“This is the last time I will ask you, Ms. Donovan. Do you or do you not suspect Detective Joseph Balafonte of being EasyClean? Did you and your nanny not discuss these suspicions on more than one occasion over the last eighteen hours?” He flicked off the safety.
My heart thumped wildly in my chest. Eighteen hours was a strangely specific window of time. My mind raced back to eighteen hours ago. It would have been the middle of the night, while Vero and I were at the crime scene exercise in the woods, just before I’d walked back to our dorm and found Cam under our window …
I touched my cell phone through my pocket. I’d had my phone with me that night. But Vero … she had left hers in our room.
I whirled to Cam. “You bugged Vero’s phone?” He winced.
Feliks raised his voice. “Ms. Donovan, my patience has limits.”
“Yes … I mean, no! Yes, I suspected Joey might be EasyClean, but I never said I was sure! I can’t prove it’s him! Whatever it is you’re planning to do, I don’t think—”
Feliks’s hot breath fanned my face as he leaned close and whispered, “You are not here to think, Ms. Donovan. You are here to do what I hired you to do. And now that I’ve made the task simple for you, you will cease this pointless stalling and finish the job.” He shoved the gun in my hand and stepped aside, his arm sweeping toward Joey, presenting me with a clear target.
I kept the gun pointed at the floor, my head swinging frantically back and forth. “I can’t do this! I could be wrong. And even if I’m right, he doesn’t deserve to die just because he tried to blackmail you!”
“I’m surprised by your lack of enthusiasm, Ms. Donovan. I assumed you would be eager to punish the man who attempted three times to murder your children’s father, yet here he is, standing before you, and you are unwilling to put him down.” When I didn’t speak, Feliks clasped his hands. “Very well. I have presented you with an opportunity for retribution. Do you decline?”
“Yes, I decline!”
“Then I will present you with an order. Kill him. Now, Ms. Donovan. We are running out of time.”
One of his men pressed a gun to my temple. My whole body tensed against the shock of cold steel. I lowered my eyes to Joey’s gun. It grew impossibly heavy in my hand as Joey backed away from me toward the bleachers. His eyes darted to the exits, but Feliks’s men had them covered.
Feliks stole up behind me and whispered, “Ekatarina has expressed her doubts about you from the beginning.” His arms came around me, lifting my hands until the gun was pointed straight out in front of me. My heart lurched as he moved my finger toward the trigger. “I told her I knew that you weren’t what you claimed to be. And yet, there is a facet of you I find fascinating, a glimmer that makes me curious,” he said into my hair as he adjusted the direction of the barrel, “and I think, if I turn you just the right way in just the right light, you might prove yourself to be valuable.” His hands drew slowly away from me, leaving me holding the weapon.
Joey’s silhouette drifted in front of me like a paper target. Hot tears wavered his outline.
“I won’t do this,” I said through the painful knot in my throat. Vero and my mother would take care of my children. Steven would surely step up if I was gone. “Shoot me if you want, but I won’t kill him.” I took my finger off the trigger and held the gun out to Feliks. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I’d predicted in seventh grade gym class I was going to die wearing sweats on a basketball court, but I’d thought I was being melodramatic. I never dreamed I’d be right.
A gun cocked beside my ear.
“Stop! I’ll do it!” Cam ripped the gun away from my hand. He pointed it at Joey, level with his head, his voice shaking when he said, “I’ve got as much of a reason to kill that asshole as anybody.”
Feliks looked on with a curious lift of his brow.
I clapped a hand over my mouth. I wanted to shout at Cam in my mom voice, to tell him to put the gun down and think about what he was doing, but I was terrified of shattering the tension in the room. Cam’s jaw was set, his body shaking.
Joey put up his hands. “You don’t want to do this,” he said in a low voice. “Not like this. Lower the gun.” Cam’s finger slid toward the trigger. “Someone taught you better than this. I know they did.”
Cam clenched his teeth. “Shut up.”
“You don’t point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them, and I don’t think you really want to hurt me.” Cam’s face twisted, confused, as if that last part ached sinking in. “There’s another way through this. A better way than the one you’re aiming for. It’ll be okay. Just listen. Look at me, Cameron,” Joey pleaded. Cam’s eyes lifted reluctantly to Joey’s. “Lower the gun.”
They stared at each other. Joey gave a small, encouraging nod as the nose of the gun dropped a fraction. I sucked in a sharp breath as Cam’s finger moved over the trigger. Joey’s eyes flew open wide as the gun fired.
I braced for the earsplitting pop—for the police to rush in, the sirens and lights, the chaos that would inevitably follow—but the sound of the bullet ripping into Joey’s chest, the crack of his head against the bleachers behind him as he fell, was all muffled by the roar of blood in my ears. Cam lowered the gun, his face slack with shock, as one of Feliks’s men came forward and gently took the weapon from him.
The sound of my name came to me as if through a fog. “Ms. Donovan,” Feliks snapped his fingers, tearing my attention from Joey’s motionless body. “Make sure it’s done.” He checked his watch, gesturing for me to hurry.
I hurried to Joey on trembling legs and dropped to my knees at his side, my hands pressed to the floor as I listened for breaths. A faint pulse fluttered in his throat, but for how much longer? Blood was spreading quickly from a cut behind his head. It trickled over my fingers. I pushed aside Joey’s coat, leaving thick, red smears on his shirt as I searched for an entrance wound, but the tiny hole in the fabric was dry.
I slid a finger through it, over the sturdy layer of Kevlar hidden underneath.
My mind rushed back to his last words to Cam.
It’ll be okay … lower the gun.
Not drop the gun. Lower it.
Cam must have figured out what Joey was trying to tell him—that he was wearing a vest. I nearly cried out with relief. Cam’s eyes were glassy and pleading when I stole a look at him over my shoulder, the warning in the shake of his head so small, it was almost imperceptible.
I stood, my hands raised as I returned to the center of the court, letting Feliks get a good look at the blood on them.
“He’s dead.” I didn’t bother to hide the quiver in my voice. “You’ve done what you came to do. EasyClean is no longer a problem for you. The police are probably already on their way. You should leave while you still can.”
Feliks nodded, satisfied. He put an arm around Cam, bringing their faces close. “I’m sorry your induction to our family had to be such a difficult one, but eliminating your uncle was a necessary task.”
Uncle?
Feliks cocked an eyebrow at my gasp. “You seem surprised, Ms. Donovan. I assumed you, too, would have made this discovery by now.” I stared at him, baffled, as he explained. “After you and your nanny discussed Detective Balafonte last night, I had my people do a bit of digging to confirm your suspicions. In doing so, they came across a rather interesting connection. It seems Cameron’s father was a police officer, one who used to do odd jobs for me from time to time. It was during one of those jobs that he met an unfortunate end.” Cam stared at the floor, his expression numb, as if he already knew. “Detective Balafonte requested a transfer to this jurisdiction after his brother’s death, presumably so he could keep a closer eye on his brother’s illegitimate son—and me.”