A Fatal Debt

Nora looked at me blankly as I reached forward. I still remember her expression, its utter lack of emotion, because of what happened next. She said nothing at all. She simply pulled the trigger of the automatic. There was a deafening roar and I can picture a flash from the muzzle, but I may be imagining it. I lurched backward with shock, but she stayed in the same position, with the gun still pointed at me. The surge of adrenaline made me quiver, but after a few seconds, I realized that she’d fired over my shoulder.

“Get up,” she said, and the blankness in her face was matched by the monotone of her voice. There was nothing I could engage with in her-the affect of the truly dangerous-so I obeyed.

“Walk backward. Keep facing me,” she said.

When I’d got to where Greene had died, she told me to halt. She was now fifteen feet away-an impossible gap for me to cover safely, but probably close enough for her to shoot me. She’d killed Greene at that distance. Time was moving very slowly, or the adrenaline made it seem like that. Every move felt as if it took an age to complete.

Then, over her shoulder, I saw something glint. It was the conservatory door opening in the moonlight as A

“Don’t do this, Mrs. Shapiro,” I said, trying to make my voice sound soothing rather than challenging. “We can sort it out.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said. Her arms shifted slightly and stiffened as if readying herself to fire. As they did, A

“Nora,” she said. “Put it down.”

She spoke gently, but the sound broke the silence in the room as completely as the gunshot and Nora flinched. She swung around, the gun turning with her, and I launched myself forward, reaching into my pocket.

I had a half-conscious fear that it would be like my dream, when my feet had slipped on the wooden floor as I’d tried to reach the stricken Harry, but the nightmare didn’t come true. My shoes gripped the floor and I ran as fast as I could. Mortal fear and adrenaline do amazing things. I reached Nora in five long strides with my right hand high in the air, holding a syringe of Haldol and Ativan.

Nora started to turn back as she heard my steps behind her, but it was too late. I flung my elbow around her neck, hitting her arm to push the gun away from A

I rolled off her body, now slumped facedown; she was unconscious. We had an hour or more before she came around-I’d loaded the dose for a grown man just in case. I sat there dazed, hardly taking anything in and only half-aware of A

“Are you hurt? Are you hurt?” she cried.

“You’re a complete idiot,” I said, holding one of her hands in mine. “You could have been killed. What possessed you?”

“I heard what she was saying on the intercom. She was going to kill you. I heard the shot and I ran. I didn’t want to lose you.”

I turned around and kissed her, and then we stayed half-slumped on the floor, with Nora’s body next to us, until we’d settled down. Then I got up and fished the card out of my top pocket that bore Pagonis’s cellphone number. From this point onward, I was going to play by the rules.

We sat side by side on the sofa. A

“She was wulnerablefrom the south,” I said, nodding at Nora’s inert body.

A

“When did you know?” I said.

“She went to see Margaret Greene. I think it had something to do with you. That’s what she said. But Nathan was there and he told her about seeing you with me. When she came back, she was in a terrible temper. I’d never seen her like that before. She told me I had to drop you. I’d regret it if I didn’t, she said.”

“I remember that,” I said, thinking of finding A

“She sent me out here, like I was in exile, and it gave me time to think. I wondered if I’d got Nora wrong-that thing about us being best friends. The more I thought, the more frightened I was. I realized her story didn’t make sense.”

A

Nora had sent Nathan to get rid of me, counting on him being so out of control that he’d tear me apart the way he’d slashed Rebecca’s dress. But Nathan was more emotional than his father and less polished. He lacked focus. He’d rushed after me again before he’d even known what he’d do if he caught up. Instead of coming for me with a knife or a gun, as she’d counted on, he’d used his hands. She hadn’t been able to correct Nathan’s mistakes the way she’d corrected Harry’s. So I’d survived.

I held A

“Then you rescued me.”

“You rescued me.”

She put her head on my shoulder and we stayed like that for five minutes, next to Nora’s body. Then I heard sirens along the lane and watched the conservatory windows flashing blue and red.

29

Pagonis burst through the door first, with Hodge right behind her. She had her gun drawn in front of her, but when she saw us sitting together on the sofa and Nora immobilized on the floor, she placed it back in her holster.

The fact that no one was firing at her didn’t seem to make her any happier. She had a dark, glowering expression on her face as she looked at me. She walked over to Nora and bent down to check her pulse as if unable to credit the story I’d told her on the phone. Finally, she called in the uniforms behind her. They came into the room in force-the village police, a paramedic crew, and others I couldn’t place.

Pagonis approached us and spoke to me alone, treating A

“Bag his hands,” she said to Hodge.

“What?” I said indignantly.

“There’s been gunfire here and there’s a woman on the ground. I want to know who fired the weapon. I’m testing you for powder,” she said.

“Maybe you should have tested her for powder the first time round. You might have saved a lot of trouble,” I said, pointing at Nora.

I felt that one strike home. Despite all her bluster, she’d missed Greene’s killer at the start, not even submitting Nora to an examination when she’d arrived back on the murder scene later that night. It was understandable, given that the obvious suspect had already confessed, but it didn’t look very good. Hodge reached into a case and produced two plastic bags, which he ceremoniously placed over my hands and taped at the wrists. A