Tessa scanned the club. Didn’t see Riker. Thankfully, didn’t see Riker. The crowd was thinning. It didn’t look like anyone was hurt.
It looked like she’d actually gotten away.
“One,” said Terry.
Lien-hua lay on her side, her eyes were open. I saw her throat shudder, and then she spit up another mouthful of water. It was touch and go. Her heart might stop again at any second. Her eyes touched mine. I pressed a finger to her lips, wordlessly telling her, I’ll see you soon, don’t worry about me, we’ll talk more when I get back. A feeble nod. She understood.
“Two. Back away, Pat.”
Back up or he’ll kill both you and Lien-hua. Your only hope of saving her is to stay alive as long as possible. Do what he says.
“Three-”
“Wait! Listen to me, Terry.” I eased back slightly. Faced him.
“Do what you want with me. But she might die here. You have to let me help her.”
“Farther.”
“Terry-”
He leveled his gun. “Now.”
I backed up some more. Lien-hua rolled limply onto her back where she might aspirate on water or vomit at any moment.
Terry walked past me so that now Lien-hua lay between us.
“Farther, Pat. It’s my turn to be with her.” He waved me back with his gun and I slid back until he was out of my reach. “I’m sorry it has to be like this, Pat,” he said. “But we warned you that things would not end well for you if you refused to give us the device.”
Lien-hua’s breathing was weak, her chest rising only slightly.
The defibrillator lay a couple of feet from me.
Terry looked past me to the remains of the device I’d shot. “You cost me a lot of money there, Pat. You should have given it to me.
You should have listened.”
I could hear Lien-hua coughing, gulping for air. I wanted to make a move, to do something for her, but if I tried, Terry would kill me on the spot.
“Why, Terry?” I said, desperation rising. “Why are you doing this?” He kept the gun trained on me with one hand, caressed Lien-hua’s cheek with the other.
“We’re in a stalemate, Pat. Whether we like it or not, everyone’s going to get nuclear weapons. It’s just a matter of time. But it’s a catch-22. No one wants to use them because then everyone else will. The world needs a new weapon, one that’ll tip the scales of power once again.”
He didn’t just mean the world, he meant someplace in particu-lar. Then I realized what he was saying. “Who, Terry? The Chinese?”
Lien-hua was still breathing shallowly, faintly.
“They’re outpacing us. Even passing up DARPA.” He smiled.
“And I have to say, they pay much better than the NSA.”
I could hardly believe it. “How long?”
“Two years now. It’s amazing how naive the U.S. government is.”
He knelt, reached over, and slowly removed the defib pad from Lien-hua’s chest. “You won’t be needing this anymore, Lien-hua-as Pat might say, I have more than one motive here tonight.” Lien-hua watched helplessly as Terry removed the defibrillator pad. Weakness shrouded everything. She felt just strong enough to move, but not strong enough to fight.
Then she thought of the defibrillator. Maybe she didn’t have to fight Terry after all.
While he removed the other defib pad, Terry took a long lingering gaze at Lien-hua then asked me, “How did you know it was me, Pat? A few moments ago. You said my name before you turned around.”
At least if I was talking he wasn’t killing either of us. “Melice’s identity package, for one. Only a handful of people could hack into AFIS and pull that off. That was my first clue.”
“That’s not much.”
“No, but then I realized that when you first watched the video, it only took you one minute and thirty seconds. I know, I remember glancing at my watch when you called me back. But the video was one minute and fifty-two seconds long, and the words on the wall didn’t appear until the last ten seconds. Yet when you called me, you told me the deadline, but you couldn’t have known it unless-”
“I’d seen the video before.”
“Right. Or, unless you wrote the words yourself-which you did. I saw your handwritten notes during the video chat and I didn’t realize it at first, but they match the writing on the envelope and the writing on the wall.”
He gave me only a slight nod for a reply.
I saw Lien-hua’s fingers speaking to me, spelling AED once again.
Terry was staring at me; he didn’t see her signing.
“Then when Angela informed me that you were the only one who’d accessed the satellite imagery of Hunter’s death, the pieces fell into place. That’s how you found out the device was in the car.”
“Nicely done-but you missed the fact that I tracked you to the Surfside through CIFER. Remember? I designed it. I have the only other copy. I was monitoring you the whole time.”
“I wondered about that.” Keep him talking. Keep him talking.
“But why didn’t you just take the device from the evidence room?
Why wait for Melice to steal it?”
“Never part of the plan. I was just sent in to confirm it was there.”
What?
Sent? Sent by whom?
“What do you mean, ‘sent’?”
He ignored my question. “You’ve always been good at your job.
It’s a shame you have to die.”
“Who sent you, Terry?” I edged toward him, but he raised his gun again. “Don’t do it, Pat.” Then he stared into Lien-hua’s eyes.
“I’ve been watching you, Lien-hua, ever since your sister died. Ever since the day I saw you at her funeral. I loved her, you know, even though we never actually met”
Obviously he wasn’t going to answer my question, but he was going to hurt Lien-hua. I had to stop him. I eased forward but he fired a warning shot off the floor beside me. I froze.
“I watched her,” he went on. “Followed her, planned a life with her. One day we would have been together. One day.”
I was shocked that he could have been that fixated on someone for ten years, but then I remembered Lien-hua saying that when some people get obsessed with something it can go on for decades.
“Oh, you look just like her,” he said to Lien-hua. Then his voice hardened. “I gave you the chance to be with me, but you refused.”
Keep talking. Stall. The paramedics are on the way. “But Terry,”
I said, “if you were in love with Chu-hua and Melice killed her, why would you work with him?”
“For over nine years I looked for her killer. I only found out it was him six months ago when I was searching the web for a missing person. Stumbled across his blog. Don’t you see, Pat? It was perfect.
Getting the device was the only way I could punish him. The only way I could really hurt him. Just killing him wouldn’t have been satisfying enough. He wouldn’t have felt anything.”
While he was distracted talking to me, Lien-hua was slowly reaching for the two defib pads.
“But,” he said, “that device would have done it. I researched it.
Even with the TrkA1 mutation, Creighton would have finally felt the pain he wanted. I would have given him a depth of pain few humans have ever experienced. And then I would have killed him, but only after I’d made him suffer like he deserved.”
Here was a man I’d trusted, a friend I thought I knew. “But you let him drown those other women, Terry. How could you?”
“I had to keep him happy until the timing was right with Hunter, and Lien-hua was called back to work the case. Timing and location, Pat. You should know that. It’s always about timing and location.”
Terry reached over, brushed Lien-hua’s hair away from her eyes, but kept the gun trained on me. “You had your chance, Lien-hua. If I can’t have you, no one can. One little kiss and you’re going back in the water. I’d say you’re still too weak to swim.” He leaned over her. “Good-bye, Chu-hua.”
Just before his lips reached hers, he closed his eyes for an instant and that was all it took. Lien-hua whispered, “Good-bye,” and with weak but steady hands, she lifted the defib pads. I dove toward the AED. She stuck the pads to Terry’s temples, his eyes snapped open, a moment of blank confusion crossed his face, and I pressed the button on the defibrillator.
An airless gasp rose from Terry’s throat as the current jolted through his frontal lobe. I didn’t know what kind of damage that current would do, but the way his body writhed and then convulsed, the defibrillator appeared to be even more effective than I would have guessed. By the time I reached Lien-hua’s side, Terry Manoji’s body had swayed backward and slid into the acclimation pool, dragging the AED with him, sending up a hiss of drowning sparks. And that’s when the ambulance sirens came coursing through the walls.
I held Lien-hua until two policemen and a team of paramedics burst through the door. Immediately, one of the EMTs called to me, asking if I was Dr. Bowers.
“Dispatch said you’d be here.” He handed me a cell phone.
“Lieutenant Mendez. She needs to talk to you.”
Confused, I took the phone as the medical team leaned over Lien-hua. “Aina, what is it?”
“A few minutes ago,” she said, “the fire alarms went off at a club, the Future Relic.”
“I don’t understand.” I tried not to let the pain of my leg seep into my voice. “What’s this about?”
“I’m at the scene, Dr. Bowers. Your stepdaughter is here.”
“What? Tessa? How? She’s supposed to be in Denver.”
“She’s here, Dr. Bowers.”
I was stunned by the impossibility of what I was hearing. “Is she