Jo stared at the man who was not Foley.
“You—who are you?” she asked, backing away from him.
“I’m trying to fix things,” he said through tight teeth. “To help.” He had settled Lina back onto the sofa and given her Jo’s untouched tea.
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Jo said.
He took a breath. “I can explain everything, but I can’t do it now—”
“Yes, you absolutely can.” She had put the sofa between them.
“All right, fine. My name is Stanley Burnhope. This is my building.” He paused in front of a long shelf. “Won two city’s best and one architectural design for it. And all those—” he said, pointing to pyramidal glass trophies, polished prisms gleaming in the light “—are humanitarian awards. For doing things right.”
Jo ignored this. “You said your name was Foley.”
“No, you guessed it was. Foley made trouble. I am trying to clean it up. Why can’t you understand?”
Jo gaped at him. The utterance surpassed irony.
“You pretended to be a man who is dead and now you’ve trapped me in a high-rise so you can do paperwork. How am I supposed to understand?”
Burnhope mastered himself, then crouched next to Lina on the sofa.
“You like Lina, don’t you? I help people like her. We sponsor them—there are things we can do. But Foley didn’t want to play by anyone’s rules.”
“Your rules?”
“Yes, my rules. He could have left Lina alone. But no.” He stood up again. “Now I have to fix that, too.”
Jo was clutching her thumbs hard enough to hurt them and an internal tremor was causing her right foot to bounce uncontrollably—but she wasn’t the only one feeling restless. The Geordie had stepped back into view.
“Hadawy Burn’ope—gan on with it!” he sneered. “ ’Av it away before somebody naps us—and gis me the money!”
“For God’s sake, all of you be quiet,” Burnhope snapped. “And you, just do your job.”
“Was his job to kidnap me?” Jo asked, turning to face the hulking figure. “Did he pay you to do this?”
“Nar!”
“That was just a freebie, then? Part of the service?” Jo should not be speaking this way; he’d tried to kill MacAdams with a pipe, and he presently had a knife on his belt. But her mouth just kept talking. “You work for him, is that it? Do his dirty work?”
“I divvent wark for ’im!”
“Then who do you work for?” she demanded. He adjusted his posture, somehow looking bigger and more square than before.
“Neebody.”
“Then let me out!” Jo said it as firmly as she could, though her voice sounded small and strained.
Burnhope grasped Jo by her arm and turned her about.
“Quiet—can’t you be quiet?” he demanded, but the Geordie seemed up for answering now.
“What divvy ye wanna wi’ her, anyhow?” he asked. “Who is she, e’en?”
“Shut up!” Burnhope shouted—really shouted. She could see the vein standing out in his neck. Then he took a breath. “I have loose ends to tie up. That’s all. Then Lina can go.”
“Just Lina? Why? You’re guessing she’s not going to go to police?” Jo hadn’t actually made the connection until after she’d said it . . . But it was true. “Oh my God.”
“Are you physically incapable of silence?” he demanded, coming toward her. Jo backed up, keeping to the raised walkway.
“You know she won’t tell anyone. But me—but me?” Jo’s words were coming faster, trying to keep up with her heartbeat. “You don’t have anything over me.”
“We can talk about this,” he hissed, still approaching. “Be reasonable.”
Jo glanced over his head; Lina stood in the sunken center, watching wide-eyed.
“Or what?” she asked. Because this wasn’t about kidnapping. And this wasn’t about Lina. Jo was the real liability. She’d backed up onto the raised floor that circled the room. There weren’t any windows she could jump out of this time.
“I can fix this,” Burnhope insisted. “I can offer you—what you want. Just come here. Can you do that? I need to handle something.”
“Did you handle Foley?” she challenged, her back against the trophy wall. He looked ready to lift himself up by his own hair.
“Foley is why any of this happened! Don’t you see?” He was moving forward again, reaching for her.
“Don’t touch me!” Jo picked up the nearest glass award. For your humanitarian efforts.
“Don’t you throw that,” he said. Then turned to the Geordie. “Come get her.”
The Geordie stayed put. “Die it yerself.”
“For fuck’s sake—can’t any of you see that I’m trying to put it right? It’s Foley who did this. He’s the only reason you’re even here.”
“Foley is dead,” Jo said, and pitched the bauble at his chest. Too heavy, it didn’t go far enough but crashed to the floor instead. Behind her, Lina began to wail.
“You stupid cunt,” Burnhope hissed, but Jo had picked up the next one.
Shaped like a football, she lobbed it like one. It went wide, splintered the decking and cracked in half, but Burnhope had sense to retreat. He’d made it as far as Lina, who was prostrate and still howling with grief.
“Stop it! I said stop!” he demanded, lifting Lina to her feet. She clung to his lapels.
“Why? Why is he dead?” She was wrenching at his clothing with claw-curled fingers, still half sinking to the floor. Burnhope grappled her around the waist and lifted her off the floor.
“I can’t deal with this now,” he barked at the Geordie. “Take her, for fuck’s sake—take one of them or I swear to Christ you’ll not see a pound out of this.” He’d shoved Lina into the man’s arms. The Geordie, to his credit, hung on loosely; Lina herself went suddenly silent and watchful half-clasped to his side.
“Now you,” Burnhope said, spinning around. He didn’t look cordial anymore. He looked panicked and angry. “You will sit down and shut up.”
Jo had never sat down and shut up. Not once in her long memory. And recent events had taught her that submission was deadly, and being utterly terror-feral had its benefits. She’d picked up an oddly shaped award, straight on one side, the other like molten glass. It was damn heavy, but she held it aloft.
“So you can leave me in a ditch, too?” Jo shouted. She wasn’t tall, but the platform gave her both height and leverage. She stood above and raised the heavy trophy over her head. Four feet and she’d strike him. She could do it. Below her, Burnhope froze.
“Don’t,” he said, voice a ragged whisper. “You’ll—you’ll kill someone.”
Jo’s arms were shaking, the heavy base trembling above her. It could kill someone. She’d never seen the body; she’d never even seen the victim. MacAdams said his skull had been crushed in by something heavy and irregular.
“My God. This—this is how you killed Foley?” she whispered.
“You!” shouted Lina.
“Look out!” shouted the Geordie.
And Jo let go of the murder weapon. It fell corner down, turning to one side and punching a hole in the platform floor. Burnhope had turned around to face Lina, who was now suddenly charging at him, her small frame carried forward by the force of her final exclamation. Jo barely had time to register the knife she carried before Burnhope crumpled to the floor.
* * *
“Boss!” Green panted as they reached the eleventh floor. “Backup is coming, but we don’t know if these people are armed!”
True. And yet. MacAdams pulled out the disabled gun; he’d tucked the empty gun into his waistband, where it was chafing a hole in his back. “They don’t know that we aren’t.
“Fine. Then give me the gun,” Green said.
“What?”
“I’m cleared for firearms and you’re not,” she said, taking it from him. “Even unloaded, you aren’t supposed to be waving one around.”
“You’re not on the tactical unit anymore,” he whispered back. She gave him a severe look that somehow managed simultaneously to be motherly.
“I’m sure my chief will stand by me if I’m cited. Come on.” Green pushed open the stairwell door, arms at right angles, gun barrel pointed skyward. The stairs had exited to an adjacent hallway with a single door into Burnhope’s office—the only one they’d encountered so far that wasn’t made of glass. Green tested the handle. It wasn’t locked.
“On three,” she whispered. One. Two . . .
* * *
They burst into a room of chaos, broken glass . . . and blood.
Jo Jones knelt in the center over the body of Stanley Burnhope. She’d stripped off her hoodie and was pressing it hard against his abdomen—and standing over her was a dark-haired woman with a short-handled sheath knife.
“Leave it—leave it—” coaxed the largest, squarest man MacAdams had ever seen. He seemed to be trying to disarm the woman, who shrieked and made a wild slash at him.
“Jesus,” Green said out loud.
The Geordie turned about, eyes immediately fastened to the gun in her hand.
“Whe?”
“Police!” Green replied. “You, on the ground.”
He complied, leaving MacAdams to make sense of everything else.
“Jo? What’s—what’s happening here?” he asked. She kept her hands pressed down, but let her eyes wander up; they were wide and glassy and adrenaline spiked.
“James,” she said quietly. “Meet Lina.”
“He killed him. He killed him!” Lina’s eyes were rimmed, face contorted, mouth an open rectangle of grief. “He dies now.”
“Lina, can I come closer?” MacAdams asked. “You are Ronan Foley’s girlfriend?”
She shook her head violently, spittle forming at the corners of her mouth.
“No, his zawjah!” she shouted. “Zawjah, habibi!”
“It means wife,” Jo said. “I think. James? I can’t—I can’t do this a lot longer.” He could see that her arms were shaking, but also that she’d managed to stop the bleeding. Burnhope’s eyes were open, but unfocused, his breathing stertorous.
“You were married,” MacAdams said, coming closer. Lina made a slash at him, though without much force or venom. “And he—Ronan was the father of your baby?”
Lina heaved a sob, her free hand finding her abdomen.
“You were going to run away together, weren’t you? Got married in secret, and then you were going away.”
“On—on a boat,” she hiccupped. “Far.”
“To build a new life. He’d done that before—he could do it again. You met when? Six months ago?” MacAdams asked. He should be watching Lina. He was watching Jo instead.
“He loved me,” Lina whispered. From the platform, Green agreed.
“I believe he did,” she said. “And he wanted better for you.”
“Much better,” MacAdams said. He was close now. Closer enough to take the knife—not fool enough to try. “He didn’t want you to live in hiding. Not you or the baby.”
Lina sobbed—and sagged on her feet. MacAdams took a step nearer.
“Give me the knife. You don’t want to kill this man. You have your child to think about,” he said, and was surprised to hear a gentler sobbing . . . from Jo.
“The baby,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “Do you know how much you’ll matter to her? She needs a mother. Her own mother, not—not someone else.”
“Come on, now,” MacAdams urged.
Lina looked at Jo. “Scared,” she whispered.
Jo nodded, bloodied hands still trembling at their work. “I know. But I promise you won’t be alone.”
* * *
MacAdams felt the words somewhere deep in his gut. This was Jo talking about her family—about Evelyn’s baby—and about herself. It hurt him, for her sake.
Lina heaved a sigh, dropped the knife and sank to her knees. MacAdams went for Jo, but Green was already there.
“I got it,” she said, taking over providing pressure on the wound. “And I’ve radioed for an ambulance, too.”
Jo leaned backward, tried to get up, and fell in a heap against the leather sofa. She was shaking everywhere now, teeth chattering in her head.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” MacAdams said, scooping her up. He didn’t know what else to do except get his arms around her and hold on tight. Jo was a ball of clenched muscle.
“Tighter. P-please,” Jo said. “P-pro-pr-ia-ception. D-deep p-pres-ssure c-can—”
“Shhh,” he said, resting his chin on her head and squeezing her close. He could do this. Because it’s all he’d wanted to do, almost since meeting her. Hold on. Hold on, and not let go.
Outside, he could hear the blessed sound of sirens.