"Let me go! Please!"

288.

What kind of killer said please? please?

I held on tighter, tried to get a better grip to immobilize the man. I needed to hold him down long enough for someone to help me incapacitate him until the cops arrived.

"Get off him!" I heard somebody scream. I turned around slightly to see Carolyn hovering over us holding her desk lamp. It was a big thing, bra.s.s colored, metal and a foot and a half long. We both looked, and then she swung the pole at us.

Then I felt a ma.s.sive crunch on the back of my neck, and for a moment the world went black. I could feel the man getting out from under me, so I blindly grabbed at him. I managed to catch my fingers inside some sort of pocket, which tore away as he escaped.

When the darkness cleared, I looked up to see Carolyn standing over me. Her hand was covering her mouth as she stammered.

"Oh my G.o.d! I'm so sorry, I was trying to hit him!

Are you okay?"

I nodded, but felt exactly like I'd been hit with a metal pole on the back of my neck. Carolyn dropped the lamp and went over to help me up.

When I got to my feet I looked around. My stomach lurched when I realized that he was gone. Not only that, but the gun was gone, too.

I ran/stumbled out into the street, hoping to see a flash of suit jacket, something. But the street was empty.

Business as usual. If anybody had seen where the shooter had gone, they weren't letting on.

I turned around and jogged back inside where Carolyn was still blubbering. That's when I saw Jack enter the lobby.

His shirt was covered in blood, and his face was a terrible crimson mask. He looked at me, his lower lip trembling.

289.

"Hollinsworth," I said.

"He's gone," Jack replied.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" I yelled. "Who the h.e.l.l knew we were coming here?"

Jack came over to me and held out his hand. I thought he was going to hug me, so I said, "Not now, Jack."

Instead he walked right past me, leaned down and picked something up off the floor.

"What is that?"

Jack stood back up and showed me. It was a piece of black cloth from the pocket I'd ripped during the struggle.

Beneath it was a folded piece of paper. Jack opened it.

"What the h.e.l.l..." I said.

In Jack's hand was a money order. It was made out for fifty thousand dollars to a Morgan Isaacs.

"I bet this guy knows," Jack said.

The payee on the order was a man named Leonard Reeves.

40.

"Oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d,"

Morgan said.

That his heart hadn't exploded yet was shocking, but every pore in his body seemed to be leaking sweat, every nerve ending on fire.

Once he was able to get away from the guy who'd tackled him, Morgan found the car waiting for him just like Chester had said it would. The door was open, and somehow Morgan managed to dive into the car a split second before it went speeding off.

Once inside, he found Chester waiting for him, a huge smile on his face.

"The gun," Chester said.

Morgan handed it to him, his hand shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Chester took the revolver and put it into a valise on the floor below him.

"You okay?" he said.

"I don't know," Morgan replied. "He's dead. Oh man, he's really, really dead."

"How many times did you shoot him?"

"Three."

"Did all the bullets. .h.i.t?"

291.

"I think so. I was pretty close, but everything...man, everything just went crazy after that."

"It's a good thing you got away," Chester said. "You're a resourceful man, Morgan."

"Thanks," he said. Morgan's heart rate was finally beginning to slow down.

The car sped down Broadway, and Morgan was pleasantly surprised to see that n.o.body was following them.

"No cops," Morgan said. "n.o.body, they..."

"Don't worry about that," Chester said. "I'm just glad you're all right. You did a great job, Morgan. I knew we could trust you."

Morgan beamed inside. "You always can, sir."

"Yes," Chester said, "I know that now."

Chester leaned over and put his arm around Morgan.

It was an odd gesture, but for some reason Morgan felt strangely comforted.

"Hey, uh, can I get the second part of the payment now? Just don't want to forget."

"The money, of course. I knew you wouldn't forget."

Then Morgan felt something sharp pierce his neck, and then a terrible burning sensation began to creep its way into his bloodstream.

He jerked backward, and Chester moved away. "What the h.e.l.l was that?" he cried.

Then he saw the syringe in Chester's hand, and Morgan knew exactly what the man had done.

"Sleep," Chester said.

Morgan tried to reach for the man, but suddenly his entire body felt weak. His arms hung limply at his sides, as Morgan felt his body begin to slump down in the seat.

"Why..." he said. "I...I would have done anything for you..."

292.

"I know that," Chester said. Morgan caught the slightest hint of remorse in the man's face. "And you gave as much as you possibly could have."

"My mom..." Morgan groaned, barely able to make out the words.

"She'll never see you again."

"I...".

"We're here," another voice said from the front seat.

It was the driver. Morgan hadn't had time to see him when he jumped into the car.

The driver turned around briefly to talk to Chester.

That's when Morgan saw who was driving the car.

Theodore Goggins.

"Sorry, man," Theo said. "No hard feelings."

"Tell them to chop the car and burn the body," Chester said. Then he looked back at Morgan. Morgan's eyelids were falling. He could feel his heart slowing down, draining him. It was all he could do to retain a small sliver of light to see the man who'd killed him.

"Good night, Morgan. I hope wherever you're going you find all the money you can possibly dream of."

And then Morgan Isaacs died.

41.

I told the cops everything I knew, which wasn't much, even though it was apparently too much. I didn't recognize the shooter, didn't know where he'd come from, who hired him, or why he wanted William Hollinsworth dead.

Well, that wasn't entirely true.

There was no doubt in my mind that Hollinsworth was killed because somebody was frightened of what he was going to tell me. And for good reason. Hollinsworth had confirmed several things before his death, and every one of them scared me to death.

I sat in a coffee shop with Jack, the two of us frazzled beyond belief. I'd called Amanda and told her what happened. Her voice told me that she was deathly afraid for me, but I couldn't come home just yet. We were so close; after all this time so many of the pieces were coming together.

What still itched at me was the police response to Hollinsworth's murder. I'd been around death before, had seen it up close. I'd seen death as personal as it got. And regardless of who was killed, whether it be the most respected cop or the lowliest drug dealer, there was always a police response.

294.

But when Hollinsworth was killed, the response was a simple blue-and-white patrol car and a small forensics team.

It was more like a motel cleaning crew than a homicide investigation.

I'd asked the officer in charge, a round, pleasant man in his early forties named Hanrahan, if they were expecting more on the scene. He laughed, but not in a condescending way, a way that told me I shouldn't expect more.

"The department is stretched thin as a dollar bill," said Hanrahan. "If we're the only ones here it's because there's n.o.body else who responded."

It felt like a cloud had descended over this city, something far more menacing than Jack or I knew. I thought about my brother, the now prophetic words he'd spoken just hours before he was gunned down in a dingy apartment building, alone and unloved.

This city's gonna burn.

If this city was going to burn, I could already smell the smoke.

Jack sipped a cup of coffee. Black, he grimaced as he drank it. I had a soda in front of me. Caffeine would have been a mistake. I didn't need it. The way I felt right now I wasn't sure my blood pressure would ever return to normal.

"Somebody knew we were going to speak to Hollinsworth," I said. "And they knew early enough to be able to send someone to kill him."

"It doesn't make sense," Jack said. "We didn't decide to go up there until about an hour before we got there. Who knew?"

"The only person I told," I said, an icy chill making its way down my spine when I said it, "was Curt Sheffield."

Jack stared at me, the mug resting against his lip. He put it down, cupped it with his hands.

295.