting a casual glance at Hector before smiling at Kit. 'Looks like he tried to conceal the evidence by eating it.'
Kit laughed. She couldn't help herself.
'Whoa!' Alex exclaimed, coming to suddenly and sitting bolt upright. 'Is there something funny going on around here?' she asked, enunciating her words very carefully.
'Yes, Alex there's a lot of funny going on.'
'O'Malley?'
'Yes, Alex?'
'I'm serious.'
'About what?'
'What about what? Oh. Didn't I ask you yet?'
'I don't know, Alex.' Kit brushed Alex's hair back from her forehead and tried to keep a straight face. Alex looked back at Kit and smiled, that trademark Cazenove smile that said a million things and nothing at all. And then she laughed.
'You should see your face,' she said. 'You look awful, Kit.'
'Thank you, Alex. You don't look half bad yourself.'
Alex frowned. 'You're not going to be here today and gone tomorrow, are you O'Malley?'
'No, Alex,' Kit smiled.
'What does that mean exactly?' Alex asked.
'It means I'm not going anywhere without you. Ever.' Kit said.
'Oh,' Alex, said her eyelids failing her again. 'Good,' she mumbled, and fainted again.
'Yeah, it's great,' Kit whispered in her ear.
Then she shouted, 'An ambulance would be a nice idea, about now.'
THE END