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An uneasy silence fell over Sam, Michael, and Bruce as they each claimed a corner of the room and refused to make eye contact with one another. She took inventory of the many emotions fighting for control of her body—melancholy, anger, anxiety, and even compassion battled to be king of the hill. In the end, a combination of fear and disgust won, and she sneered at her former partner, a man actually willing to use them as bait to catch a killer. Tears filled her eyes. Something I would have done with Michael not even a year ago.
Disgust turned to shame, and she hid her face in her hands. What am I doing with my life? With his?
A knock came at the door. Bruce’s hand went for his gun.
“It’s me, Frank.” The deadbolt snapped back. “I’m coming in.”
Sam stepped behind the door, gun in hand, unable to see who’d entered until the door swung closed. The tall, slender figure of Frank Spinney was unmistakable. He was alone.
She holstered her weapon and stepped around him slowly so as not to startle him. “Any news?”
Frank’s gaze fell. “Nothing.” He glanced at Bruce, his eyes lingering half a second too long on the burned, unbandaged face he likely hadn’t seen in ages before noticing Bruce’s trigger-happy gun hand. “You can relax. I haven’t been compromised.”
“One can never be too sure,” Bruce said, but his hand did fall loosely by his side.
“How can there be no news?” Sam huffed, tucking her hair behind her ears. “These patients can’t be in a constant state of hypnosis. They must be hard to keep wrangled. Not only that, Wainwright and Horvat’s faces are all over the news. They have to pop up sooner or later.”
Frank sighed. “I’m guessing they’re already long gone.”
Bruce snickered and began to pace.
Sam shot him a glare. She had no time for his stupidity. “You got something to say, then say it.”
“I told you, he’ll come for us.” He stopped pacing and stared at Frank. “You know this guy like I do. He never finishes a game unless he’s won. I think this time, that means me dead. Maybe all of us dead.”
He scratched his chin. After a pause, he added, “Well, maybe not Michael. He’ll catch and release him so he has someone to toy with later.”
Sam slapped him. It felt good, deserved even, but the feeling quickly passed as she noticed the sickly pallor in Michael’s cheeks. And at that moment, she pitied them both—her son, who would live in fear until they caught Wainwright, and her former partner, who’d lost something deeper than skin in battle.
Bruce’s face reddened from more than just the strike. “Oh, wake up, you two!” He jabbed a finger in Frank’s face. “You! You know better!” Twirling to Sam, he added, “And you, you I taught better! He will come for us!”
“Well, if he does, then that can only mean one thing—the mole is one of us.” Frank rose to his full height, his cheeks flushing. “And I, for one, am not ready to believe that one of us could ever be that evil. He used you, Bruce. Played with your head. And we never even knew he was doing it. You’re angry. You have every right to be. Hell, I’m angry! But the only people that know about this place are the four of us, Tagliamonte, and—” He held up a finger. “Do you hear that?”
Bruce frowned. “What in the...?”
Sam cocked her head and listened. A low rumble, like the beginnings of an earthquake, rankled her nerve. The sound grew louder and with it an indefinable dread, like eyes watching from the shadows while walking through a dark alley. The menace quickly amplified as the entire building shook.
“What’s happening?” Michael rose from the couch, hands out at his sides.
Glasses rattled on shelves. Car horns blared outside. A sound like dynamite blasting a tunnel through a mountain came from nearby, then another happened just outside. Every hair on Sam’s neck stood on end.
“Sam?” Michael called, just loud enough to be heard over the din.
“Get down!” she shouted as she dove to cover Michael.
A deafening roar came from behind her as splinters of wood and plaster bombarded her back. She hugged Michael closer, shielding his head. Powdery dust filled the air, stinging her eyes and making her cough. She tried to hold her breath, which only made her cough worse.
Slowly, the roar died to a whimper. The dust began to clear. “You okay?” she asked, rising off of Michael.
He nodded but stayed right where he was, gaping.
Sam stood and turned. Her head spun as she took in the wreckage. Where the left front of the safe house had been, open air filled the space. She swatted dust away with one hand as she coughed into the other. Bruce helped Frank up and out from under the front door. She followed the direction of the noise.
Gasping, her heart thumped angrily against her ribs. A wrecking ball the size of a bus ricocheted off another building as it spun like the Earth on its axis, slowly teetering to the end of its pendulum swing. Sam struggled for words. “It-it-it’s coming back!”
“This isn’t him,” Bruce muttered, a fresh cut on his forehead. “He likes up close and personal.”
“You hear me?” Sam shouted. She grabbed Michael’s hand and pulled him toward the steps, or what remained of them, leading out of the building. She pushed Bruce toward them as she passed. If the door had given him a nasty hit, Frank snapped out of his stupor and ushered Bruce along.
Missing their railing, the stairs creaked underfoot as Sam hurried Michael down them. But they held firm, Sam skipping every other one to race down the three flights to safety. As she busted out the building’s double front doors, a circular shadow the size of a manhole cover swung toward them, gaining speed and growing bigger.
She started to her left as a bullet splintered the brick inches in front of her face. Whipping her neck to her right, she tried to spot the shooter when she should have been seeking cover.
“They’re here!” Michael shouted, his hand slipping from her grasp. “Quick, back inside!” He pushed past Bruce and Frank, who’d drawn their weapons, and yanked open the right door as the one beside it shattered.
“Michael, no!” Sam reached for him but was far too late. Two men in police uniforms and cigar-store Indian masks approached, still firing and apparently oblivious to the giant wrecking ball careening toward them all. Sam charged for the entrance but barely made it a step before Bruce and Frank each had an arm under hers and were toting her in the opposite direction.
She fought and thrashed and screamed but still was driven away as the wrecking ball hit pavement behind the older man in the police uniform. It continued its forward momentum through him with a sickening crunch. Attached like a fly stuck to a swatter, the unknown brainwashing victim smashed into the building with the wrecking ball. It leveled the bottom of the structure, collapsing what remained of the upper floors on top of the devastation below. On top of Michael.