CHAPTER TWENTY #3
“So help me understand.” She leaned in a little, hands still in his sightline, voice low and urgent.
“How do you honor her name, her memory, by turning that talent into a… party trick? By using her gift for creation as a tool of destruction? You’re not just punishing other people’s children and parents.
You’re spitting on what she gave you. You’re disgracing her gift. ”
His head jerked back, as if she’d slapped him. For the first time since she woke up, the gun dipped, his grip tightening.
“Careful,” he said, voice roughened. “You don’t get to talk about honor. Not when your father left my mother to die like—”
“She didn’t raise you to be this,” Kate cut in, pressing. The window was tiny; she could feel it. “To break into motel rooms and threaten strangers and stage corpses. She gave you art and you turned it into a weapon. What would she say if she saw you now?”
“Shut up.” The words came out strangled.
“You say you’re correcting the fifth commandment,” Kate went on, ruthlessly. “But the first commandment any decent kid learns is don’t shame your mother. Don’t squander what Mary Marsh bled for. You think this is what she want—”
“Quiet!”
He lunged to his feet, rage flaring, the chair skidding back on the worn carpet. The gun snapped up again, both hands on it now, pointed squarely at the space between her eyes.
Kate froze.
The doorway was three steps away. The gap between his right boot and the chair leg: six inches. The bedside lamp: directly to her right, within arm’s reach.
He was breathing harder now, chest heaving, nostril hair quivering with each angry exhale. The cap had slipped back, exposing more of his face—reddened, sweaty, veins standing out in his temples.
“You don’t speak her name,” he hissed. “You don’t get to use her against me.”
“Okay,” Kate said, very softly. “Okay. I won’t. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t.”
They stared at each other, a taut wire of silence stretched between them.
In the parking lot outside, a car went past, tires whispering on asphalt. A door slammed somewhere, distant. A pipe gurgled.
Marsh’s knuckles were white on the gun.
If he shoots now, she thought, he won’t miss.
Her body twitched with the urge to move—to dive, to roll, to do anything except sit and wait. Years of training wanted to turn this into a calculated risk, a timed strike. But the angle was bad. He was too close. Any lunge would be suicide.
Then, from somewhere deep in the motel’s guts, a phone rang at reception. Shrill, insistent, cutting through the thin walls.
The killer’s eyes flicked, just briefly, toward the sound.
It was enough.
Kate grabbed the lamp.
She swung it in both hands, a desperate arc. The base caught his forearm, hard. The gun jerked. The shot went off deafeningly sideways, shattering the TV screen in a spray of glass and fizzing sparks.
Marsh cursed, staggered. The gun clattered across the carpet, spinning once before coming to rest near the foot of the bed.
They moved at the same time.
Kate threw herself forward, feet tangling in the sheets. The big man lunged, catching her around the waist, hauling her bodily off the mattress. They crashed into the nightstand, a Bible shooting out from the drawer, the Coke toppling, dark liquid spraying over the wall.
Her shoulder hit the edge of the bedframe, pain flaring white.
She twisted, driving her elbow backward into his ribs. He grunted, grip loosening. She ducked, dropping her weight, trying to slip free as he grabbed for her hair.
They went down together in a tangle of limbs.
The gun lay three feet away, black and dumb and suddenly more dangerous than anything.
Marsh saw it. So did she.
They scrambled, hands clawing at carpet. He was faster, heavier, his fingers brushing the grip—
Kate snatched the motel Bible from the floor—this awful room and its clichés—and hurled it at his face. It struck his nose with a dull thud. He yelped, hand flying to his eyes.
She kicked the gun, hard.
It skittered under the cheap dresser, bumping against the plywood back with a hollow thunk.
“Bitch,” he snarled, launching himself at her.
He grabbed a fistful of her T-shirt, dragging her toward him. She drove her knee up between his legs. He twisted at the last second, taking the impact on his thigh. It was enough to stagger him, but not stop him.
They slammed into the chair, which toppled, its wooden legs cracking.
He snatched up one of the broken legs, swinging it like a club. She raised her forearms, taking the blow, pain detonating along her bones.
“Stop,” she gasped. “Quinn—”
“You think you can judge me?” he panted. “You? Little Miss FBI, child of a murderer?”
He swung again. She ducked. The chair leg smashed into the bedside lamp, killing what was left of the light. The room plunged into shadow, lit only by the dying flicker from the ruined TV.
In the sudden semi-darkness, shapes turned treacherous.
They grappled blindly. She felt his hand claw at her throat, nails digging. She twisted, managed to get behind him, one arm looping around his neck. Muscle memory kicked in. She locked her forearm under his chin, braced her other hand behind his head, and squeezed.
A chokehold.
His body bucked, strong, panicked, trying to throw her off. He staggered backward, slamming her into the wall. Plaster cracked. Stars burst behind her eyes.
She held on.
“Let—go—” he gasped, voice ragged.