Beyond Suspicion

65

•

Nobody move,” said Yuri, his voice booming across the living room.

Katrina and Jack froze. Yuri had Cindy in front of him with a gun to her head, using her as a human shield. The fear in her eyes was more than Jack could handle.

“Let go of my wife!”

“Shut up!” said Yuri.

“Who are you?” said Jack.

“His name’s Yuri,” said Katrina. “What do you want?”

“I want you to do as you’re told.”

“I can’t do that.”

“So I heard. Did you really think I was foolish enough to send you here alone and not follow you? I heard everything you said.”

“Then you’re the man. I guess you’re just going to have to do Jack Swyteck yourself.”

He shoved the gun into Cindy’s cheek. “You’ll do as you’re told. Or I’ll kill his wife.”

“You’re going to kill her anyway.”

“Stop,” said Jack. “Let her go, Yuri, or whatever your name is. Then you and I can get in your car, and we’ll go to a nice quiet place in the woods. You can do whatever it is you need to do with me. Just let Cindy go.”

“Oh, aren’t you the hero?” he said, scoffing. Then his smile faded. “Down on the floor, Swyteck. Face-first.”

Jack didn’t move. Yuri tightened his grip on Cindy’s throat. Her eyes bulged, and she gasped audibly. “I said, get down!”

Jack lowered himself to the rug.

“Hands behind your head.”

Jack locked his fingers as commanded.

“Very good. Now, Katrina. Let’s do what we came here to do.”

She glared at Yuri, then glanced at Jack on the floor. The room was silent. Slowly, she reached inside her jacket and removed her.22.

“’Atta girl,” said Yuri. “Now move closer. Remember what I told you about the bullet in the brain. I want to see you use that.22 the way it’s supposed to be used.”

She crossed the living room, then stopped at the edge of the rug. She was close, but not so close that Jack could reach out and grab her ankle.

“Don’t do this, Katrina.”

“Put a sock in it, Swyteck,” said Yuri. “I’m trying to be a nice guy. I’m giving you the privilege of dying with the faint hope that I might actually let your wife live. One more word, and I’m taking that away from you.”

A tense silence fell over the room. Katrina could hear the sound of her own breathing.

Yuri narrowed his eyes and said, “Do it, Katrina.”

She could feel her palm sweating as she squeezed the handle of her gun and pointed the barrel in Jack’s direction.

“That’s it,” said Yuri.

She had one eye on Jack, the other on Yuri. Her finger caressed the trigger.

“Do it!”

Her hand was shaking, but her thoughts were coming clear. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“Stop stalling.”

“There are so many easier ways to do this.”

“This is the way I want to do it. Now pull the trigger!”

“Why? Why are you making me do it?”

“Because I can. Now shoot him!”

“Why? Why is it so important to you that I do it?”

“Don’t you dare disobey me. I know who you are, you little slut. Did you honestly think you could fool me?”

“What?”

“If I can get you to snip the hairs off your pussy and hand them over to me in a plastic bag, surely I can talk you into pulling the trigger. This is what you are. I know what you’re made of, and I own you. It’s like I used to say, remember? No decision we make is meaningless. We all determine our own fate. Now do as you’re told. Kill him!”

It was him, she realized, and the discovery cut to her core. Bits and pieces of information she’d gathered over the last few months had suggested that he was the man she’d been looking for, and now there was no denying it. Something snapped inside her, a fury sparked by the sickening reality of what drove this pervert. It was all about domination and control, from her friend Beatriz who was killed in his factory for refusing to give her body to him, to her own indignity of selling pubic clippings in a bag-and the truly unspeakable things she was forced to do at gunpoint when the clippings just weren’t enough. She couldn’t be certain that he’d murdered that woman with AIDS in Georgia, but only this creep was low enough to sell the blood of his victims. We all determine our own fate.

She wheeled and fired a shot across the room. Muffled by a silencer, it whistled past Yuri and shattered the vase on the wall unit.

Yuri fired back, another muted volley. But this one found its mark. Katrina fell to the ground. A hot, wet explosion erupted beneath her jacket. Her gun fell to the floor, then she fell beside it.

“Cindy!” said Jack.

A final, deadly quiet shot hissed from Yuri’s pistol, and Jack went down behind the couch. Katrina tried to raise her head, and managed to get it an inch above the floor. Just enough to see Yuri ducking into the kitchen with his hostage in tow.

66

•

Jack kept moving, rolling from his hiding place behind the couch toward Katrina. Yuri’s bullet had torn a hole through a sofa cushion. On his hands and knees he snaked his way past the ottoman and found Katrina on a blood-soaked rug. She was lying on her back, grimacing with pain.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

Jack tugged at her neckline to expose the wound. It was just below the collarbone. “Didn’t hit a major organ. Just gotta stop the bleeding.”

“Pressure,” she said.

He grabbed a pillow from the couch and pressed it to the wound. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the cordless phone on the cocktail table. He grabbed it and hit talk. “Dead,” he said.

“I’m sure he cut the phone lines.”

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“Not on me. You?”

“In the freakin’ kitchen. It’s in the battery charger.”

A voice boomed from the other side of the swinging door. “How’s everybody doing out there?”

“Fantastic,” said Jack. “You really know how to throw a party.”

Katrina grabbed his elbow, shushing him. “Don’t answer him. I’ll talk. Keep this between me and him.”

“It’s not between you and him. He’s got my wife.”

Yuri said, “Everybody stays put. If I hear a door open, a window slide, anything that remotely sounds like someone ru

Katrina replied, “Whatever you say, Yuri.” Then she looked at Jack and whispered, “So long as I keep him talking, you’ll know where he is. Is there another way into that kitchen, other than through the swinging doors?”

“Off the hallway to the bedrooms.”

“Good. That’s your entrance. If I keep him talking, he’ll be distracted. How good are you with a gun?”

He pulled his Smith amp; Wesson from under his sweatshirt. “Good enough to have shot you before you shot me.”

“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” she said.

“I know. That’s why I didn’t pull it.”

“Pulling it is one thing. Can you use it?”

“I carried a gun as a prosecutor. I’ve taken tons of target practice.”

“Then we’re in business.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“There is none. If I’m right about this guy, he’s Georgian, part of the Kurganskaya. Elite hitmen. Even the Italian Mafia uses them. He’s not going to let anyone walk out of here alive. So, you up for it or not?”

“Yeah. I’m in.”

“Good. You’ll have the advantage with the.38. Yuri’s shooting a.22. Smaller slugs, a little more erratic from a distance. That’s why he only winged me. You’re actually better off not getting too close.”

“How close do you think I should get?”

“You’ll get one shot. That’s all. Get close enough to make it count.”

Jack felt butterflies in his stomach. “All right. Let’s go.”

“Hey, Yuri,” she shouted. “This is pretty fu