When Shawn called Veronica Mason with his request, he didn’t have a chance to finish the question before she agreed. The call to Detective Lassiter wasn’t quite as friendly. In fact, Lassie hung up on him three times before Shawn finished explaining what he needed the Santa Barbara Police Department to do.
“Don’t make me go over your head, Lassie,” Shawn said when Lassiter picked up the fourth time.
“If you’re thinking about calling Chief Vick, be my guest.” Shawn could practically hear Lassiter’s smug grin through the phone. “She and Detective O’Hara will be happy to spend a couple of hours explaining how demeaning they find it to be treated as sex objects instead of law enforcement professionals. God knows they’ve already spent most of the day on the subject.”
Shawn put a hand over the speakerphone’s mike and turned to Gus. “How did Chief Vick know what I said about her?”
“I don’t know,” Gus said. “Maybe the same way Tara knew which BurgerZone outlet you prefer. Maybe sound can actually travel between the front and back seats of an automobile.”
Shawn leapt out of his seat. “That’s it!”
“Umm, yeah,” Gus said. “It was pretty obvious to anyone who’s ever ridden in a car.”
Shawn sank back in his seat and folded his hands across his desk like a third-grade teacher trying one last time to explain fractions to a particularly slow student. “No, Gus, it’s the final piece of the mystery,” he said patiently. “I know who killed Dallas Steele.”
Lassiter’s voice squawked out of the speaker. “So do we, Spencer. That’s why the entire force is out hunting for your former mind slave before she kills again.”
“They’re wasting their time,” Shawn said.
“Good point,” Lassiter said. “The way she’s going, she’ll run out of civilians to murder, and she’ll have to come to the police station just to find another victim.”
“I’ll make you a deal, Lassie,” Shawn said. “You do what I ask, and I’ll deliver the real killer to you within an hour. And if I can’t, I’ll confess to every single one of the murders myself.”
There was a long silence on the line. Gus was beginning to think the connection had been cut when Lassiter’s voice came back. “Fax me what you need.”
Four hours later, Shawn and Gus were standing outside the magnificent front door of Eagle’s View. A stream of squad cars delivered all the people whose presence Shawn had requested, then headed back to the city.
The first to arrive were Chief Vick and Detective O’Hara. They glared at Shawn as they came up the walkway.
“You have exactly one hour, Mr. Spencer,” Chief Vick said. “Where do you want us?”
“And I’d think very carefully before I answered if I were you,” Juliet O’Hara added.
“Where I really want you-”
“Shawn!” Gus whispered. “Don’t do this.”
“-is at the top of a hierarchy that for far too long has been exclusively male-dominated. But for now, the grand ballroom will do. Mr. Shepler will show you.”
Shawn snapped his fingers, and Shepler appeared from the entry hall. He stood frozen before them as his mind processed the new information; then he gave a short bow. “Please follow me.”
As O’Hara and the chief followed Shepler down the hall, Henry Spencer came up to Shawn and Gus. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he said.
“Like I always do,” Shawn said.
“That’s what I was afraid of.” He went inside as a middle-aged woman in a black dress stepped up. A uniformed officer followed, dragging a huge black plastic case. Shawn waved them both in.
“Who was that?” Gus asked. “And what’s in the box?”
“The most important element of all.”
“That can’t be,” Gus said. “Because we went over this plan together, and you never mentioned whatever that thing is. So how is it that we agreed exactly what we were going to do, and I still don’t know about the most important element of all?”
“Because you’re not paying attention?”
Gus was about to respond when he noticed another squad car disgorging its passenger. Tall and blond, blue eyes sparkling almost as brightly as her white teeth, bronzed skin only slightly covered by her crop top, short shorts, and tiny green apron.
“Wait a minute,” Gus said. “You brought-”
“The girl from that coffee place,” Shawn said.
“Why?”
“We’re here to solve a series of mysteries,” Shawn said. “So we might as well answer the greatest one of all-who does she like, you or me?”
The girl stepped up to Shawn and Gus, gazing in astonishment at the house towering above them. “Cool,” she said. “You guys live here?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Shawn said.
She looked puzzled. “What manner?”
“The one that means no,” Gus said.
She thought that one through, then let it go. “Hey, I know you guys,” she said.
“You certainly do,” Shawn said.
“You’re that creepy guy who hangs out at the Coffee Barn for hours yapping about everything and never tips,” she said to Shawn.
“I’m sure you’re confusing me with someone else,” Shawn said, but she just shrugged.
“The creepy guy, eh?” Gus said. “I guess that’s one mystery solved.”
She turned to Gus. “And you’re the guy who talks so quietly I can never hear your order, but you take whatever I give you, anyway.”
Gus felt his face flushing. All those times she’d given him a special drink-a triple caramel chocolate maltolatte instead of the plain cappuccino he’d ordered-he had assumed she was demonstrating her affection. Now it turned out she simply didn’t care enough to ask him to speak up.
If Shawn was embarrassed, he didn’t show it. He leaned in close enough to see his reflection in her gleaming teeth. “So you’ve got a loud pushy guy and a timid stalker-which one do you like best?”
Gus found himself leaning in for the answer, too. But while she was still looking blankly at them, Shepler appeared and guided her down the hall.
“You going to do that good a job of solving the rest of the mysteries?” Gus muttered. “Because if you are, I’ve got dibs on the top bunk in our cell.”
The rest of the guests filed past Shawn and Gus without comment, casting them only puzzled stares or hostile glares-first Bert Coules, the prosecutor, and then, led in handcuffs by Detective Lassiter, Arno Galen, who was still awaiting trial on pet-napping charges. When everyone was inside, Shawn pulled Gus through the massive front doors. Shepler locked them with an ornate antique key, then brought them down the hall to the grand ballroom.
Under any other circumstance Gus would have paused in the doorway to study the ballroom’s ornate design, which put even the theater to shame. The floor was polished granite, inlayed with another mural celebrating some aspect of Adler’s domination over human history; the walls were hand-carved boiserie taken from a French chateau. But Gus’ attention was immediately riveted on the cluster of people in the center of the room, none of whom seemed to notice them when Shawn threw the doors open.
The detectives were prowling on opposite sides of the room so they could keep an eye on all the suspects at once. Chief Vick had positioned herself between Veronica Mason and Bert Coules, apparently trying to referee an argument. Arno Galen stood next to Veronica, his eyes shifting between the cops guarding him and the low-cut dress his hostess was wearing. Henry Spencer was lost in conversation with the coffee girl, who stared up at him rapturously. Gus couldn’t see the unidentified mystery woman, but her black case was in the back of the room, and it was possible she was hidden behind it.
Shawn cleared his throat loudly. Still no one seemed to notice him. He coughed theatrically. Veronica glanced up from her argument and noticed them standing in the doorway. Her face lit up as she stepped away from Coules.
“Finally here’s the man who can tell us who actually killed my husband, instead of casting vague, unsupported allegations,” she said. “Come in, Shawn, and let us share in your genius.”
Coules scowled at her. “That’s one way to keep him from pointing the finger at you.”
Shawn and Gus stepped into the room. All the other conversations stopped as the guests turned to look at them.
“Thank you all for coming,” Shawn said.
“As if we had a choice.” Arno Galen rattled his cuffed hands. “Only way you could get an audience, you cheap phony.”
“Detective, silence that man,” Shawn barked to Juliet O’Hara, who stood beside Galen.
“Silence him yourself,” O’Hara said.
“Just get on with it,” Lassiter said from across the room.
Shawn cast O’Hara a reproachful look, then turned back to the crowd. “You’re probably wondering why I’ve brought you all together.”
“No, we’re not,” Coules said. “We’ve all suffered through your shtick before.”
Veronica whirled on him. “You mean freeing an innocent woman you were trying to convict? Is that what you call ‘shtick’?”
Gus stepped forward. “People, please, we’re trying to solve a series of murders here!”
The coffee girl peered at Gus. “Did he say something? I can never understand that guy.”
“That’s two of us, honey,” Henry said.
The room dissolved into cross talk. Gus looked over to see if Shawn had noticed how completely he’d lost control over the situation, but Shawn didn’t seem concerned.
“Ahem!” Shawn waited until the various conversations died down. “I’ve brought you all here for two reasons.”
“What’s the one besides keeping your neck out of the noose?” Coules said.
Shawn clapped his hands sharply, and Shepler opened a door in the back of the ballroom. The crowd turned to see four tuxedoed waiters emerging from a service corridor, each one carrying a silver tray laden with crystal glasses filled with what looked like iced cola. They moved through the room until every guest was holding a drink. One waiter approached Gus with the last glass. Gus reached for it, but Shawn stepped in front of him and snagged it off the tray.
“Sorry,” Shawn said. “My plan, my beverage.”
Shawn knocked it back in a couple of gulps as the waiters retreated from the room; then he handed the empty glass to Gus.
“We are here tonight to correct a terrible injustice,” Shawn said. “But first, enjoy your drink.”
Those who hadn’t did. Some of the glasses were already empty.
“It tastes kind of like coffee,” the coffee girl said. “But it’s not.”
“This, my friends, is the elusive Coca-Cola Blak, one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind,” Shawn said. “I admit, it’s not the standard commercial version. It’s Dallas Steele’s special blend. But through an injustice of global proportion, even the normal American version of Blak is unavailable anywhere in this country. I bring you here today to unite you all in my cause to force the Coca-Cola company to bring back Blak!”
Shawn’s arms shot in the air like Richard Nixon at the end of a speech. Somehow the gesture didn’t bring a wave of cheers from his audience.
Gus sniffed the glass. It smelled like Coke with a hint of coffee grounds emanating from the ice cubes. He had a hard time imagining why anyone would get so excited over a soft drink, but then he’d never actually tried the stuff. Maybe he could request it with his last meal if Shawn kept talking about Coca-Cola products instead of producing a killer.
“You have thirty-nine minutes left, Mr. Spencer,” Chief Vick said. “I urge you to use them wisely.”
Shawn dropped his arms to his side. “Fine. We’re also here to solve a bunch of murders.”
“Murders?” the coffee girl squealed. She looked around, frantic. “No one told me anything about murders.”
Henry draped an arm around the girl, protectively. “Why is she here?”
“For one thing, I’ve seen the women you’ve been dating lately,” Shawn said.
Henry pulled his arm away from the girl, embarrassed. But she grabbed his hand and wrapped it around her, then snuggled close to him.
“As I said, we are here to solve a series of baffling crimes,” Shawn continued. “Who killed John Marichal? Who killed Dallas Steele? Who killed Betty Walinski?”
“Tara Larison,” Coules said. “Can we go home now?”
“Impossible,” Shawn said. “Tara couldn’t have killed all those people.”
“Why not?” Lassiter said.
“Because she’s the most obvious suspect,” Shawn said.
“Right, because she’s killed a bunch of people before,” O’Hara said.
“But the most obvious suspect is never the killer,” Shawn said. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”
Gus stared at him. “This is all you’ve got?”
Shawn shrugged. “It sounded good when I came up with it.”
Gus stared down at the ice cubes in his glass. Maybe if he studied them hard enough, he’d find a subliminal picture of the real killer. Because that looked like the only thing that was going to keep the police from taking Shawn’s confession in a couple of hours.
“Actually, Mr. Spencer, the likeliest suspect is almost always guilty,” Chief Vick said. “That’s what makes them obvious-evidence they’ve created in their commission of the crimes.”
Coules and the detectives muttered their agreement. Shawn held up a hand to silence them.
“Then let me give you another reason why I know Tara didn’t kill John Marichal and Betty Walinski,” Shawn said. “Because she did kill Fred Larison and Aunt Enid. Because this very morning she tried to kill Gus.”
“Well, I’m convinced,” Lassiter muttered. “Can we go home now?”
“Every one of those killings was staged to look like an accident,” Shawn said. “A fall down the stairs, a trip over a skateboard. At first I assumed, like you, that this was the work of a canny criminal covering up her crimes. But then she tried to kill Gus, and even though we caught her in the act, she insisted that it was an accident.”
“That’s right,” Gus said. Maybe there was hope outside of the dream of an ice-cube portrait. “She claimed I fell down a flight of stairs in a one-story building.”
“So she’s nuts,” Coules said. “Big deal.”
“It is a big deal. She needs to believe she’s not a killer, just the victim of a series of tragic accidents. That’s why she fooled me for so long. Because even though she had killed several people, she was completely convinced in her own mind that she didn’t.”
“So when you read her aura, it proclaimed her innocence,” Veronica said.
Shawn shot her a grateful smile. “Exactly. But for her to keep up the illusion, when she killed, she arranged the scene to look like an accident. Whoever killed John Marichal and Betty Walinski didn’t bother to make them look like anything other than victims of cold-blooded murder.”
Shawn turned to Gus to see how he was doing. Gus gave him a quick thumbs-up.
“What about Dallas Steele?” Arno rattled his handcuffs for emphasis. “I saw her kill him. And I’m willing to testify-as long as they reduce these ridiculous charges against me.”
“I’m glad you brought that up,” Shawn said. “And so is Fluffy, by the way.”
Arno made a move toward Shawn, but Lassiter pulled him back.
“You didn’t see Tara kill Steele. You saw her standing over him with a knife.”
“The knife forensics proved was the murder weapon,” Coules said.
“She made no attempt to hide or to claim Steele’s death was an accident,” Shawn said. “So we can all agree that Tara is innocent.”
Chief Vick held up her watch. “The one thing we can all agree on is that you have twenty-eight minutes left.”
“If Tara didn’t kill these people, who did?” Shawn said. “Before we can answer that question, we have to understand what an ex-con, a tackle shop widow, and a billionaire venture capitalist who didn’t know how to tie his shoes in kindergarten had in common.”
“Nothing,” Lassiter said.
“Do you think so?” Shawn said. “Let’s go back to the beginning and figure out where it all began. At first I thought it was the towing of Gus’ car. That’s what took us to the impound lot.”
“He was parked illegally,” Lassiter snapped.
“But that’s not what kept us at the impound lot.” Shawn ignored Lassiter as he plowed on. “Six thousand dollars of parking tickets did that. So we have to go back a little further to discover where this story really begins. To find our killer, we need to understand who is responsible for those tickets.”
“Umm, you?” Gus said. There was one ice cube that seemed to be growing a face as it melted.
“Only in a technical sense,” Shawn said. “I accuse… her.” He pointed a finger at the coffee girl, who gazed back at him, perplexed.
“Me?”
Henry pulled her to his side. “Shawn, this is ridiculous.”
“Is it really?” Shawn said.
“Yes,” Gus said. The face on the cube was looking more like an elephant and less like a suspect. Gus rattled the ice, hoping to find another image. Instead, he saw something on the bottom of the glass. It looked like a shard of gray plastic.
“Think about it,” Shawn said. “She’s a seemingly insignificant player in the drama. We never even saw her once over the course of the investigation, but somehow her name kept on coming up.”
“We don’t even know her name,” Gus said.
“It’s Mindy,” the coffee girl said. She looked up at Henry adoringly. “Mindy Stackman. I’m in the book.”
“Why do you think there were all those constant, subtle, seemingly meaningless references to a character we never see? To establish her as a plausible suspect. And then she appears here for reasons no one understands.”
“She’s here because I brought her here,” Lassiter said. “And I brought her here because she was on your list.”
“And now she’s finally unmasked as the real killer,” Shawn concluded. “Can you imagine an ending more satisfying than that? More technically perfect? Even Joe Eszterhas would approve, and he wrote both Jagged Edge and Basic Instinct. ”
“He also wrote F.I.S.T., which is what you’re going to get in your face if you don’t stop saying things about me.” Mindy looked around at the accusing faces. “What? You’ve never seen a film major working at a coffeehouse before?”
“Fourteen minutes, Mr. Spencer,” Chief Vick said.
“Is there one reason why we shouldn’t think Mindy is the killer?”
“There’s no evidence,” O’Hara said.
“There’s no motive,” Lassiter said.
“There’s no connection,” Coules said. “Except some arbitrary pattern you imposed on a series of events because it’s convenient for you.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Shawn said.
“Obviously,” Coules said.
“So why wasn’t it just as bad when you assumed that Dallas Steele’s murder was connected to the killings of John Marichal and Betty Walinski?”
Gus stopped trying to fish the thing out of the glass. Shawn actually seemed to be on the verge of a point. “The only reason to accuse Tara is a pattern. And the police created that pattern.”
“She was holding the knife!” Coules said.
“And because of that, you created this pattern that said she must have committed those other two murders,” Shawn said. “Because she’s the one person who could have had any reason, no matter how vague, for killing all three victims. But if you stop assuming there’s only one killer, there’s no reason for her to have done any of it.”
“Are you saying there are two killers, Mr. Spencer?” Chief Vick tapped her watch significantly.
“Disappointing, isn’t it?” Shawn said. “Classically, it’s much more satisfying to wrap up everything together. So if you want to go that way, I’ll understand and I’ll testify against Mindy.”
“That’s it,” Mindy said. “You are so banned from the Coffee Barn.”
“But if we want the truth, we have to dig a little deeper. Let’s think back to the first time Gus and I went to the impound yard.”
Shawn stopped. The others began to murmur their irritation as he stood silently, his head slightly cocked, his hands frozen in the air.
Gus nudged him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting for the flashback.”
“We don’t have flashbacks. This is real life, not CSI.”
Shawn looked crushed. “Really?”
“Get on with it!”
Shawn sighed. “I’ve been informed that the flashbacks aren’t working. So while I go through this, please try to picture it in grainy black-and-white, maybe with a slight blurring effect on the action. Alicia?”
A harp glissando filled the room. Gus turned and saw that the woman in black had unpacked her case and taken out a full-size harp, which she was now seated in front of.
“What the hell is that?” Lassiter said.
“If we don’t have different film stocks, how are we going to differentiate past and present? Please, when you hear the harp, assume the image is dissolving away.”
“My life is dissolving away,” Galen said. “What am I doing here?”
“Quiet, you,” Lassiter snapped.
“I thought we went over the plan,” Gus said. “You didn’t mention any of this.”
“I was born to improvise.”
“When you call hours in advance to request the services of a harpist, that’s not improvising anymore?”
“It’s not?”
Chief Vick cleared her throat. “Your time is up, Mr. Spencer.”
Shawn checked his own watch, then cast a glance around the room.
“Okay, fine, you’re right,” Shawn said. “No drama, no flashbacks, no suspense, no craft. If all you want is the killer’s identity, it’s yours. Bert Coules did it. Come on, Gus.”
Shawn headed for the door. Walking behind him, Gus saw that his feet seemed to be dragging on the floor.
“That’s outrageous,” Coules shouted. It seemed like he was shouting, anyway. The words came out slowly and hesitantly. “You can’t accuse me of killing three people and just walk out of here.” He turned to the detectives. “Stop him.”
The detectives seemed frozen to the ground. They stared blindly into space. Gus looked around the room and saw that the others all appeared to be imitating department-store mannequins.
“There you go again,” Shawn said. His feet were barely lifting off the ground with each step. His words were beginning to slur. “Not three people. Just John Marichal and Betty Walinski. Although I might suggest revisiting her husband’s autopsy, just in case.”
“What’s going on here, Shawn?” Gus said. “And who killed Dallas Steele?”
“Look in your glass,” Shawn said, the words coming out with obvious effort. “The killer just revealed hims…”
Shawn’s voice trailed off. He stared blankly into space. Gus nudged him, but Shawn didn’t react. He seemed to be in a coma, like all the others.
What had happened to them? And why wasn’t it happening to Gus? He dumped the glass on the ground and scrabbled through the ice cubes to find the piece of gray plastic. It wasn’t the broken shard he’d assumed it to be. It was a tiny model of a gun. The kind you’d find mounted on a toy warship.
The kind you’d find mounted on a toy ship that transformed into a robot. And that would come off easily, since the glue holding it on, when exposed to water, dissolved into a hallucinogenic drug.
Someone must have spiked the Blak Shawn served here. And, Gus realized, it wasn’t the first time. Whoever it was must have also drugged Dallas Steele before killing him, and drugged Tara before putting the knife in her hand. That would explain why Tara seemed so lost and so docile when she was discovered standing over the body, and why she couldn’t remember anything about the killing. That was what Shawn had been trying to tell him.
It could have been Veronica. But Steele told her he’d given them the consulting position to help them. He wouldn’t have revealed the truth about the toy boats. And even if she wanted to kill her husband, how would she know about Tara? Gus could ask her, but she was as frozen as her guests.
At least Gus knew the crucial question to ask: Who knew both about Tara and the toy boats? And how had they found out?
Something was tickling the back of Gus’ brain. Something Shawn had said earlier. When he’d jumped up and announced he knew who killed Dallas Steele.
Except it wasn’t something Shawn had said-Gus had said it. That sound traveled between the front seat and backseat of a car.
Devon Shepler knew all about Tara, because they’d talked about her on the way up to Eagle’s View. And he knew about the disastrous investments because he’d been waiting to lead them up to the tower when Dallas revealed the truth. If he’d caught Tara breaking in to the house looking for them, it would have been easy to manipulate her into ingesting some of the drug-and even easier to slip it into Steele’s late-night beverage.
But why would Shepler kill the man to whom he seemed so devoted? To whom he had dedicated every minute of his waking day? Who relied on him for everything?
Gus tried to put himself in Shepler’s mind-and discovered it was frighteningly easy. He could feel the man’s resentment at being constantly needed and never rewarded, or even acknowledged. At being taken advantage of.
How blind Gus had been not to see this all along. The way Shepler would freeze before answering a question or following an order-it wasn’t the pause of a methodical brain searching for the correct response. It was the moment he needed to get his rage in check before acting like the proper gentleman’s gentleman.
Maybe Shepler tried to build a little something for himself. When Dallas told him that he’d hired a psychic genius to invest his money, it would have seemed like a perfect chance to get some for himself. How much of his life savings did he pour into their ridiculous investments? How much of Steele’s had he borrowed without permission? And then when he found out the truth that Dallas had casually destroyed him as collateral damage in a cruel scheme to humiliate Shawn, how great would his rage have been?
And then Gus realized something else. Shawn had stopped him from drinking the Blak. Stopped him by drinking it himself. At the time, Gus attributed it to his typical self-centeredness. Now he realized that Shawn had sacrificed himself for his friend. He was giving Gus the chance to get away-or to save the day.
Gus patted Shawn on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, buddy,” he said. “I won’t let you down.”
The door the waiters had come through swung open. Gus froze in position as Shepler led Tara in. Her eyes were blank, her steps unsteady. Gus suspected he knew how she’d disappeared after trying to kill him. Shepler found her and started feeding her small doses of the drug, not enough to paralyze, but sufficient to keep her extremely pliable.
“Here we are, Tara,” Shepler said cheerfully. “All your friends are in one place.” He turned to the paralyzed crowd. “No, just stay where you are. No need to bother yourself for me.”
Chuckling, he reached into his pocket and came out with the ugliest handgun Gus had ever seen. It had a wooden handle and black steel barrel, and when Shepler unfolded the front grip down, it looked like some kind of evil alien insect. Gus didn’t know enough about guns to identify the make or model, but he was pretty sure it would be able to take out everyone in the room.
Shepler walked through the room, studying his victims like they were statues in a gallery. He stepped up to Veronica and leered in her face.
“All this time you’ve thought I was just that useless little servant. You thought-” Shepler broke off. He raised the gun and pressed it to her temple. “Why am I making a speech? You’ll all be dead in thirty seconds.”
“No!” The word was out of Gus’ mouth before he could stop it.
Shepler wheeled around. “Who said that?”
Gus tried to stay absolutely still. Shepler watched them all carefully for a moment, then shrugged. He turned back to Veronica, raising the gun to her head.
Gus dived for the ground and grabbed the only weapon he could find. Before Shepler could aim the gun, Gus hurled the glass directly at his head. The throw was perfectly aimed, the force was enough to take his head off his shoulders. Unfortunately, before it connected with its target Shepler stepped out of the way, and the glass sailed past him, shattering against the far wall.
“That was a special Baccarat pattern made solely for Mr. Steele,” Shepler said as he aimed the gun at Gus. “Now I can only have two hundred forty-nine people over for dinner.”
Shepler’s finger tightened on the trigger. Gus rolled along the floor until he could scramble to his feet. He bolted for the door, but the handle wouldn’t turn.
“Don’t you remember? Shawn asked me to lock you all in.” Shepler leveled the gun at Gus.
“Don’t you want to explain your master plan?” Gus said, still trying to make the door work. “Or maybe make me watch you execute all my friends before you lock me in the dungeon to suffer for hours with the memory burning in my brain?”
“Because I care so much about what you think? Are you always this arrogant?”
Shepler was moving closer. Not so close that Gus had any hope of grabbing the gun, just near enough there was no chance of missing.
Gus only had one prayer. Shawn. Maybe he was coming out of his trance. Maybe he’d been faking all along. Maybe he could be sneaking up on Shepler as they spoke.
Gus risked a glance in his direction. He wasn’t. He hadn’t. He couldn’t.
But one part of him was moving. Shawn’s eyes were shifting back and forth urgently. Gus followed his gaze and let it lead him to the harpist.
“He doesn’t even want to give a speech. He’s not going to go for a flashback,” Gus said.
Shawn’s eyes widened slightly and shifted quickly back toward the harpist. Now Gus saw what he was indicating. The harp case stood open behind her.
Shepler took another step toward Gus. There was no chance he could miss from this distance. “I’ve seen that movie, too. You pretend to talk to someone, I turn around to see who it is, blah blah blah.”
“Shawn?” It was Tara’s voice. She was blinking slowly, as if trying to focus.
This time Shepler did turn his head, and Gus took advantage of the moment. He dived to the ground, sliding across the slick marble like a puck on an air-hockey table, crashing into the harp and toppling it with a musical crash. As bullets smashed into the wall behind him, Gus rolled over and pulled himself behind the open case. He crouched down, wishing that Shawn had brought someone who played an even bigger instrument.
“Do you really think they make harp cases bulletproof?” Shepler said. “It’s not like there’s a big demand for them in war zones.”
There were three shots, and three holes appeared in the top of the case. “Nope, not bulletproof,” Shepler said. “Let’s see if you are.”
There was nowhere to run. There was nowhere to hide. There was only one chance, and it was as slight as they come.
“Tara!”
“Gus,” Shepler said wearily, “when a drugged-out zombie is your only hope, you might as well pack it in.”
“Tara, Mr. Shepler put pickles on Shawn’s burger!”
Gus pulled his head down to his knees and waited for the impact of the bullet into his body. And waited.
There was no gunshot, just a muffled crack, and then a thump. And after a moment, Tara’s pleading voice.
“Gus, I think Mr. Shepler fell down the stairs.”