Chapter 61
‘She’s their handler,’ Johnny said. His voice was monotone. Disarming. Neutral.
‘I need you to take these off,’ Sandy said to Kelly, holding up her bound hands.
‘Are you nuts? Why should I trust you? Just stay over there and shut up or I’ll have to take you outside.’
‘Because your back-up won’t get here in time. I’m the only one who can stop these two from continuing their programming.’
Now Kelly was jammed against a cupboard as Melvin held the long knife up to examine it. She watched Johnny out of the corner of her eye inch towards him, but she also noticed Paul doing the same thing.
‘Paul, stop,’ she said. ‘Don’t get into any more trouble. I know you didn’t kill Jamie.’
It was a delaying tactic in the hope that Johnny wouldn’t get trapped between them, but like a pair of vultures, they’d encircled them, and they were indeed stuck.
The sirens got louder but as Kelly got her hopes up, the noise whizzed past the end of the tree-lined driveway. She kept her face set in stone and Johnny did the same.
‘Melvin, I think you should put that knife down. You’re not the type of man to have a handler, are you? She can’t tell you what to do. You’re dispensable, Melvin; they’ve hurt you, haven’t they? We can make you well again.’ Kelly tried to appeal to the human inside the shell.
‘They’re using you,’ Johnny chipped in. ‘Take it from me. From one military man to the other.’
Melvin laughed. ‘Of course they are! Isn’t that the point? Were you ever a free soldier, young man?’
Johnny grimaced and Kelly looked curiously between the two of them.
She glanced at Johnny, who blinked ever so slightly at her, and she took it as a sign that he was somehow in control.
Did they really know one another, or was Johnny just bluffing and playing along? Was he playing along to buy time?
‘How do you know this pretty lady?’ Melvin asked, nodding to Kelly, but still lovingly toying with the knife.
‘Paul, perhaps you should sit down on the floor; you look as though you’re having a rough time detoxing from that crap they put in you,’ Kelly said.
‘Don’t try to be my friend,’ he said. His eyes narrowed and Kelly stepped closer towards the door. There was enough distance between all four of them that nobody had a stabbing chance without making a run for it, but that didn’t mean they were safe.
They performed a kind of macabre dance together. A quartet, wary and ungraceful, tense and taut.
Kelly cocked her head as the sirens returned and grew louder.
Thank God, this time they were here.
Her eyes darted about for any sign of Kevin Streeting. His orders would surely be to come here, to eliminate the witnesses to Jamie and Angelina’s murders. She didn’t see any sign of him, but she did sense a shift in the mood.
‘I know you didn’t kill Jamie, Paul,’ she tried again. ‘Or Angelina.’
Paul shook his head and covered his ears.
She could tell he was struggling with whatever substance they’d forced on him, but that wasn’t her concern right now, only her safety and that of Johnny focused her attention.
She could tell that Johnny was thinking the same thing.
It was also eminently clear that whatever had been controlling these two men was not simply a powder mixed into a shake; it was much more than that.
The sirens deafened them now and they heard car doors slamming.
Kate had sent the cavalry and Kelly rarely found herself in this situation where she was on the inside of a building about to be entered by the task force.
She knew that the sensible thing to do would be hit the deck, but she looked at Johnny.
Then she saw Sandy say something to Melvin, and he lunged forward with the knife.