Killer Move

“Well, actually, there’s the question.” She dangled her gun from one finger. “My original plan was that you’re found here, a suicide surrounded by evidence, appalled by the magnitude of the things you’ve done. Barclay will be dropping the gun by later, the one you ‘bought’ and ‘used’ back at your house. With everything that’s been going on today down at the Circle, it will be a couple days before you’re found—by which time Warner will have expired as a result of unnatural causes.”

“But why?”

“The trail has to end here.”

“I’m supposed to have done all this? Killed Karren, and Emily, and Hallam? Left Warner to die?”

“It does sound odd,” she said. “But the acts of the deranged often do, at first, until we accept, yes, that’s what they did. And it won’t seem too out of line, in light of your recent Facebook activity.”

“What? I haven’t been on there for days.”

“Right—you’ve been too busy. But, yeah, turns out you’ve been posting a load of subtle crazy shit up there in the last forty-eight hours. How Ms. White was making moves against you behind your back. How your secret friend Mr. Warner had started to give you ideas about how to teach chicks like that a lesson. And how finally you realized you don’t need him anymore, and you can take vengeance on your tight-skirt-wearing colleague by yourself. Kind of dumb of you to have posted up those photographs of Karren this afternoon, but the flamboyantly deranged aren’t always very smart.”

“No one is going to believe I did all this.”

“Actually, they will. People will believe anything that’s lurid enough—we’re all still looking for that sense of wonder. Plus, it sounds like you played the wacko very well in the hospital on the way. That’ll help.”

“Is Nick . . . Which bit of this is he a part of?”

“Nick? I have no idea.”

“You know. You must know.”

“I really don’t. This is intriguing.”

“He . . . he was the guy who was trying to have an affair with my wife. Who was there when she drank the bottle of wine intended for the Thompsons.”

“I got nothing. That must just have been real life, I’m afraid. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

“But . . . who are you? Where do you come from?”

“Out there. In the world.”

“And you’re just going to do this to me, and go?”

“It’s the way it is. I’m sorry. You’re not actually a dumb guy, not totally anyway—you just got modified. I don’t even mean by the old folks here—I mean by life. Everybody does. You start with an open road, but then the walls start to close in—day by day, year by year. There’s no market for who you thought you were, so you become someone else. You get trammeled. You get crucified by the quotidian and you get smaller and smaller every minute until you die. Resisting that? It’s tough. Staying true to who you are is the only real superpower. I have it. You don’t.”

“But—”

“No, my friend, we’re done talking. Are you going to leave the building, or what? I would if I were you, because what I’m offering isn’t in anybody’s game plan but mine. It’s a cheat code, if you like. A secret side door. Who knows what you’ll find on the other side?”

“You’re going to . . . let me go?”

“It’s why the balcony doors are open, dumb-ass.”

I looked across at the doors, but couldn’t work out what she was getting at.

“Could be that you manage to get past me,” she said patiently. “That you flip over the side before I can get a clean shot, and run off into the night.”

“But . . . why would you do that?”

“Why does anyone do anything?” She smiled, wide and innocent, looking for a moment exactly like the girl who’d served me mascarpone frozen yogurt on a hot afternoon not long ago. “To see what happens next. My job was to tidy up the Warner situation and provide whatever collateral muddying seemed necessary or advisable. But as regards you personally . . . I have no instructions. I’m thinking it could be fun to watch. No one’s going to believe a single word you say. About anything. And if they should ever start to . . . well, then I guess I’ll just have to come and find you, right? So what’s it gonna be? Do I shoot you now or later? It’s your game. You choose.”

I walked out onto the balcony. I climbed onto the railing, all the while expecting to feel an impact, and then to die. I dropped down onto the grass, landing heavily, falling on my side. I got up.

Cass was on the balcony, looking down at me.

“I’ll count to a hundred, Mr. Moore,” she said. “Run and hide.”

The car was still there. I opened the driver’s-side door. Steph looked up at me, eyes wide.

“Is Karren okay?”

“She’s fine.”

My wife hauled herself across into the passenger seat. I got in and started the engine with hands that were not shaking and I drove away.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO